8: The Origins of the First World War Flashcards
Francis Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary until his assassination in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Franz Ferdinand held significant influence over the military, and in 1913 he was appointed inspector general of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces. In 1913, Emperor Franz Joseph commanded Archduke Franz Ferdinand to observe the military manoeuvres in Bosnia scheduled for June 1914. Following the manoeuvres, Ferdinand and his wife planned to visit Sarajevo to open the state museum in its new premises there. On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip. After his assassination, Austria-Hungary issued a formal letter to the government of Serbia on 23 July 1914 with several demands, which became known as the July Ultimatum. Franz Ferdinand’s assassination precipitated the July Crisis which led to the eventual outbreak of the First World War.
Princip
Gavrilo Princip was born into a Bosnian Serb peasant family and was trained in terrorism by the Serbian secret society known as the Black Hand. Wanting to destroy Austro-Hungarian rule in the Balkans and to unite the South Slav peoples into a federal nation, he believed that the first step must be the assassination of a member of the Habsburg imperial family or a high official of the government. Having learned that Franz Ferdinand would pay an official visit to Sarajevo in June 1914, Princip, his associate Nedjelko Čabrinović, and four other revolutionaries awaited the archduke’s procession on June 28. Čabrinović threw a bomb that bounced off the archduke’s car and exploded beneath the next vehicle. A short time later, while driving to a hospital to visit an officer wounded by the bomb, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were shot to death by Princip. After a trial in Sarajevo, Princip was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, the maximum penalty allowed for a person under the age of 20 on the day of his crime. Princip underwent amputation of an arm because of tuberculosis of the bone and died in a hospital near his prison in 1918. Until his death, Princip insisted that he did not cause the World War, as it was bound to happen anyway.
Libyan War
The Italo-Turkish war was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from September 1911 to October 1912. After France had established its dominance in Morocco after the Second Moroccan Crisis, Italy was also highly motivated to find colonies elsewhere in North Africa. Thus, Italy took advantage of a period of international uncertainty after the Moroccan crisis to achieve its long-desired goal of gaining colonies in North Africa by conquering the Turkish provinces of Tripolitana and Cyrenaica (modern Libya). After a year of war, Turkey conceded its rights over Tripoli and Cyrenaica to Italy in the Treaty of Lausanne (Ouchy). The conflict upset the precarious international balance of power prior to World War I by revealing the weakness of the Ottoman Empire. The Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria, and Italy was put under heavy strain with the actions of Italy. Within Italy, it unleashed a nationalist-expansionist (proto-fascist) sentiment that guided government policy in the following decades. Furthermore, it caused a strong nationalist movement within the Balkan states. Seeing how easily the weakened Ottomans had been defeated, the members of the Balkan League attacked the Ottoman Empire starting the First Balkan War before the war with Italy had ended.
Balkan wars
By the early 20th century, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia had achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large elements of their ethnic populations remained under Ottoman rule. In 1912, these countries formed the Balkan League. The Italo-Turkish War had demonstrated the significant weakness of Ottoman Empire. This triggered a chain reaction of Balkan states which wanted to gain their own independence and power. In the First Balkan War, the four states of the Balkan League rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, and their combined armies defeated the Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success. The events also led to the creation of an independent Albania, which angered the Serbs. Bulgaria was dissatisfied over the division of the spoils in Macedonia, and attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece in June 1913 which provoked the start of the Second Balkan War. The more numerous combined Serbian and Greek armies repelled the Bulgarian offensive and counter-attacked into Bulgaria from the west and the south. The Balkan Wars were marked by ethnic cleansing with all parties being responsible for grave atrocities against civilians and sadly helped inspire later atrocities including war crimes during the 1990s Yugoslav Wars. Although not involved as a combatant, Austria-Hungary became relatively weaker as a much-enlarged Serbia pushed for union of the South Slavic peoples. The war set the stage for the Balkan crisis of 1914 and thus served as a “prelude to the First World War”.
dreadnought
The dreadnought was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy’s HMS Dreadnought, had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as “dreadnoughts”. As dreadnoughts became a crucial symbol of national power, the arrival of these new warships renewed the naval arms race between the United Kingdom and Germany. The construction of Dreadnought coincided with increasing tension between the United Kingdom and Germany. Germany had begun building a large battlefleet in the 1890s, as part of a deliberate policy to challenge British naval supremacy. With the signing of the Entente Cordiale in April 1904, it became increasingly clear the United Kingdom’s principal naval enemy would be Germany, which was building up a large, modern fleet under the “Tirpitz” laws. Dreadnought-building consumed vast resources in the early 20th century, but there was only one battle between large dreadnought fleets. At the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the British and German navies clashed with no decisive result.
Schlieffen Plan
The Schlieffen Plan was a battle plan first proposed in 1905 by Alfred, Graf von Schlieffen, that was designed to allow Germany to wage a successful two-front war. The plan was heavily modified by Schlieffen’s successor, Helmuth von Moltke, prior to and during its implementation in World War I. Moltke’s changes, which included a reduction in the size of the attacking army, were blamed for Germany’s failure to win a quick victory. Schlieffen wished to emulate Hannibal by provoking an Entscheidungsschlacht (“decisive battle”), using a massive force, in a single act, to bring a swift and conclusive victory. He decided that France was the enemy to be defeated first, with Russia held off, who were presumed to be slow in mobilising, until the French were annihilated. With Germany’s defeat in 1918, the German military blamed the Schlieffen Plan as flawed and the cause of their defeat. The victorious Allies looked upon the Schlieffen Plan as the source of German aggression against neutral countries, and it became the basis of war guilt and reparations.
Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg was a German General who led the Imperial German Army during the First World War. Following World War I’s outbreak in July 1914, he was recalled to military service and quickly achieved fame on the Eastern Front as the victor of Tannenberg. Subsequently, he oversaw a crushing series of victories against the Russians that made him a national hero and the center of a massive personality cult. In 1925, Hindenburg returned to public life and became the second elected President of the German Weimar Republic. While he was ideologically opposed to Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party, he nonetheless played a major role in their rise to power. Upon twice dissolving the Reichstag in 1932, Hindenburg ultimately agreed to appoint Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933 when the Nazis won a plurality in the November elections. In response to the Reichstag Fire, he approved the Reichstag Fire Decree in February 1933 which suspended various civil liberties. Later in March, he signed the Enabling Act of 1933 which gave the Nazi regime emergency powers. After Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler combined the Presidency with his office as Chancellor before proceeding to declare himself Führer und Reichskanzler des deutschen Volkes and transformed Germany into a totalitarian state.
Tannenberg
Second Battle of Tannenberg, East Prussia, which was fought between Russia and Germany between 26 and 30 August 1914, the first month of World War I, and ended in a major German victory over the Russians. It was a tactical masterpiece that demonstrated the superior skills of the German army. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles destroyed most of the First Army as well and kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915. The battle is particularly notable for fast rail movements by the Germans, enabling them to concentrate against each of the two Russian armies in turn, and also for the failure of the Russians to encode their radio messages. It brought considerable prestige to Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his rising staff-officer Erich Ludendorff.
Petain
Marshal Philippe Pétain, who came to be known as The Lion of Verdun, led the French Army to victory at the nine-month-long Battle of Verdun. After the failed Nivelle Offensive and subsequent mutinies he was appointed Commander-in-Chief and succeeded in repairing the army’s confidence. Pétain remained in command for the rest of the war and emerged as a national hero. With the imminent Fall of France and the Cabinet wanting to ask for an armistice, on 17 June 1940 Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned, recommending to President Lebrun that he appoint Marshal Petain in his place, which he did that day, while the government was at Bordeaux. The Cabinet then resolved to sign armistice agreements with Germany and Italy. After Germany and Italy occupied and disarmed France in November 1942, Pétain’s government worked very closely with Nazi Germany’s military administration. After the war, Pétain was tried and convicted for treason. He was originally sentenced to death, but due to his age and World War I service his sentence was commuted to life in prison.
Caporetto
The Battle of Caporetto, also called 12th Battle of the Isonzo (1917), was an Italian military disaster during World War I in which Italian troops retreated before an Austro-German offensive on the Isonzo front in northeastern Italy, where the Italian and Austrian forces had been stalemated for two and a half years. Austro-Hungarian forces, reinforced by German units, were able to break into the Italian front line and rout the Italian forces opposing them. The battle was a demonstration of the effectiveness of the use of stormtroopers and the infiltration tactics developed in part by Oskar von Hutier. The use of poison gas by the Germans also played a key role in the collapse of the Italian Second Army. In the wake of the successful Austrian and German advance, more than 600,000 war-weary and demoralized Italian soldiers either deserted or surrendered.
Asquith
H.H. Asquith was a British statesman and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He played a major role in the design and passage of major liberal legislation and a reduction of the power of the House of Lords. In August 1914, Asquith took Great Britain and the British Empire into the First World War. During 1915, his government was vigorously attacked for a shortage of munitions and the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. He formed a coalition government with other parties but failed to satisfy critics and was forced to resign in December 1916, and never regained power. His role in creating the modern British welfare state (1906–1911) has been celebrated, but his weaknesses as a war leader and as a party leader after 1914 have been highlighted by historians.
Jaurès
French socialist leader, cofounder of the newspaper L’Humanité, and member of the French Chamber of Deputies; he achieved the unification of several factions into a single socialist party, the Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière. Jaurès was a committed antimilitarist who tried to use diplomatic means to prevent what became the First World War. In 1913, he opposed Émile Driant’s Three-Year Service Law, which implemented a draft period, and tried to promote understanding between France and Germany. As conflict became imminent, he tried to organise general strikes in France and Germany in order to force the governments to back down and negotiate. This proved difficult, however, as many Frenchmen sought revenge (revanche) for their country’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the return of the lost Alsace-Lorraine territory. During the war fever of July 1914, he was assassinated by a young fanatic who believed that Jaures’s pacifism was playing into the hands of imperial Germany.
Pershing
General of the Armies John J. Pershing was a senior United States Army officer. He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front during World War I, from 1917 to 1918. During his command in World War I, Pershing rejected British and French demands that American forces be integrated with their armies, essentially as replacement units, and insisted that the AEF would operate as a single unit under his command. Pershing was criticized for operational and logistic errors, but his creation of the AEF was a remarkable achievement.
Bosnian annexation crisis
The Bosnian crisis of 1908, was a state of severe international tension caused by the annexation by Austria-Hungary of the Balkan provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It can be seen as a direct dress rehearsal for the events that took place 1914. The Young Turks staged a revolution within the Ottoman Empire in July 1908 established a constitutional government, and inaugurated a reform program. This gave rise to the opportunity to grab territory from the weakened Empire. The two frontline players were Austria and Russia. The Austrians took a new and very tough position with the Balkans. The Austrian foreign minister Graf Lexa von Aehrenthal resolved to annex the previously occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina before the new Turkish regime could regain control over them. The Russians also had to take a tough line due to their defeat in the east – their energy was now focussed on Europe/the Balkans. The Austrians and Russians had a secret agreement that Austria would accept a revision of straights if Austria could annex Bosnia. However, when Bosnia was annexed, Austria did not consult Russia, humiliating Russia. Serbia and Russia were on the brink of war with Austria but decided not to act as Germany gave Austria full support in case a war should happen. This demonstrated Austria’s dependency on Germany for security but also showed its leverage over Germany.
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli campaign was a military campaign in the First World War that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula (in modern Turkey), from 1915 to 1916. The Entente powers, Britain, France and Russia, sought to weaken the Ottoman Empire by taking control of the Turkish straits. This would expose the Ottoman capital at Constantinople to bombardment by Allied battleships and cut it off from the Asian part of the empire. With Turkey defeated, the Suez Canal would be safe, and a year-round Allied supply route could be opened through the Black Sea to warm water ports in Russia. In January 1916, after eight months’ fighting, with approximately 250,000 casualties on each side, the land campaign was abandoned, and the invasion force withdrawn. It was a costly campaign for the Entente powers and the Ottoman Empire. The campaign was considered a great Ottoman victory. In Turkey, it is regarded as a defining moment in the history of the state, a final surge in the defence of the motherland as the Ottoman Empire retreated. The struggle formed the basis for the Turkish War of Independence and the declaration of the Republic of Turkey eight years later, with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who rose to prominence as a commander at Gallipoli, as founder and president.
