The Road to War

1. The Road to War • The Big Idea • In 1914 tensions in Europe exploded into the deadliest war the world had ever seen. • Main Ideas • Many factors contributed to the outbreak of World War I. • European nations suffered massive casualties in the war’s early battles.

2. Main Idea 1: Many factors contributed to the outbreak of World War I. • Nationalism • Nationalism, a strong sense of pride and loyalty to one’s nation or culture, created tension between nations. • Austria-Hungary included people from many cultural groups. • Slavic nationalists wanted to break away from Austria-Hungary and join the independent Slavic country of Serbia. • Imperialism • Nations competed for control of territories both in Europe and overseas. • Germany took the Alsace-Lorraine region from France in 1871, and France wanted it back. • Militarism • Nations focused resources on militarism, the aggressive strengthening of armed forces. • Raced to build armies and navies • Made alliances to protect themselves

4. The Spark • Feelings of fear and distrust grew among European powers in the early 1900s. • In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. • Slavic nationalists resisted violently; wanted to be a part of Serbia • June 28, 1914: Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo. • Killed by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip • Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia • Nations began to mobilize, or prepare their militaries, for war.

5. Pulled into the Fighting Allied Powers • Russia, an ally of Serbia • France, an ally of Russia • Belgium, brought into the fighting because Germany marched through it to get to France • Great Britain, an ally of Belgium Central Powers • Austria-Hungary • Germany, an ally of Austria-Hungary

7. Main Idea 2:European nations suffered massive casualties in the war’s early battles. • The French army blocked the German advance at the Marne River, east of Paris, in September 1914. • The First Battle of Marne marked the first major battle of the war. • French and German forces faced each other along a long battle line known as the western front. • Russian and German armies struggled back and forth on the eastern front. • The war became a stalemate– a situation in which neither side can win a decisive victory. • Clear that this war would be longer than expected.

8. The War Reaches a Stalemate • The First Battle of the Marne ended in a stalemate, and both French and German soldiers dug trenches, or deep ditches, to defend their positions and seek shelter from enemy fire. • By late 1914, two massive systems of trenches stretched 400 miles across Western Europe, and the battle lines known as the Western Front extended from Switzerland to the North Sea. • Trench warfare, or fighting from trenches, was an old strategy that had been used in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. • This trench warfare, however, was different because of its scale. • Soldiers lived in trenches, surrounded by machine-gun fire, flying grenades, and exploding artillery shells. • Opposing forces had machine guns pointed at enemy trenches at all times, firing whenever a helmet or rifle appeared over the top. • Thousands of men that ran into the area between the trenches, known as “no-man’s-land,” were chopped down by enemy fire. • Neither the Allies nor the Germans were able to make significant advances, creating a stalemate, or deadlock.

9. Technology of War • Trench warfare, defending a position by fighting from the protection of deep ditches, helped make the war long and deadly. • Cold, wet, and muddy • Disease ran rampant • New technologies made land warfare even more deadly • Machine guns • Poison gases • Tanks Land • Airplanes used in large-scale battle for the first time • Fired down on soldiers in the trenches • Gathered information on enemy locations • Battled each other in the air in “dogfights” Air • Fighting in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea • Used Naval blockades and mines to block supply lines • U-boats, German submarines, launched torpedoes against Allied supply ships. Sea

10. Tanks • When soldiers began to carry gas masks, they still faced a stalemate. • British forces soon developed armored tanks to move into no-man’s-land. • These tanks had limited success because many got stuck in the mud. • Germans soon found ways to destroy the tanks with artillery fire. • Poisonous Gas • German military scientists experimented with gas as a weapon. • Gas in battle was risky: Soldiers didn’t know how much to use, and wind changes could backfire the gas. • Then Germans threw canisters of gas into the Allies’ trenches. • Many regretted using gas, but British and French forces began using it too, to keep things even. • Airplanes • Both sides used planes to map and to attack trenches from above. • Planes first dropped brinks and heavy objects on enemy troops. • Soon they mounted guns and bombs on planes. • Skilled pilots sought in air battles called dogfights. • The German Red Baron downed 80 Allied planes, until he was shot down. New Weapons of War

12. A New Kind of Warfare • Word of Germany’s invasion of Belgium quickly spread to France and other European nations. • French troops mobilized to meet approaching German divisions. • They looked much as French soldiers did over 40 years earlier, wearing bright red coats and heavy brass helmets. • The German troops dressed in gray uniforms that worked as camouflage on the battlefield. • French war strategy had not changed much since the 1800s. • French soldiers marched row by row onto the battlefield, with bayonets mounted to their field rifles, preparing for close combat with the Germans. • The Germans, however, had many machine guns, and mowed down some 15,000 French troops per day in early battle. • A well-trained German machine-gun team could set up equipment in four seconds, and each machine gun matched the firepower of 50 to 100 French rifles. • Many Europeans wrongly thought these technological advances would make the war short and that France would be defeated in two months.

13. Early Battles of the War • Make Inferences- What effect did having fronts in the west, north and east have on the German and Russian Armies? • Evaluate- What is a possible reason that soldiers felt safe in the trenches at the onset of the war? • Describe- What was living in a trench like? • Identify Cause and Effect- The arrival of tanks ended what type of fighting technique?