Gabriela Perez Solano 9B

Summary WWI

The Great War

More than one hundred years ago the first world war started in 1914 by the murder of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sofia Chotek were murdered by a
Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914, this event made the first world war
start. Austria-Hungary accused Serbia of organizing the attack, Russia supports Serbia and
Germany supports Austria-Hungary so the war officially started. One of the main cause was
the imperialism and colonialism developed by the involved powers for decades.

Germany had a military plan called The Schlieffen plan, Their plan was to overcome the
French army by launching a surprise attack from the north in that way they didn’t have to
fight simultaneously in two fronts, after controlling France they would focus in Russia border
and send their troops, The Schlieffen Plan was a fail. Germany declared war to Russia,
when they were trying to enter to Belgium a neutral territory Belgium refused and Germany
declared war to Belgium and United Kingdom which guarantees Belgian neutrality declares
war to Germany, and most European powers were in a war. The trenches were the home
for many soldiers for about three years, they lived in horrible conditions corpses, pools of
poisonous water, rats, disease, gave the soldiers a huge physiological effect, million of
soldiers died in the trenches.

Trenches are dug on both sides for seven hundred kilometers Between the North Sea and
the Switzerland border they were known for its brutal fatality, in the trenches millions of
people died because of the new technology and the new arms both sides used poisonous
gases (mustard gas), Maxim guns, tanks, airships, cannons fighter planes this were the
first aerial battles of the history, and Submarines. Aviation at the begging is used to observe
their opponents but then the used to bomb the other side, the Submarines were used by the
Germans to sink all ships. All British and European colonies were engaged in the war, The
Easter front of Germany was commanded by an old fighting legend Paul Von, and
Ludendorf that later made a military dictatorship.

In May 1915 Germany sinks a British ship called Lusitania causing 1,200 civilian victims
along with one hundred twenty-eight US citizens, Later in 1917 Germany send a telegram
to Mexico saying if Mexico could attack the United States of America but the British
intercepted the message and send it to The United States and that’s finally when the United
States began sending troops to Europe When Germany knew that the United States joined
the war they started the final attack, so they made the French and the Britain surrender
before the Americas arrived but the enemies were getting stronger and stronger, so they
pushed back Germany. In the same year, the Russian Revolution started this made Russia
weaker because of their internal conflicts, Russia suffered more than 1.7 million casualties.
It forced the abdication of the Tsar Nicholas II the Bolsheviks took charge of Russia and
signed the armistice and peace, And finally, Russia was out of the war.

When the United States entered to the war the increased substantially the geopolitical
influence for the United States that was already becoming a major economic power, the
World War I help the United States being a debtor nation to a creditor one.

 
Gabriela Perez Solano 9B

The central powers were losing Germany was pushed back by France, the United States,
and Great Britain but other territories like the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary were forced
to surrender, Germany failed to arrive to Paris so the French and the United States troops
were led by Ferdinand Foch who led them to victory in the Second Battle of the Marne.
The United States president Woodrow Wilson said the United States will only negotiate with
a democratic German government, finally, on November 11, 1918, at 11 o’clock Germany
surrendered, a peace treaty was created named The Treaty of Versailles said that Germany
needed to reduce its military, accept war guilt, and pay the bill for the war, the
consequences of the war were 18 million people died along with 8 million civilians, and
more than 20 million people were wounded, European powers found themselves heavily
indebted to neutral countries, Russia became the USSR, the technology increased and the
Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary break up and created new countries such as Turkey
and Yugoslavia. Germany remained generally intact because there was no fighting on its
territory, and its industry is still standing, the war also left Germany political institutions very
weak, the war involved more than sixty million soldiers around the world. Germany was
really humiliated by the ones who won the war, the treaty propitiated World War 2 and
increased the desire for revenge of Germany. Some of the reasons the war was so deadly
were new technology and outdated tactics, the most devastating technologies were the
machine gun that could kill many people at one time and the barbed wire.

RESOURCES:
Geo History. (2020). La Primera Guerra Mundial - resumen de la “Gran Guerra” (¡Nueva

versión!) [YouTube Video]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwsVJb-ckqM

Geo History. (2018). World War I - summary of the “Great War” (short version) [YouTube

Video]. Retrieved from ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLj5r2nZHB8

Timeline - World History Documentaries. (2018). How A Wrong Turn Started World War 1 |

First World War EP1 | Timeline [YouTube Video]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JsFvcSr7BA

Visual Academy. (2018). World War I in 7 minutes [YouTube Video]. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLeYo2qk00c