World War I: Conclusion

1. World War I: Conclusion

2. Why did the US get Involved in this European war?

3. Many Americans wanted to stay neutral. They saw no reason to get into a war that was 3,000 miles away, with no real threat to America's shores.

4. Others were in favor of joining the war. Many Americans had direct ties to Great Britain, because of common ancestry and language.

5. Also, while in Belgium, the German military had murdered entire villages of Belgian civilians, (called the Rape of Belgium,) increasing American sympathy for the Allies.

6. More important, America's businesses traded with the Allied nations far more than with Germany and the Central Powers. Before the war, US trade with Britain and France doubled its trade with Germany. During the first two years of the war, trade with France and Britain increased even more, and trade with Germany decreased further. From 1914 on, trade with the Allies quadrupled, while trade with Germany fell to almost zero.

7. Also, American banks loaned $2.3 billion to the Allies to help them fight the war. If the Allies lost, it would be hard to get that money back. Many American business leaders said that US prosperity depended on Allied victory.

8. Meanwhile, British propaganda encouraged Americans to fear the Germans and help the Allies.

11. In 1915, Germany announced that the water around Great Britain was off limits to any ship. They declared "unrestricted submarine warfare," and said they would sink any ship that came near the island nation of Great Britain. What were they trying to accomplish, strategically?

12. The weapons the Germans used were called U-boats (unterseeboots.) They were submarines, and they used torpedoes to sink ships…a lot of them.

13. May 7, 1915, a British passenger ship called the Lusitania was off the coast of Ireland. A German U-boat torpedoed and sank the ship, killing 1,198 people. The problem for Germany: 128 of them were Americans.

16. The German government knew the US was close to declaring war against them. They sought to find a way to keep the US out of Europe. January 17, 1916, a German Ambassador sent a telegram proposing that Germany strike an alliance with Mexico. If Mexico would attack the US, Germany would give them Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.

17. This was called the Zimmermann Note. It was intercepted by British spies and published in American newspapers. The people of the US cried for war against Germany, and on April 2, 1917, the US declared war.

19. 1917 was a roller coaster year for the Allies. After a disastrous slaughter at Chemin des Dames, almost half of the French army left the front lines and refused to fight. This was called the Mutinies of 1917.

20. Then, as starvation and chaos swept through Russia, the king, Tsar Nicolas II, was overthrown by V.I. Lenin, and a Communist government was established. Lenin then pulled Russia out of the war, allowing Germany to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the Western Front.

21. The only thing that saved the Allies was the arrival of the US. Led by General John "Blackjack" Pershing, over 2 million American "Doughboys" would eventually fight. Their numbers and enthusiasm turned the tide of the war.

22. At the Battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918, a brigade of US Marines overcame the Germans and started to push them back. August 8, 1918, the German army, out of supplies and running out of men, ran away from their lines. This is called the "Black Day of the German Army."

24. In the fall, the king of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, gave up the throne and fled the country. The new German government opened negotiations for a peace treaty.

25. November 11, 1918, World War I ends with an armistice, or cease-fire. The treaty that ended World War I, the Versailles Treaty, was signed nearly a year later.

26. What did the Versailles Treaty say? 1. Nine new nations were established in Europe, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

29. Versailles Treaty provisions continued: 2. Germany was not allowed to have an army. 3. Germany had to give Alsace and Lorraine back to France, and pay them a huge amount of reparations: money paid to repair war damage. 4. The war-guilt clause forced Germany to admit that WWI was their fault, and only their fault, humiliating and angering the German people.

30. The results of World War I: 1. 22 million people were killed, about half of them civilians. 2. The war cost the nations involved an estimated $338 billion. 3. An entire generation of European young men were dead or destroyed. 4. An angry and humiliated Germany would start World War II about 20 years later. 5. The League of Nations was started as a world police force. It failed.

31. Results of the war in the US: 1. With men gone to the war, women took factory jobs in huge numbers. In return for their contribution to the war effort, they would receive the right to vote in 1920 with the 19th Amendment. 2. America became the dominant industrial power of the world. 3. Contributed to the movement of African-Americans to the North: the Great Migration. 4. Intensified anti-immigrant and anti-Communist sentiments among some Americans.

32. New killing technology of World War I: 1. Machine guns

33. 2. Tanks

35. 3. Gas warfare

36. And this new technology created new types of wounds: Poison Gas:

37. Trench Foot:

38. Shell Shock:

39. Famous people of World War I: 1. Eddie Rickenbacker was the most famous American Ace of WWI. He had 26 kills and won the Medal of Honor.

40. 2. The most famous German Ace was Baron Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron. He had 84 kills.

41. 3. France's most famous pilot was Eugene Bullard, the Black Bird of Death.

42. 4. Tennessean Alvin York single-handedly destroyed multiple German machine gun nests and took 132 German prisoners of war. He is commonly considered to be America's greatest war hero.

44. So, why did the US get involved in World War I, on the side of the Allies? 1. The US had common ancestry with Britain. 2. The US was trading a lot more with the Allies than with the Central Powers. 3. US banks wanted to protect the money they loaned to the Allies. 4. British propaganda. 5. The Zimmermann Telegram. 6. German U-boats killing Americans