THE GREAT WAR (WORLD WAR I)

World War I is an important marker event in modern history because it ushers in a new era in which the global framework changed dramatically. It also marks the collapse of European hegemony that had been solidly in place during the 1750-1914 era.

CAUSES

The onset of war in 1914 resulted from years of tensions among European nations:

1) Nationalism - During the 19th century the identities of many European peoples intensified greatly. This nationalism set the stage for World War I in two ways:

• National rivalries - The unification of Germany threatened to topple the balance of power that had existed in Europe since the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815. The competition took many forms: industrialization, a naval race, arms build-ups, and colonial disputes over territories. In 1870, Britain controlled about 1/3 of the world's industrial output, and Germany only about 13%. By 1914 Britain had dropped to 14%, putting it roughly comparable to Germany . (The U.S. was taking a huge percentage by 1914). Britain 's great dreadnought ships were challenged as Germany began to build its own super battleships and develop an impressive submarine fleet. France and Russia joined the arms buildup as all countries beefed up armies, equipment, and weapons. When one increased their military, the others would try to match and outdo the others. Colonial disputes broke out all over the globe: Britain and Russia over Persia and Afghanistan ; Britain and France over Siam and the Nile River Valley ; Britain and Germany in east and southwest Africa ; Germany and France over Morocco and West Africa .
• Nationalist aspirations - Inherent in nationalism is self-determination, the right to form states based on ethnicity, language, and/or political ideals. This part of nationalism is apparent in the unification of Germany and Italy , and in the separation of Belgium from the Netherlands . However, in eastern Europe, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire resisted nationalist demands. Both empires confronted the nationalist aspirations of Slavic people: Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Most menacing of all were the Serbs, who were encouraged by Russia 's support and promotion of Pan-Slavism, a movement to unite all Slavic people.

2) Entangling Alliances - As countries and empires built their arms, they looked to one another for support and protection. Two hostile camps emerged, bound by treaties that stated conditions under which nations would go to war with one another in order to improve their chances for self-preservation. The two major alliances were the Triple Entente ( Russia , England , and France) vs. the Triple Alliance ( Germany , Austria-Hungary , and Italy ). The allies generally had a common hatred for one or more or the countries on the other side.

SPARK FOR THE WAR

In June 1914 all of Europe was an armed camp, and rivalries were very intense. The war was precipitated by Gavrilo Princip, a member of a Serbian nationalist group known as the Black Hand. When he assassinated Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, he set in motion a series of events in which one country after the other declared war on another. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia , who had an alliance with Russia . Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary, requiring Germany to declare war on Russia. And so the domino effect continued so that by August a local conflict had become a general European war.

NATURE OF THE WAR

World War I is often defined by the optimism that countries had going into the war in contrast to the horror, shock, and slaughter that traumatized them by the time the war ended in 1918. The balance of power struck in 1815 had been strong enough to delay conflict so that no one alive in 1914 could remember the devastation of war, and almost every nation glorified the excitement of war. The two sides settled into the Allied Powers-(England, France, Russia, and Italy (who switched sides at the last minute); and the Central Powers; Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The war was fought on two fronts:

• Western Front - The Western Front followed a line between France and Germany through Belgium The French and British fought on one side against the Germans, eventually joined by Americans in 1917. The war bogged down quickly, with both sides digging trenches, and fighting from them until the war ended in 1918. The stalemate occurred partly because new technology-- machine guns and poison gas-- made any offensive attack so lethal that the army had to retreat to trenches. Attacks were followed by counter-attacks that resulted in huge casualties. It literally got to the point where each side simply hoped that the other would run out of young men first. Indeed that happened when the United States entered the war, and Germany could not match the combined forces on the Western Front.
• Eastern Front - The Eastern Front was on the opposite side of Germany from the Western Front. There Germany and Austria-Hungary fought Russia along a much more fluid battle line. The Central Powers overran Serbia, Albania, and Romania. The Russians took the offensive in Prussia, but by the summer of 1915 combined Germany and Austrian forces drove the Russian armies back eastward across Poland, and eventually back into Russia's borders. Russia's armies were poorly led and badly equipped, with the tsar sending men into battle without guns, food, or shoes. Mass desertions and loss of confidence in the tsar led to chaos in Russia, where a communist-inspired group called the Bolsheviks eventually took over the government and assassinated the tsar.

Russia withdrew from the war in 1917, releasing German soldiers to transfer to the Western Front, but U.S. soldiers supplemented French and British soldiers there so that the stalemate was finally broken, with the armistice occurring in November 1918. The net effect of the war was the slaughter of a huge portion of a generation of young men, primarily from Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, England, and France. Arguably, Europe never fully recovered from the loss.

THE VERSAILLES TREATY

The "Great War" is a marker event in world history because it is the first in a series of events that led to declining European power and ascending power for the United States and Japan. However, the Versailles Treaty at the end of the war is almost as important event as the war itself because it changed the nature of international relations and set the stage for World War II.

Although 27 nations gathered at Versailles Palace in France in 1919 to shape a treaty, men from three nations dominated the proceedings: David Lloyd George from Britain, Georges Clemenceau from France, and Woodrow Wilson from the United States. Russia, who had pulled out of the war in 1917, was not represented. Woodrow Wilson came to the meetings with his plan, called the Fourteen Points, which was grounded in two important principles:

• Self determination -Wilson's document asserted the need to redraw the map of Europe and the old Ottoman Empire along the lines of self determination, allowing groups based on nationalism to determine their own governments.
• The need for an international peace organization - The Congress of Vienna had created the Concert of Europe in 1815, an organization of European nations bound to keep the balance of power in the region. Wilson's vision was broader, in that he advocated a worldwide organization charged with keeping the peace and avoiding another war like the one that had just occurred.

Britain and France came to Versailles with different motivations. After all, their countries had suffered a great deal more from the war than the United States had. For example, whereas Britain lost almost a million young men and France lost almost 1,400,000, the United States lost only about 115,000. A great deal of the war was fought on French soil, and so France suffered devastation of cities and countryside, and even French people who were not soldiers experienced the war first hand. As a result, George and Clemenceau were less idealistic than Wilson. Revenge and control of Germany, who was a more immediate threat to them than to the United States - were more important to them.

The treaty that resulted was a compromise among the three countries. The many provisions include these important ones:

• Germany lost land along all borders, including Alsace-Lorraine and the Polish Corridor
• German military forces were severely restricted and a demilitarized zone was created along lands bordering France and Belgium.
• Germany had to pay very high reparations for war to specific Allied Powers.
• An international organization called the League of Nations was created.
• Germany's overseas possessions were placed under the control of the League, remaining as mandates until they were ready for independence.
• The map of Eastern Europe was redrawn along ethnic lines, recreating the country of Poland, and creating Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria, and Hungary. Austria-Hungary as a political empire was destroyed.
• Although the Ottoman Empire was dismantled as well, the resulting pieces were designated as mandates, not independent countries.

The treaty was a fiasco that satisfied almost no one and infuriated many. The Turks and Arabs of the former Ottoman Empire, as well as people of Germany's colonies, couldn't understand why eastern European countries were created as independent countries and they weren't. What's more the British occupied many areas of the Middle East, and did not leave once the treaty was signed. The League of Nations excluded Germany and Russia from membership, and the United States Senate failed to ratify the treaty and never joined the League. As a result, the international peace organization had very limited authority from the beginning. However, the most immediate reaction came from Germany, who saw the treaty as unfairly blaming them for the war and punishing them so severely that they could not recover. Their discontent provided fertile grounds for the rise of a demagogue that of course happened in due time.