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Europe Plunges into War (A Bloody Stalemate (A Conflict Grinds Along…

- - - - Named after its designer, General Alfred Graf von Schlieffen
      - More on the Schlieffen Plan
      - The plan called for attacking and defeating France in the west and then rushing east to fight Russia.
        
        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.
      - speed was vital to the Schlieffen Plan. German leaders knew they needed to win a quick victory over France.
        
        Why did Germany attack France first?
        
        Russia asked France to become an ally so Germany thought that they had to move quickly. Germany thought they could take over France from the back and catch them off guard and then go to Russia.
        
        Alliance: Russia and France are allies, making Germany have a two-front war
      - War: Germany was in war with France and Russia
    - - By early September, German forces had swept into France and reached the outskirts of Paris. A major German victory appeared just days away.
        
        More on Germany vs France
    - - Every available soldier was hurled into the struggle. When reinforcements were needed, more than 600 taxicabs rushed soldiers from Paris to the front.
        
        After four days of fighting, the German generals gave the order to retreat.
        
        Consequence: Because the Schlieffen Plan failed, Germany was forced to retreat and Germany was defeated
    - - The Defeat of the Germans left the Schlieffen Plan in ruins.
        
        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.
        
        Realizing this, the German high command sent thousands of troops from France to aid its forces in the east.
        
        Meanwhile, the war on the Western Front settled into a stalemate.
      - Why was the Battle of Marne so significant?
        
        The battle of Marne was the first major clash on the western front; it resulted in Germany's defeat and left the Schlieffen Plan in ruins
  - - - This set the stage for what became known as trench warfare.
        
        More on 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.
      - Change: trench warfare was a different kind of fighting no one had seen before
    - - The trenches swarmed with rats. Fresh food was nonexistent. Sleep was nearly impossible.
        
        Life in the Trenches
        
        Were there any long-lasting consequences of living in the trench?
        
        As they were often effectively trapped in the trenches for long periods of time, under nearly constant bombardment, many soldiers suffered from “shell shock,” the debilitating mental illness known today as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
      - “The men slept in mud, washed in mud, ate mud, and dreamed mud,” wrote one soldier.
    - - 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. Staying put, however, did not ensure one’s safety.
      - Artillery fire brought death right into the trenches.
        
        “Shells of all calibers kept raining on our sector,” wrote one French soldier. “The trenches disappeared, filled with earth . . . the air was unbreathable. Our blinded, wounded, crawling, and shouting soldiers kept falling on top of us and died splashing us with blood. It was living hell.”
      - The Western Front had become a “terrain of death.” It stretched nearly 500 miles from the North Sea to the Swiss border
      - More about "no man's land"
    - - All this new technology did was kill greater numbers of people more effectively
        
        Consequence: the new weapons of WWI cost millions their lives
      - The slaughter reached a peak in 1916. In February, the Germans launched a massive attack against the French near Verdun. Each side lost more than 300,000 men.
        
        Near Verdun, the Germans advanced about four miles
      - In July, the British army tried to relieve the pressure on the French. British forces attacked the Germans northwest of Verdun, in the valley of the Somme River.
        
        In the first day of battle alone, more than 20,000 British soldiers were killed.
        
        By the time the Battle of the Somme ended in November, each side had suffered more than half a million casualties
        
        In the Somme valley, the British gained about five miles
        
        Why were land gains so small?
        
        Land gains were so small because it was hard to make these trenches so it was hard to move forward without making a trench. Conditions were terrible, men were susceptible to disease and lost limbs. Land gains were hard because once you gained land it was hard to hold
      - More about weapons of WWI
- - - - War : Russia and Serbia were in a war with Germany and Austria
    - - Why might the war on the Eastern Front have been more mobile than that on the Western Front?
        
        There was a country separating Germany and Russia in the eastern front, this allowed more land to move and launch military attacks apposed to the western front which was a direct border between France and Germany.
  - - - Russia fared somewhat better against the Austrians.
        
        December of that year the Austrian army manage to turn the tide.
        
        Austria defeated the Russians and eventually pushed them out of A-H.
        
        How did Austria turn the tide?
        
        Eventually, however, the Russian offensive wound down. German resistance had gradually been stiffening, and keeping up the momentum made it increasingly difficult for the Russian armies to stay supplied so deep in enemy territory. This was because the railroads in Eastern Europe were not as developed as those in Western Europe.
        
        Russian forces defeated the Austrians twice in 1914, driving deep into their country
        
        More on the Battle of Galicia
        
        Invasion: Russia went into Austria with armed forces
      - During the 4-day battle, Germans crushed the invading Russian army and drove it into full retreat. More than 30,000 Russian were killed
      - At the end of August, Germany counterattacked near the town of Tannenberg.
        
        More on the Battle of Tannenberg
  - - - As a result, the Russian army was continually short on food, guns, ammunition, clothes, boots, and blankets.
      - Unlike the nations of western Europe, Russia had yet to become industrialized.
        
        Consequence: Because Russia had low industrialization, it led to their downfall
      - How did Russia's lack of industrialization affect it's war efforts
        
        Russia's lack of industrialization left them in short supply of weapons, putting them at a disadvantage compared to the better equipped central powers
    - - In the south, the Ottomans still controlled the straits leading from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.
      - More about German Submarines
    - - Throughout the war the Russian army suffered a staggering number of battlefield losses.
      - Yet the army continually rebuilt its ranks from the country’s enormous population.
        
        For more than three years, the battered Russian army man- aged to tie up hundreds of thousands of German troops in the east.
        
        As a result, Germany could not hurl its full fighting force at the west.
        
        Why did Russia have so many more soldiers than the other countries?
        
        Because they had such a big population, they had more options for soldiers
        
        Total War: Russia threw all of their people into the war in an effort to win
- - - - On one side were Germany and Austria-Hungary.
        
        They were known as the Central Powers because of their location in the heart of Europe.
        
        More on the Central Powers
        
        Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire would later join the Central Powers in the hopes of regaining lost territories.
        
        What country had taken over territories that Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire wanted to regain?
        
        They were both hoping to get their land back for the Balkan War; Treaty of Bucharest of 1913
        Germany said they would help Bulgaria and the economic resources of the Ottoman Empire were depleted by the cost of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913.
        
        Alliance: Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire allianced with the Central Powers because they hoped to regain land from the Balkan Wars
      - On the other side were Great Britain, France, and Russia.
        
        Together, they were known as the Allied Powers or the Allies.
        
        Italy joined later. 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.
        
        More on Italy joining the Allies
        
        Japan joined the Allies within weeks.
        
        Why did Japan enter WWi?
        
        Japan participated in World War I from 1914 to 1918 in an alliance with Entente Powers and played an important role in securing the sea lanes in the West Pacific and Indian Oceans against the Imperial German Navy as the member of the Allies.
        
        On the other side were Great Britain, France, and Russia.
        
        More on the Allied Powers
      - Conflict: Europe was split into two opposing sides: The Central Powers and the Allies
    - - Only a few people foresaw the horror ahead.
      - Britain’s foreign minister, Sir Edward Grey. Staring out over London at nightfall, Grey said sadly to a friend, “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
      - Nationalism : These soldiers marched off to war to fight for their country, because of their pride
  - - - Russia looked to its ally France for help.
      - Germany, however, did not even wait for France to react. Two days after declaring war on Russia, Germany also declared war on France.
        
        Why did Germany declare war on France?
        
        It assumed France would align with Russia against the Central Powers
        
        More on Germany declaring war on France
      - Soon afterward, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Much of Europe was now locked in battle.