World War I

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World War I

• The First Last Great War

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The Causes of World War I

• At the moment, the war was caused by the
  assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir
  to the Austrian throne.
• A Serb nationalist shot him in Bosnia
• So Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia
• Should have been short, but there were some
  issues.

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Four Long-Term Issues

• Nationalism
• Imperialism
• Militarism
• Alliance System

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Nationalism

• It is when you are devoted to the notion that you
  belong to a nation
• Often leads to competitiveness and rivalry among
  nations
• Issue of ethnic groups within a nation that are
  not their own nation
• Serbia was a nation
• However, millions of Serbs also lived in Bosnia,
  ruled by Austria-Hungary

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Imperialism

• European countries turned to imperialism for
  economic gain
• They would use colonies for economic gain (raw
  materials, market)
• They divided the world among themselves, mostly
  based on their power in Europe
• Germany began to enter this race, disturbing the
  balance

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Militarism

• Began to develop and use military as a tool of
  foreign policy
• This spread from the army to the navy
• Race was to build the largest reserves possible

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Alliance System

• By 1907 Europe was divided into two major defense
  systems
• Triple Alliance
• Known as the Allies
• France, Britain, and Russia
• Triple Entente
• Known as the Central Powers
• Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the Ottoman
  Empire

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The Problem with Serbia was

• Serbia had a defensive alliance with Russia
• Guess what happened next?

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Some New Weapons Emerge

• U-Boats
• Subs were originally used (poorly) during the US
  Civil War
• They attacked without warning or provocation
• Some saw them as unfair

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Machine Guns and Trenches

• The use of machine guns allowed people to dig in
  and have very strong defensive positions
• This lead to the creation of trenches
• The war front never really moved because of them

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Tanks and Gas

• Needed a way to break the trenches defensive
  systems
• Tanks were briefly used, but never fully
• Poison gas was used first by France, but it was
  more of a tear gas
• Germany was the first to use poison gas to
  devastating human effect
• Used Chlorine gas
• Did not take advantage of the first use which
  broke French lines

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The US Gets Involved

• The Zimmerman Note
• Germany tried to get Mexico to invade the US and
  promised Mexico lost lands in Texas and the
  American Southwest
• Lusitania
• A German sunk a cruise ship off the coast of
  Ireland killing 128 Americans

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US at Home

• Wilson, President, got the US geared up for war
  and Congress obliged
• Espionage and Sedition Acts
• A person could be fined 10,000 and sentenced to
  20 years in jail if they
• Said anything disloyal, profane or abusive about
  the government or the war effort
• Was aimed at labor leaders and socialists

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