Chapter 15 Notes

THE ROAD TO WORLD WAR I

Nationalism
- In the first half of the nineteenth century, liberals had maintained that the organization
of European states along national lines would lead to a peaceful Europe based on a
sense of international fraternity.
Internal Dissent
- The growth of nationalism in the nineteenth century had yet another serious
consequence.
Militarism
- The growth of large mass armies after 1900 not only heightened the existing tensions
in Europe but made it inevitable that if war did come, it would be highly destructive.
Conscription had been established as a regular practice in most Western countries
before 1914
- Militarism, however, involved more than just large armies. As armies grew, so did the
influence of military leaders, who drew up vast and complex plans for quickly
mobilizing millions of men and enormous quantities of supplies in the event of war.
The Outbreak of War: The Summer of 1914
- Another Crisis in the Balkans
- As we have seen, states in southeastern Europe had struggled to free
themselves from Ottoman rule in the course of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. But the rivalry between Austria-Hungary and Russia for
domination of these new states created serious tensions in the region.
- Declarations of War
- Still smarting from its humiliation in the Bosnian crisis of 1908, Russia was
determined to support Serbia.
THE WAR
1914–1915: Illusions and Stalemate
- Many Europeans went to war in 1914 with remarkable enthusiasm. Government
propaganda had been successful in stirring up national antagonisms before the war.
- War in the West
- German hopes for a quick end to the war rested on a military gamble. The
Schlieffen Plan had called for the German army to proceed through Belgium
into northern France with a vast encircling movement that would sweep
around Paris and surround most of the French army.
- War in the East
 - In contrast to the west, the war in the east was marked by much more
mobility, although the cost in lives was equally enormous.
1916–1917: The Great Slaughter
- Daily Life in the Trenches
- Warfare in the trenches of the Western Front produced unimaginable horrors
- A Global Conflict
- Because the major European powers controlled colonial empires in other
parts of the world, the war in Europe soon became a world war.
- Entry of the United States
- The United States tried to remain neutral in the Great War but found it more
difficult to do so as the war dragged on.

A New Kind of Warfare

- Tanks
- Tanks also appeared on the battlefields of Europe in 1916. The first tank—a
British model—used caterpillar tracks, which enabled it to move across rough
terrain.