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Europe Plunges into War (The Battle on the Eastern Front (The war on the…

- - - - At the end of August Germany counterattacked near the town of Tannenberg
        
        the Germans crushed the invading Russian army and drove it into full retreat. More than 30,000 Russian soldiers were killed.
        
        Russian forces defeated the Austrians twice in September 1914, driving deep into their country.
        
        Austria defeated the Russians and eventually pushed them out of Austria-Hungary.
        
        War
  - - - Russian army was continually short on food, guns, ammunition, clothes, boots, and blankets.
    - - Russian army was continually short on food, guns, ammunition, clothes, boots, and blankets.
        
        Throughout the war the Russian army suffered a stagger- ing number of battlefield losses.
        
        For more than three years, the battered Russian army man- aged to tie up hundreds of thousands of German troops in the east.
        
        Germany and her allies, however, were concerned with
        more than just the Eastern or Western Front.
        
        In the years after it began, the massive European conflict indeed became a world war.
        
        Russia runs low on supplies
  - - - It was a stretch of battle along the German and Russian boarder.
    - - The war in the East was more mobile than the one on the west.
- - - - Facing a war on two fronts, Germany had developed a battle strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan,
        
        The plan called for attacking and defeating France in the west and then rushing east to fight Russia.
        
        Why did Germany attack France first?
        
        Because they were more powerful than Russia, so they thought it would be easier to take out the stronger one first.
        
        The Germans felt they could carry out such a plan because Russia lagged behind the rest of Europe in its railroad system and thus would take longer to supply its front lines.
        
        Early on, it appeared that Germany would do just that. By early September, German forces had swept into France and reached the outskirts of Paris.
        
        On September 5, however, the Allies regrouped and attacked the Germans northeast of Paris, in the valley of the Marne River. Every available soldier was hurled into the struggle.
        
        After four days of fighting, the German generals gave the order to retreat. Although it was only the first major clash on the Western Front, the First Battle of the Marne was perhaps the single most important event of the war.
        
        Speed was vital to the Schlieffen Plan, German leaders knew they needed to win a quick victory over France.
        
        A quick victory in the west no longer seemed possible. In the east, Russian forces had already invaded Germany. Germany was going to have to fight a long war on two fronts.
        
        Invasion
        
        Germany plans was to invade France and Russia
        
        Schlieffen Plan
    - - By early 1915, opposing armies on the Western Front had dug miles of parallel trenches to protect themselves from enemy fire.
        
        This set the stage for what became known as trench warfare. In this type of warfare, soldiers fought each other from trenches. And armies traded huge losses of human life for pitifully small land gains.
        
        Life in the trenches was pure misery.The trenches swarmed with rats. Fresh food was nonexistent. Sleep was nearly impossible.
        
        The space between the opposing trenches won the grim name “no man’s land.” When the officers ordered an attack, their men went over the top of their trenches into this bombed-out landscape. There, they usually met murderous rounds of machine-gun fire.
        
        Why were land gains so small?
        
        Because with the increase in technology the only way to gain land was by taking over small parts at a time.
        
        Artillery fire brought death right into the trenches. The Western Front had become a “terrain of death.” It stretched nearly 500 miles from the North Sea to the Swiss border. A British officer described it in a letter:
        
        WAR
        
        During this time war was a major concept that was occuring
      - Impacts of Trench Warfare
- - - - On one side were Germany and Austria-Hungary. They were known as the Central Powers because of their location in the heart of Europe. Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire would later join the Central Powers in the hopes of regain-ing lost territories.
        
        What country had taken over territories that Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire wanted to regain?
        
        Great Britain
        
        On the other side were Great Britain, France, and Russia. Together, they were known as the Allied Powers or the Allies. Japan joined the Allies within weeks.
        
        Italy had been a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. However, the Italians joined the other side after accusing their former partners of unjustly starting the war.
        
        In the late summer of 1914, millions of soldiers marched happily off to battle, convinced that the war would be short. Only a few people foresaw the horror ahead.
        
        Italy Switches Sides
        
        Alliance
  - - - Why did Germany declare war on France?
        
        On one side were Germany and Austria-Hungary. They were known as the Central Powers because of their location in the heart of Europe.They were known as the Central Powers because of their location in the heart of Europe. Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire would later join the Central Powers in the hopes of regain-ing lost territories.
      - Russia looked to its ally France for help. Germany, However did not wait for France to react.
      - War