World War I: A New Kind of War Unit 5 Notes

1. A New Kind of War World War I was the first Industrialized war. Its weapons were mass produced using the same efficient methods used for manufacturing products during the Industrial Revolution. Among the weapons introduced during WWI were the: Machine Gun Long Range Artillery Airplane Tank Submarine Poisonous Gases

1. A New Kind of War C. World War I was also the first war fought almost exclusively by amateurs. Prior to WWI most wars were fought by professional soldiers who lived and trained their whole lives for battle. World War I Totals: Total Soldiers = 65 million Total killed = 8.5 million Civilians killed = 8 million

II. Innovations in War A. The Machine Gun – A gun which could fire rapidly almost without interruption proved very deadly, especially during trench warfare. The first machine guns were very heavy and had to operated by a team.

Trench Warfare

II. Innovations in War B. Long Range Artillery: A cannon like gun that has the capability of firing an explosive shell at the enemy from several miles away. Each side would bombard the enemy trenches with artillery shells day and night. Question: How does Long Range Artillery change warfare?

II. Innovations in War C. The Airplane – the airplane is first used for spying on the enemy’s movement and position. But as the war progressed planes were used for air combat and bombing raids. Air battles amongst planes were known as Dog Fights, and a pilot that won a lot of these dog fights would be known as an Ace.

II. Innovations in War The most famous World War I Flying Ace was Manfred Von Richthofen who is better know as the Red Baron. This German Ace was credited with over 80 kills in the air.

II. Innovations in War D. The Tank – the British first introduced the tank in 1916. The tank was very useful in allowing troops to tear through the barbed wire and move across No Man’s Land to reach the enemy.

No Man’s Land

II. Innovations in War E. The Submarine – first know as the U-boat for the German word for underwater boat the submarine greatly strengthened the German’s sea power.

II. Innovations in War Through the use of the U-boat the Germans were able to sink hundreds of allied ships during WWI. Many of these ships were U.S. cargo ships bringing much needed supplies to the British.

II. Innovations in War 2. The German’s also used a U-boat to sink the Lusitania, a British luxury ocean liner, killing 1,200 people, some of them Americans. These two things had a great impact on America’s decision to enter the war.

II. Innovations in War F. Poisonous Gases – its use was once thought to be uncivilized, but the Germans felt that the long stagnant battles had forced them to resort to the use of gas.

II. Innovations in War F. So on April 22, 1915 the Germans attacked the French lines with a Chlorine Gas attack. Within seconds of breathing in the yellowish green vapors the French soldiers were doomed! Question: What impact would the Poisonous Gases have on warfare? Of all the weapons we just talked about; which one had the biggest impact on the war? And why?

III. America’s Involvement After the sinking of the Lusitania and the repeated sinking of American cargo ships headed toward Europe the Americans intercepted a note which would prove to change the way Americans felt about the war.

III. America’s Involvement A. The Zimmerman Note – In January of 1917 Arthur Zimmerman, a member of the German foreign ministry, sent a note to the German Ambassador of Mexico telling the Mexicans that if they joined the German war effort and won that they would be given back the land lost to the Americans. That land being Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

III. America’s Involvement B. Another key to America becoming in involved was the Russian Revolution. In the Spring of 1917 the Russians were having a Civil War in their own country as the Communist took over the government. Therefore they signed a peace treaty with the Germans in order to concentrate on their problems at home. This allowed the Germans to concentrate all their efforts on the British and the French on the Western Front.

III. America’s Involvement C. In April of 1917, with Russia on its way out of the war, the U.S. declared war on Germany, but America did not have a large standing Army so it would take them a long time to build up. It was not until October 1917 that significant amounts of American troops were sent over to Europe. D. The American’s presence was felt almost immediately and the tide of the war took a drastic turn in the favor of the Allies. E. On November 11, 1918 the Germans signed an Armistice, or an agreement to stop fighting, and the First World War was over. Question: Why did the addition of the U.S. have such an immediate impact on the war?