Chapter 13 – The Great War

Section 3 – A Global Conflict

Main Idea: WWI spread to several continents and required

the full resources of many governments

Why It Matters Now: The war propelled the US to a new

position of international power, which it holds today
 War Affects the World
• Countries try to find ways to break the
stalemate
• Gallipoli Campaign
– Allies try and take the
Dardanelles, part of the Ottoman
Empire.
• This will beat the Turks and open
a supply line to Russia
– Repeated Allied assaults on
Gallipoli Peninsula, turned into
stalemate/trench war
• Battles in Africa and Asia
– Japan defeats German troops in China and Pacific Islands

– Many colonial countries sent supplies, troops

and other help to their mother countries
• Hoped to gain independence for helping in the
war (Mohandas Gandhi)
 America Joins the War
• 1917- Germany started UNRESTRICTED
SUBMARINE WARFARE
– Subs would sink ships without
warning in water around Britain
– Sink 3 American ships (Already
blew up British Lusitania on
May 7, 1915 killing 128 Americans
and 1,198 civilians)
– Zimmermann Telegram intercepted
by British and given to US.
– April 2, 1917
• President Wilson asks Congress to
declare war on Germany
 War on the Home Front
• Governments wage TOTAL WAR
– Countries devote all their resources to the war effort
– Set up RATIONING where people could buy only small
amounts of certain items, also needed for war

– Govt. used PROPAGANDA (one-sided info designed to

persuade) to keep up morale
– Women work in factories, offices, shops, and hospitals
(where men had once worked)
 Allies Win the War
• US entrance tips the balance
• Russia withdraws
– Russian revolution in
March 1917, no food or fuel, and refusal of army
to fight means no war
• Russia/German truce…Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed in
March 1918
 Central Powers Collapse
• Russian withdraw allows Germany to move
troops to the west for last ditch effort
– Germany gets within 40 miles of Paris but at cost
• Exhausted troops and supplies
– Fresh US troops help push back
– Bulgarians, Ottoman Turks,
Austrian-Hungary (in order)
surrender
– November 9, 1918 Kaiser Wilhelm
II steps down and Germany
becomes a republic
– Armistice signed on
November 11, 1918
• 11/11/11/1918
 Legacy of the War
• New technologies
• Global conflict
• Death and destruction never seen before
– 8.5 million soldiers dead (millions more civilian)
– 21 million wounded
– $338 billion cost of war ($5.5 trillion in today’s
value)
– Acres of land, animals and crops destroyed