World War I

Question 1

~World War I

Answer 1

● Began in the summer of 1914 and lasted until the fall of 1918
● Killed approx. 10 million soldiers, another 2-5 million civilians and woulded or disabled 28-30 million
● Destryoed four gerat empires00German Reich, Russia’s tsarist regime, Austria-Huntary’s Habsburg dynasty and Ottoman TUrkey
● Began the process of toppling EUrope from tis position fo global preeminence

Question 2

~Bosnia

Answer 2

● A Slavic province under Austrian authority but with a large Serb population and coveted by the intensely nationalistic state of Serbia

Question 3

~Blank Hand

Answer 3

● A terror group supported informally by influential parties in Serbia

Question 4

~Franz Ferdinand

Answer 4

● Heir to the Autrian throne

● Assassinated by Black Hand in Bosnia

Question 5

~July crisis

Answer 5

● Austria issued a lsit of humiliating demands and threatened war if Serbia did not accept this ultimatum
● Russia, Austria’s rival in the Balkans, backed Serbia, but Germany persuaded Austria not to back down even if Russia intervened (blank check)

Question 6

~Schlieffen Plan

Answer 6

● Germany’s strategy for avoiding a long two-front war
● Requried lightning speed and the Germans moved quickly against France and neutral Belgium
● Germnas drove into northern France as expected and came within reach of Paris
● Failed and Germany was forced to fight a two-front war

Question 7

~First Battle of the Marne

Answer 7

● Foiled the Schlieffan Plan and dahsed any hope of a quick end to the war
● The Allies stopped Germany from taking over France

Question 8

~Trench wafare

Answer 8

● Military technology disproportionately favoring the defensive trench warfare
● Especially on the Western Front, the 500-mile chain of trenches, bukers, and barbed wire that stretched from the English Channel to the Swiss border

Question 9

~Verdun Offensive adn the Battle of the Somme

Answer 9

● Both in 1916
● Combat operations that brought about no useful outcome, and virtually no mvoement, despite costing hundreds of thousands of casualties

Question 10

~Poison gas

Answer 10

● First use in modern warfare

● Battle of Ypres

Question 11

~All Quiet on the Western Front

Answer 11

● Erich Maria Remarque’s novel

● Anti-war art

Question 12

~Eastern Front

Answer 12

● Deadly especially for the Russians who sustained crushing defeats at Germany’s hands and who found themselves cut off from their allies when Ottoman Turkey sided with the Central Powers, denying Russia access to the Mediterranean

Question 13

~Arab revolt

Answer 13

● British support for the Arab revolt against Ottoman power and the Russians thust through ottooman defenses on the Caucasus frontier
● Key figures was the guerilla leader T.L. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)

Question 14

~Armenian massacres

Answer 14

● In 1915, Ottoman state perpetrated the Armenian massacres, systematically killing between 500,000 to 2 million men, women and children

Question 15

~Anglo-German naval race

Answer 15

● Underlying cause of the war

● Few surface battles took place in WWI

Question 16

~War at sea (WWI)

Answer 16

● Allied fleets imposed a blockade ont he Central Powers, constricting their economies and causing the starvation of thousands–although far fewer than the Germans later claimed
● Germany mastered submarine warfare (U-boats) to intercept the transatlantic movement of Allied supplies and troops

Question 17

~Sinking of Lusitania

Answer 17

● In May 1915, Germany’s sinking of Lusitania, a British ship carrying more than a hundred American passenger, nearly brought an angry US into the war

Question 18

~October Revolution

Answer 18

● Communists seized power and took immediate steps to pull Russia out of the war, freeing large numebrs of German troops for service ont he Western Front, where the balance of force was razor-thin

Question 19

~Spring Offensive

Answer 19

● All-out assault on Paris
● Halted at the Second Battle of the Marne, the Germans were forced into full retreat by August
● Strikes and mutinies in the fall compelled the Ottomans, the Austro-Hungarians, and the Germans to cease fighting in October and November

Question 20

~Total war

Answer 20

● Requiring the near-complete mobilization of populations and resources

Question 21

~Home front

Answer 21

● Became a crucial part of every combatant nation’s war effort, as entire economies were geared for war
● The procurement of raw materials (steel, coal, petroleum, rubber, cloth) was centralized, as was agricultural production and the manufacture of uniforms, weapons, and other military necessities

Question 22

~Rationing

Answer 22

● Of food, fuel and consumer goods becmae increasingly strict, and painfully so by late 1916 and early 1917, when all European belligerents were suffering terrible material shortages

Question 23

~Restriction of civil liberties

Answer 23

● Even in the democracies
● All combatants censored the press and the mail
● Special laws allowed anyone suspected of espionage or treason to be arrested nt reid without due process
● Trade unions and socialist parties were supervised and their activities curtailed
● Even pessimism or an insufficient show of patriotism could get one in trouble
● Men who sought conscentious objectors status were often denied and harassed or ridiculed if they succeeded

Question 24

~Recruitment and conscription

Answer 24

● The war required mass recruitment and then conscription, or hte involuntary drafting of soldiers
● Cause much social stress,including protests and riots
● Imperial powers mobilized large numbers of colonial troops

Question 25

~Role of women

Answer 25

● Some women served on the lines
● A few as uniformed auxiliaries but most as nurses
● Women stepped up in huge numbers to take the place of men on farms nad in factories
● These jobs mostly went back to men when teh war ended
● Granted hte right to vote after the war

Question 26

~Paris Peace Conference

Answer 26

● Lasted from 1919 to 1920
● Drew up treaties for each of hte five Central Powers
● most important was the Treaty of Versailles
● Decisions mainly made by Woodrow Wilson (US) David Lloyd George (B) and Geroges Clemenceau (F)

Question 27

~Treaty of Versailles

Answer 27

● Imposed on Germany in June 1919
● War-guilt clause
● Reparations to pay for the wartime damage
● B adn F feared a future resurgence of Germany and sought to keep it as militarily weak as possible

Question 28

Fourteen Points

Answer 28

● Wilson’s hope to use this as a way to prevent all war in the future
● Freedom of hte seas
● End to secrete treaties, arms reduction, decolonization, the rearragement of borders according to the self-determination of national groups
● Establishment of an international dispute-resulution body called the league of Nations

Question 29

~Mandate system

Answer 29

● Former colonies of the Central Powers were categorized according to their readiness for independnce, and then placed by the League of nations udner long-, medium-, r short-term supervision by nations like Britain and France
● In theory, supervisory powers were meant to guide their mandates to freedom, but in practice this was colonization udner a new name, and in a form that allowed the Europeans to avoid offending Wilson’s anti-colonial sensibilities
● particularly affected Middle East, where the Arab lands became British adn French madnates

Question 30

~Balfour Declration of 1917

Answer 30

● British agreed to help create a Jewish national home in Palestine
● Intended to redress a set of grave injustices, this policy set the stage for an equally grave conflict between Jews and Palestinian Arabs

Question 31

~War-guilt clause

Answer 31

● Laid blame for hte war on Germany and its partners

● Germany suffered loss of territory and population and African and Pacific colonies

Question 32

~Disarmament

Answer 32

● Restricted Germany to a token army of 100,000 and forbade all tanks, military aircraft, warships, and submarines

Question 33

~Reparations

Answer 33

● Germany was requried to pay them of over $32 billion
● Initially, Britian, France, and Belgium wanted their foes to reimburse them not just for damage done, but for the entire cost of the war, a vastly higher amount

Question 34

~League of Nations

Answer 34

● Without the US to lead it

● Proved too feeble to keep peace in the future

Question 35

~Spanish flue/influenza

Answer 35

● Struck during the closing months of WWI

● Lasting until late 1920 and killing at least 25-40 million people

Question 36

~What are the underlying causes of conflict during the first half of the 1900s?

Answer 36

● Aggressive expansion fo empires by Europe and Japan
● Anglo-German geopolitical rivalry
● Ethnic tensions and racial hatred
● Nationalism
● Competition for resources
● International economic stress caused by the Great Depression

Question 37

~What are the long-term causes of WWI?

Answer 37

● Nationalism
● Competition over empire
●Unstable European alliance system

Question 38

~What was the immediate cuase of WWI?

Answer 38

● Blank Hand assassinated Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 in Bosnia
● Austrian government was outraged and decided to use hte event as a pretext to humble its troublesome neighbor, even though its own police concluded that Serbia’s governemnt was not to blame

Question 39

~How did the alliance system draw the entire Europe into war?

Answer 39

● When Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28, Russia and Germany mobilized in the east
● Britian supported its French and Russian partners
● Europe’s major powers were all at war by August 4

Question 40

~What was the reason for the war’s surprisingly protracted length?

Answer 40

● Tactical stalemate that resulted when evenly matched sides deployed the latest in industrial-era technology against each other
● Modern artillery and rifles, along with machine guns, made the battlefield so deadly that traditional tactics, which had climaxed in mass charges against the enemy, were no loner feasible

Question 41

~Where did fighting spread beyond Europe in WWI?

Answer 41

● Britain and France moved against Germany’s possessions in Africa
● Japan and Australia seized its Pacific colonies
● In 1915, the British, with large numbers of Indian, Australian, and New Zealand troops, tried to knock the ottomans out of the war by landing at Gallipoli
● Arab revolt
● Armenian massacres

Question 42

~What was 1917 a year of turning point?

Answer 42

● Germany navy resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, hoping to starve Britain out of the war
● Provoekd the US entry into the war in April
● Russia was collapsing

Question 43

~When did WWI end?

Answer 43

● November 11, 1918

Question 44

~What were the results of the Paris Peace Conference?

Answer 44

● League of Nations
● Dismantling of Austria-Hungary
● Creation fo new nations according to the principle fo self-determination
● Establishment of a complex mandate system to administer the Central Powers’ former imperial possessions

Question 45

~What countries were created as a result of WWI?

Answer 45

● yugoslavia
● Czechoslovakia
● Poland
● Findland
● Latvia
● Lithuania
● Estonia

Question 46

~What were the long-term consequences of WWI?

Answer 46

● Dstruction of four empires
● General decline in European global power
● Instability in Central and Eastern Europe
● Continued decline of hereditary aristocracies
● Growing clout of the middle and lower classes
● Granting of women’s suffrage
● Fuller industrialization of Western economies
● Sense of uncertainty and anxiety in European culture