Kenneth's Ch 33 Outline Pt 2

Kenneth Li 4-9-08 Period 6th Euro Hist. Ch. 33 pg 932-944 A. Strategies and Stalemate (1914-1917) 1) Throughout Europe jubilation greeted outbreak of war. i) Dominant memory was Bismarck’s swift and decisive campaigns, which costs and casualties were light and rewards great. 2) Both sides expected to take offensive, force a battle on favorable ground. i) Germany and Austria, the Central Powers, had advantages of internal lines of communication and having launched attack first. 3) After 1905 Germany’s only war plan was one developed by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of German general staff from 1891-1906. i) In east the Germans planned to stand on defensive against Russia until France had been beaten, task they thought would take six weeks. 4) Apparent risk, besides violation of Belgian neutrality and consequent alienation of Britain, lay in weakening German defenses against direct attack across frontier. i) Added divisions to left wing and even weakened Russian fron for same purpose. B. The War in the West 1) French had also put faith in offensive, but with less reason than Germans. i) French offensive on Germany’s western frontier failed totally. ii) As result, French and British were able to stop Germans at Battle of the Marne in September 1914. 2) Thereafter, war in west became are position instead of movement. i) Strategically placed machine-gun nests made assaults difficult and dangerous. ii) Still, defenses were always able to prevent breakthrough. C. The War in the East 1) In the east war began auspiciously for Allies. i) Junior German officer, Erich Ludendorff under command of elderly General Paul van Hindenburg, destroyed of captured an entire Russian army at Battle of Tannenberg. ii) Russian confidence was badly shaken, but Russian army stayed in field. 2) As battle lines hardened, both sides sought new allies. i) Italy seemed especially valuable prize, and both sides bid for its support with promises of division spoils of victory. ii) In secret treaty of 1915, Allies agreed to deliver to Italy most of Italia Irredenta after victory. iii) Romania joined Allies in 1916 but was quickly defeated and driven from war. 3) In Far East Japan honored alliance with Britain and entered war. 4) In 1915 Allies undertook to break deadlock in fighting by going around it.

i) Policy would knock Turkey from war, bring help to Balkan front, and ease communication with Russia. ii) Troops were landed and, as resistance continued, Allied commitment increased. D. Return to the West 1) Both sides turned back to west in 1916. i) Commander of Verdun, Henri Petain became a hero. ii) Once again, superiority of defense was demonstrated. iii) On all fronts, losses were great and results meager. E. The War at Sea 1) As war continued, control of sea became more important. i) They imposed a cargo, which was not subject to seizure. ii) Germans responded with submarine warfare meant to destroy British shipping and starve the British. iii) Sinking of neutral ships by German submarines was both more dramatic and more offensive than Britain’s Blockade. 2) In 1915 British liner Lusitania was torpedoed by German submarine. i) This development gave Allies a considerable advantage. ii) Only battle it fought was at Jutland in spring of 1916. F. America Enters the War 1) In December 1916 President Wilson attempted to bring about negotiated peace. i) On February 1 Germans announced resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. 2) One of deterrents to earlier American intervention had been presence of autocrastic czarist Russia among Allies. i) Problem was resolved in March 1917 by revolution in Russia that overthrew czarist government. V. The Russian Revolution 1) March Revolution in Russia neither planned nor led by any political faction. i) Peasant unrest that had plagued countryside before 1914 didn’t subside during conflict. 2) In early March 1917 strikes and worker demonstrations erupted in Petrograd i) Government of Russia fell into hands of members of Duma. ii) Initially, they allowed provisional government to function without actually supporting it. 3) This climate provisional government decided to remain loyal to existing Russian alliances and continue war against Germany. i) Disillusionment with the war shortage of food and other necessities at home, and growing demand by the peasants for land reform undermined government. 4) Since April the Bolsheviks had been working against provisional government. i) Bolsheviks demanded that all political power go to soviets, which they controlled. 5) Abortive right wing counter coup gave Bolsheviks another chance.

i) Trotsky organized coup that took place on November 6th and that concluded with armed assault on provisional government. 6) Victors moved to fulfill their promises and assure their own security. i) When assembly gathered in January, it met for only a day before Red Army, controlled by Bolsheviks, dispersed it. ii) Factory workers were put in charge of their plants. 7) Bolshevik government also took Russia out of war, which they believed benefited only capitalism. i) Some territory in Transcaucasus region went to Turkey. ii) Bolsheviks also agreed to pay heavy war indemnity. 8) Until 1921, New Bolshevik government confronted massive domestic resistance. i) In summer of 1918 tsar and his family was murdered. ii) Red Army eventually overcame domestic opposition. VI. End of World War I A. Military Resolution 1) Treaty of Brest-Litovsk brought Germany to peak of success. i) Turn of events would probably have been decisive had it not been balanced by American intervention. ii) Allied attempt to break through west failed disastrously, bringing heavy losses to British and French and causing mutiny in French army. 2) In 1918 Germans decided to gamble everything on one last offensive. i) The Allies were bolstered by arrival of merican troops in ever increasing numbers. 3) Ludendorff was determined that peace should be made before German army thoroughly defeated in field and that responsibility should fall on civilians. i) New government asked got peace on basis of Fourteen Points that President Wilson had declared as American war aims. ii) Wilson insisted that he would deal only with democratic German government b/c he wanted to be sure he was dealing with German people. 4) Disintegration of German army forced William II to abdicate on November 9th, 1918. i) 2 days later this republican, socialist led government signed armistice that ended war by accepting German defeat. ii) No foreign soldier stood on German soil. iii) Real place embittered German people many of whom came to believe that Germany hadn’t been defeated but been tricked by enemy and betrayed by republicans and socialists at home. 5) Victors rejoiced but also had much to mourn. i) Economic and financial resources of European states were badly strained. 6) Old international order was dead. i) Austria-Hungary had disintegrated into swarm of small states competing for remains of ancient empire.

ii) Its easy confidence in material and moral progress was shattered by brutal reality if 4 years if horrible war. VII. Settlement at Paris A. The Peacemakers 1) Representatives of victorious states gathered at Versailles and other Parisian suburbs in first half of 1919. i) Wilson speaking for U.S., David Lloyd George for Britain, George Clemences for French, and Vittario Emanuele Orlando for Italy made up Big Four. 2) Wilson’s idealism came into conflict with more practical war aims of victorious powers and with many of secret treaties that had been made before and during war. i) Some agreements contradicted others: Italy and Serbia had competing claims to islands and shore of the Adriatic. ii) Both of these plaus conflicted with Anglo-French agreement to divide Near East between themselves. 3) Continuing national goals of victors presented further obstacles to “peace with victors.” i) Italy sought acquisition of Italia Irredenta (unredeemed Italy); Britain looked to its imperial interests; Japan pursued its own advantage in Asia. 4) Finally peacemakers of 1919 faced world still in turmoil. i) While Lenin and his colleagues were distracted by civil war, Allies landed small armies in Russia to help overthrow Bolshevik regime. ii) Allies were sufficiently worried by developments to allow and to support suppression of these communist movements by right-wing military forces. 5) Fear of spread of communism played part in thinking of diplomats in Versailles. i) Fear of Germany remained chief concern for France: attention to interests that were more traditional. B. The Peace 1) Paris settlement consisted of five separate treaties between the victors and the defeated powers i) "Peace without victors" made a mockery when the Soviet Union and Germany were excluded from the peace conference ii) Germans were simple presented with a treat and compelled to accept it C. The League of Nations 1) the league was not intended as an international government but as a body of sovereign states that agreed to pursue common policies and to consult in the common interest i) League Council - international court ii) it was unlikely to be effective because it had no armed forces at its disposal D. Germany

had

1) French would have liked to set up the Rhineland as a separate buffer state, but Lloyd George and Wilson would not permit that i) France received Alsace-Lorraine and the right to work the coal mines of the Saar for fifteen years ii) Germany west of the Rhine, and fifty kilometers east of it, was to be a demilitarized zone iii) Allied troops could stay on the west bank for fifteen years 2) the treaty also provided that Britain and the US would guarantee to aid France if it were attacked by Germany i) suck an attack would be made more unlikely by the permanent disarmament of Germany E. The East 1) East Prussia was cut off from the rest of Germany by a corridor carved out to give the revived state of Poland access to the sea 2) The Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared i) The Czechs of Bohemia and Moravia joined with the Slovaks and Ruthenians to the east to form Czechoslovakia ii) The old Ottoman Empire disappeared iii) In theory, the mandate system was meant to have the "advanced nations" govern the former coloies in the interest of the native peoples until they became ready to govern themselves iv) They were organized into 3 categories - A, B, and C depending on their readiness for independence F. Reparations 1) Germany made to pay for the war i) US judged the amount to be paid to be between 15 to 25 billion ii) Germany was also seen to be able to pay that amount iii) France and Britain, worried about their war debts to US, were eager to have Germany pay the full cost of the war 2) Since this amount was too much, no amount was set and Germany was made to pay 5 billion annually until 1921 i) at that time, a final figure would be set, which Germany would have 30 years to pay ii) Germans were bitterly angered iii) they resented that they had to pay, that they lost territory, and that they had to admit to a war guilt that they did not feel iv) They also had to accept the treaty, written by the victors, without negotiations G. The Evaluations of the Peace 1) the peace was soon bitterly criticized by the victors as well i) In England and US, liberals complained that the treaty violated the idealistic and liberal aims and principles that the Western leaders professed ii) John Maynard Keynes - most influential critic, a brilliant British economist who took part in the peace conference iii) wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace

cost of

2) depicted Wilson as a fool and a hypocrite 3) argued that the treaty was both immoral and unworkable i) in US, the book fed the traditional tendency toward isolationism and gave powerful weapons to Wilson's enemies ii) The peace, nevertheless, was unsatisfactory in important ways iii) the elimination of the Austro0Hungarian Empire, inevitable, created serious problems 4) raw materials separated from manufacturing areas and producers from their markets by new boundaries and tariff walls i) Czechoslovakia contained unhappy German minorities ii) The great weakness of the peace was its failure to accept reality 5) the excluded states played an important role in the world i) the tragedy of the Treaty of Versailles was that it was neither conciliatory enough to remove the desire for change, even at the war, nor harsh enough to make another war impossible