29.2 Europe plunges into war

The battle on the eastern front

Western Front - deadlocked region in northern France

Schlieffen Plan - Germany's battle strategy

The Great War Begins

The Eastern Front

Named after its designer, General Alfred Graf von Schlieffen

The plan called for attacking and defeating France in the west an then rushing east to fight Russia

They felt they could carry out this plan because Russia had lagged behind the rest of Europe in its railroad system and so it was take longer for supplies to hit the front lines

After Austria had declared war, Russia and Serbia's Allys had began moving towards the Russian-Austrian border.

Speed was vital to this plan

German leaders knew that they needed to win a quick victory over France

Expected Germany to join Austria

A stretch of battle field between Germany and Russia

By early September, the German forces had swept into France and reached the outside of Paris

Germany amounted Russia's mobilization to a declaration of War.

A huge victory seemed only days away

September 5th - the Allies regrouped and attacked the Germans northeast of Paris

The Russians and the Serbs battled the Germans and Austro Hungarians

Germany declared war on Russia

After four days of fighting, the German generals gave the order to retreat

Early fighting

The First Battle of Marne was perhaps the single most important event of the war

Russian forces attack Germans and Austria

The defeat left the Schiieffen Plan in ruins

Russia looked to France for help due to their ally but Germany did not wait for France to react.

In the east, Russia had invaded Germany

Germans are able to crush the Russian army killing over 30,000 troops

Russian forces defeat Austria twice

A few days after, 2, Germany also declared war on France which led to Great Britain declaring war on Germany. Soon much of Europe was going to battle.

Trench Warfare

In this type of warfare, soldiers fought each other from trenches

Austria pushes back and gets Russia out of Austria

The armies traded huge losses of soldiers for small amounts of land gain

Life in the trenches was miserable

The men slept in mud and ate mud

Rats swarmed in the trenches

Fresh food was nonexistent

Sleep was nearly impossible

The space between the trenches was called "no man's land"

When officers ordered attacks the men would run out of their trenches into deadly machine gun fire

Russia struggles

Russia is not yet industrialized

Staying put really was not any safer

Artillery fire was brought right into the trenches

As a result the Russian army was very low on food, Guns, Ammunition, Clothes, Boots, and blankets

Nations Takes Sides

It would blind, wound, and cripple soldiers

Soldiers was fly into the air from the bombs

By mid-August 1914, lines were established going into war and countries were divided.

Men said it was a living hell

The Western Front

Allies are unable to help give Russia shipments due to Germany's navy

It stretched over 500 miles from the North Sea to the Swiss border

Military strategies were at a loss

Allied Powers

New tools were coming into use:

Machine guns
poison gas
armored tanks
larger artillery

The only thing Russia does have is numbers

No matter how many losses they suffered they were always able to build up their ranks

Central Powers

The Germans launched a massive attack against the French near Verdun and each side lost more than 300,000 men

By mid-August 1914, Germany and Austria had joined together to make the Central Powers. This was due to their location in Europe

Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire would soon join the Central Powers in hopes of regaining lost land.

The Allied Powers were countries against the Central Powers. This consisted of Great Britain, France, and Russia

Japan and Italy later joined the Allied powers

Italy was part of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary but they switched when they accused the Triple Alliance of unjustly starting war.