World War One M.A.I.N. Causes of WWI Militarism: the build up of weapons and military forces in times of peace, in preparation for war Alliances: an agreement between two or more countries to cooperate with each other, usually for military purposes Imperialism: policy in which a stronger, more powerful nation takes control of a weaker, less powerful nation

Nationalism: the love of one’s country or culture, which typically leads to a willingness to defend it. Nationalism was the driving force behind WWI. A nation refers to a group of people who share a common culture. Not all nations had states; many were included in empires.

Nationalism Ethnic and ideological differences led to conflict within these empires. Nationalism also spurred economic and political rivalries among states led European nations to establish a complex system of military alliances.

Alliances Triple Entente: Great Britain, France and Russia Triple Alliance: Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary Empire Russia was the self-proclaimed protector of the Slavic people of Europe. Russia and Serbia had a military alliance.

Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand Austria-Hungary Empire was a large territory that included many different ethnic groups: Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Rumanians, Poles, Hungarians, and Austrians. Only the Austrians and Hungarians had the right to vote. Other ethnic groups desired independence.

Serbia was at the center of the nationalist movements. Austria-Hungary was an enemy of Serbia because of the large number of Serbs living within the empire who wanted to unite with Serbia. In June of 1914, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in the city of Sarajevo by a terrorist group called the Black Hand.

World War One Starts Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the assassination. Eventually A-H declared war on Serbia. Russia responded by mobilizing its military which caused Germany to declare war on Russia. Germany also declared war on France and eventually Great Britain declared war on Germany. World War One began with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria- Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire)

fighting against the Allies (France, Great Britain, Russia until 1916, Italy and the U.S. after 1917). Over 65 million people are involved in the war Over 16 million people were killed (military and civilian) and another 21 million were wounded.

The Industrial Revolution and mechanization (having things done by machinery) made it possible for more effective weapons to be made and caused WWI to be the first modern war. New weapons included the machine gun, airplane, tanks, poison gas, and submarines.

Traditional European military strategy was to charge across the field at the opposing army and drive force it to retreat or surrender. The machine gun (firing 500 rounds a minute) changed how the war was fought. The western front (Allies vs. Germany) became a stalemate (no winner) and trench warfare developed.

Trench warfare is when troops from both sides fight from trenches (big ditches). No man’s land is the barren, wasteland in between the trenches. Thousands of soldiers were killed in this area as armies moved back and across this barren land. Generals were confused by the weapons and style of fighting kept giving the order

the order to fight which resulted in a mounting pile of dead soldiers. In 1916, the British suffered 60,000 casualties in a single day.