Transcript  New nationalism from the consolidation of the German and Italian states  Russia’s “pan-slavic” union  System of European alliances.


New nationalism from the consolidation
of the German and Italian states

Russia’s “pan-slavic” union

System of European alliances
 Central Powers
(Triple Alliance)
 Allied Powers
(Triple Entente)
› Austria-Hungary
› Britain
› Germany
› France
› Italy
› Russia (and Serbia)
› (eventually Greece,
› (eventually Turkey,
Bulgaria, and
Japan)
Portugal, the U.S.
and Italy)
1914: assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, heir to Austro-Hungarian
throne
 Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
 Russia backed the Serbs
 Germany supports Austria and attacks
Russia and France
 Britain sides with France, declares war on
Germany

Threatened traditional warfare
 Britain asserted that it was “uncivilized”
warfare
 Wilson demanded that Germany
abandon unrestricted submarine
warfare
 Germany was viewed as seeking “world
dominance”

› Who opposes neutrality?
› U.S. opposed German blockade of Britain
but supported the British blockade of
Germany
› U.S. supplied 40% of war material to the
Triple Entente by 1916
Wilson believed a country of
immigrants like the U.S. would
fracture within
“. . . Lead this people into war, and
they’ll forget there ever was such a
thing as tolerance . . .”
German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman sent a
telegram to the German minister in Mexico
promising that in event of U.S. entering the war,
Germany would restore Texas and other territories
to Mexico if it declared war on the U.S.

March 1917, Germany sinks five
American vessels off the coast of Britain,
killing 66 Americans

April 6, 1917 U.S. Congress declares war
on Germany
Draft of all young men
 2,000,000 volunteered
 2,800,000 drafted
 350,000 failed to report or claimed
conscientious objector

combatants occupy fighting lines,
consisting of trenches in which troops are
largely immune to the enemy's small
arms fire and are substantially sheltered
from artillery.
 It has become a byword for attrition
warfare or stalemate, with a slow
wearing down of opposing forces

Pershing did not want to commit to
trench warfare, but to appease the
French and British calls for help, sent the
all-Black 92nd Division.
 The 92nd Division spent 191 days in battle,
longer than any other American division.
 Germans leafleted American troops
asking why they fought for “Wall Street
robbers.”

More than four years
 57,777,500 soldiers mobilized
 21,238,000 soldiers wounded
 8.5 million soldiers dead
