Tactical Reasons for World War I *US History

Laying the Groundwork…  There had not been a major war in Europe since  Soon after that, war preparations for the first world war started.

How do people stand?  Britain was already an industrialized country, but still catching on in Germany.  France and Russia are technologically far behind.

Relationships…  Austria-Hungary had annexed Bosnia in 1909, which was originally a Russian protectorate.  Russia was eager to prove it’s worth after a devastating loss to Japan in 1905 (Russo- Japanese War)  Austria-Hungary was hostile toward Serbia who was a Russian friend.  Germany had a long standing rivalry with France and they do not like each other.

France and Germany  France and Germany didn’t like each other because of the fact that Germany had seized the French province of Alsace-Lorraine during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.  Germany had been trying to isolate France from gaining new territory and modernizing.  The French constantly wanted revenge for the lost territory.

Germany and Others…  After the Franco-Prussian War, Germany and Russia agreed not to fight, but in 1892, the Germans failed to renew their agreement with Russia and the Russians were not happy.  Russia then became a French ally.  Germany was trying to ally with the Ottoman Empire (Turkey)  Germany also tried to ally with Austria-Hungary to secure a large homeland.

Consequences  The Russians were scared because Turkey would be able to cut off Russia’s access to the Mediterranean Sea through the Black Sea.  Germany will continue to try and build a huge navy to take care of their colonial possessions.

What about the British?  The British were busy building an empire to think about becoming a part of all that was going on.  They were also upset with Germany because they didn’t want anyone to challenge their navy.  Thus, the race began of who could build the biggest and best navy.  The British allied with France and Russia.

The Allied Nations  So Britain is allied with France and Russia.  Russia wanted to expand its empire into the Black Sea, so they allied with Serbia.

Meanwhile…  Serbia was being pushed around by Austria-Hungary.  In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and a Serbian and Austrian war dragged in the rest of the countries that they were each allied with.  Britain also got involved because Germany had planned on going through Belgium to get to France and Britain felt the need to defend a neutral country, so they declared war on Germany.

4 Main Reasons for the Conflict  1) Nationalism: Many different ethnic groups wanted to break away from being ruled by other nations and form their own.  2) Imperialism: European countries had been very busy in the previous century gathering up land throughout the world and now there was little land left for them to take over.  3) Militarism: An arms race was developed in Europe due to countries feeling the need to defend themselves against countries that would threaten what they own.  4) Alliance System: A series of complex alliances would pull every country into war, even if it did not directly involve them.

Specific Incident  The one specific incident that can account for the start of the war was when Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria- Hungary, was assassinated by a slavic Nationalist in  War then engulfed the major countries of Europe.

United States Involvement  The US was an ocean away from the conflict and chose to stay out of it.  President Wilson felt the we had nothing to do with it.  But, both sides took advantage of the American neutrality (the allies would take more advantage).  British ships blockaded Germany, so the US quadrupled it’s exports to Britain.

German Retaliation  The Germans would retaliate with a new weapon called the U- boat.  U-boats began to sink unarmed ships (unrestricted submarine warfare).

Lusitania  The British passenger liner, the Lusitania, was sunk in 1915 by German U- boats.  128 Americans died.  In 1916, the Sussex was suck and numerous Americans were injured and killed.  This led to the Sussex Pledge in which Germany agreed not to sink unarmed merchant ships without warning.