WORLD WAR I

BY: KARINA POLANCO

WAR BREAKS OUT IN EUROPE

CAUSES OF WORLD WAR I

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Imperialism: the policy by which stronger nations extend their economic, political, or military control over weaker nations or territories. Nationalism: a feeling of pride, loyalty, and protectiveness toward ones country. Militarism: the belief that a nation needs a large military force. Alliances: an alliance of Serbia, Russia, France, Great Britain, Italy, and seven other countries during World War I.

European nations divided into two opposing alliances. The Central Powers were made up of Austria-Hungary, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria.

STALEMATE IN THE TRENCHES

When the war began in August, most people on both sides assumed it would be over within a few months. The First Battle of Marne, in September 1914, stopped the German advances. Instead of one side quickly defeating the other, the two side stayed stuck to the mud for more than three years. The soldiers were fighting a new kind of battle, trench warfare. Trench warfare is a kind of warfare during World War I in which troops huddled at the bottom of trenches and fired artillery and machine guns at each other.

A WAR OF NEW TECHNOLOGY

The tank, a British invention, smashed through barbed wire, crossed trenches, and cleared paths through no mans land. Soldiers had machine guns that fired 600 bullets a minute. Poison gas, used by both sides, burned and blinded soldiers. By 1917, fighter planes fought each other far above the clouds. At sea, the Germans used submarines, which they called U-boats, to block trade. They were equipped with both guns and torpedoes.

AMERICAS PATH TO WAR

When the war started in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson announced a policy of neutrality, refusing to take sides in the war. The German submarines sank all allied merchant ships they found off the British coast. The sinking turned many Americans against Germany, yet President Wilson kept the U.S. neutral. In the election of 1916, the Democratic Partys campaign slogan, He kept us out of war, appealed to voters. Wilson won reelection.

Zimmermann telegram was a message sent in 1917 by the German foreign minister to the German ambassador in Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance and promising to help Mexico regain Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona if the United States entered World War I. This made Americans furious. President Wilson asked for a declaration of war. The majority shared the presidents commitment to join the Allies.

REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA

Events in Russia made U.S. entry into the war more urgent for the allies. In August 1915, Czar Nicholas II insisted on taking control of the troops himself. His poor leadership was blamed for more deaths. In March 1918, Russia withdrew from the war by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Allies urged American troops to come quickly.

AMERICA JOINS THE FIGHT

RAISING AN ARMY AND A NAVY

The U.S. Army was not ready for war. American fighting forces consisted of fewer than 200,000 soldiers many of them recent recruits. In May 1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act. This act required all males between the ages of 21 and 30 to sign up for military service. By the end of 1918, nearly 3 million men had been drafted. About 2 million Americans soldiers went to France. They served under general John J. Pershing as the American Expeditionary Force (AEF).

Wilson believed that having distinct and separate American combat units would guarantee the United States a major role in the peace talks at wars end. Most U.S. troops fought separately, but some fought under Allied command. Close to 50,000 American women also served in WWI. For the 1st time in history women also served in the military Around 400,000 African Americans served in the armed forces.

AMERICAN SHIPS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

American Rear Admiral William S. Sims convinced the Allies to adopt the convoy system. In a convoy system, a heavy guard of destroyers escorts merchant ships during wartime. Begun in May 1917, this strategy quickly reduced the loss rate. Beginning in June 1918, the Allies laid a barrier of 70,000 mines in the North Sea. The 180-mile-long minefield made U-boat access to the North Atlantic almost impossible.

AMERICAN TROOPS ENTER THE WAR

By the time the American troops arrived in France in June 1917, the Allies had been at war for three years. In March 1918, the German launched an offensive to end the war before the Americans arrived in force. Just in time, in May 1918, one million fresh American troops arrived ready for action. On May 28, American soldiers attacked the French town of Cantigny, which was occupied by the Germans. Americans proved themselves in combat by defeating Balleau Wood. One unit lost 380 men 0f its 400.

PUSHING THE GERMANS BACK

The Second Battle of the Marne is a 1918 marked the turning point of the war; allied troops along with Americans halted the German advances into France. September 26, 1918, marked the beginning of the final Meuse-Argonne offensive. The wars final battle left 26,000 Americans death. By November, the Germans were retreating. In Argonne Forest, Alvin York attacked German machine gunners, killing 25 of them and returned to the American lines with 132 captives. Eddie Rickenbacker won fame as the U.S. ace of aces for shooting down a total of 26 enemy planes, which won him the Medal of Honor.

GERMANY STOPS FIGHTING

After the defeat of Meuse-Argonne, General Erich Ludendorff advised the German government to seek peace. In early November, Germanys navy mutinied and its allies dropped out. On November 11,1918, at 11:00 A.M. the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month all fighting ceased About 8.5 million soldiers died in the war, and abut 21 million were wounded.

LIFE ON THE HOME FRONT

MOBILIZING FOR WAR

World War I cost the United States $35.5 billion. Americans helped to pay almost one-third of that amount by buying government war bonds. War bonds were low-interest loans by civilians to the government, meant to be paid in a number of years. Schoolchildren rolled bandages and collected tin cans, paper, toothpaste tubes, and apricot pits. So that more food could be sent to soldiers, people planted victory gardens in back yards and vacant lots. Women would get together and knit socks and sweaters and sew hospital gowns. Citizens would save food by observing wheatless Mondays and Wednesdays, and meatless Tuesdays. The war brought more government control over the economy.

INTOLLERANCE AND SUSPICIONS

Patriotic propaganda did much to win support for the war. Suddenly people distrusted anything German. Berlin, Maryland, became Brunswick. People called hamburger Salisbury steak , and German shepherds police dogs On June 15, 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act. This law set heavy fines and long prison terms for antiwar activities and for encouraging draft resisters. Sedition Act was a law passed in 1918 that made it illegal to criticize the war; it set heavy fines and long prison terms for those who engaged in antiwar activities. People argued that these acts violated their freedom of speech. Justice Holmes argued that freedom of speech could be limited specially in war time.

NEW JOBS AND GREAT MIGRATION

As soldiers went off to battle, the United States faced labor shortage. Northern factories were suddenly willing to hire workers they had once rejected. Between 1910 and 1920, about 500,000 African Americans moved to Northern cities such as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis hoping for a better life. This movement was called the Great Migration. Many Mexican immigrants settled in Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and California where many became farm workers and others worked in factories in the Northern cities. The war time labor shortage also meant new job choices for women. Many women worked in steel mills, ammunition factories, assembly lines, streetcar conductors, and elevator operators. Their presence gave the public a wider view about their abilities.

THE FLU EPIDEMIC OF 1918

Another result of the war was a deadly flu epidemic that swept the globe in 1918. It killed more than 20 million people on six continents by the time it disappeared in 1919. People were struck with illness on the streets and died immediately. In 1918 children would skip rope to the rhyme:
I had a little bird, Its name was Enza, (The Grim Reapear by Louis Raemaekers) I opened the window and in-flu-enza.

The flu spread by following human carries, trade routes, and shipping lines. This flu took origins in China in a rare genetic shift of influenza virus. Then the virus reconstructed from the tissue of a dead soldier. Even president Wilson suffered from the flu in early 1919 while discussing the Treaty of Versailles.

THE LEGACY OF WORLD WAR I

WILSONS FOURTEEN POINTS

Ten months before the war ended, in 1918, President Wilson gave a speech to the Congress, known as the Fourteen Points, to let them know his goals for peace.

Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points were first outlined in a speech Wilson gave to the American Congress in January 1918. Wilson's Fourteen Points became the basis for a peace programmer and it was on the back of the Fourteen Points that Germany and her allies agreed to an armistice in November 1918. 1. No more secret agreements ("Open covenants openly arrived at"). 2. Free navigation of all seas. 3. An end to all economic barriers between countries. 4. Countries to reduce weapon numbers. 5. All decisions regarding the colonies should be impartial 6. The German Army is to be removed from Russia. Russia should be left to develop her own political set-up. 7. Belgium should be independent like before the war. 8. France should be fully liberated and allowed to recover Alsace-Lorraine 9. All Italians are to be allowed to live in Italy. Italy's borders are to "along clearly recognizable lines of nationality." 10. Self-determination should be allowed for all those living in Austria-Hungary. 11. Self-determination and guarantees of independence should be allowed for the Balkan states. 12. The Turkish people should be governed by the Turkish government. Non-Turks in the old Turkish Empire should govern themselves. 13. An independent Poland should be created which should have access to the sea. 14. A League of Nations should be set up to guarantee the political and territorial independence of all states.

TREATY OF VERSAILLES
Wilson led the United States delegation to the peace conference in France. Britain, France, and Italy disagreed with Wilsons vision of peace without victory. In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles ended WWI. This treaty forced Germany to take all the blame for the war. Germans had to pay $33 billion in reparations money that a defeated nation pays for the destruction caused by the war. The war and the Treaty of Versailles failed to make Europe safe for democracy Germanys resentment of the treaty grew which planted seeds of World War II, an even more deadly conflict to come.

STRIKES AND THE RED SCARES

The Treaty of Versailles was not the only issue that divided Americans after the war. The U.S. experienced a number of labor strikes. For example, in Seattle, Washington, in February 1919, more than 55,000 workers took part in a peaceful general strike which paralyzed the city. In 1919 1920, a wave of panic from fear of communist revolution was called Red Scare (communists were called reds). In January 1920, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer ordered federal agents and local police - without search warrants to break into homes and offices and drag citizens off to jail. His agents arrested at least 6,000 people in the Palmer raids.

RACIAL TENSION INCREASE

In the Northern cities where a large number of African Americans had settled brought competition between whites and blacks for factory jobs and housing. Two years later, when African-American soldiers came back from war they found that their social problems were still the same. They had fought to make the world safe of democracy, but at home they were still secondclass citizens. In Chicago, a black man swimming in Lake Michigan drifted into the white section of the beach. As a result, the whites drowned him. Before thirteen days of rioting ended, 38 people were dead.

LONGING FOR NORMALCY

Americans were so tired of labor strikes, race riots, the Red Scare, and the fight over the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations that they were ready for a break. In the campaign of the 1920 election a republican candidate Warren G. Harding of Ohio promised to return to normalcy.

WORLD WAR 2