Europe Plunges Into War Ch 13 sec. 2

I. The Great War Begins A. Nations Take Sides 1. Triple Entente-the Allied Powers/Allies- Great Britain, France, and Russia

I. The Great War Begins A. Nations Take Sides 2. Triple Alliance- Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy, Ottoman’s

I. The Great War Begins A. Nations Take Sides 3. By August 1914 battle lines were drawn between all sides

I. The Great War Begins A. Nations Take Sides 4. Austria-Hungary and Germany were known as the Central Powers because they were in the center of Europe

I. The Great War Begins A. Nations Take Sides 5. Japan joined the Allies and Italy left the Central Powers and joined the Allies

I. The Great War Begins A. Nations Take Sides 6. Sir Edward Grey, foreign minister, predicted a devastating war.

II.A Bloody Stalemate A. Conflict Grinds Along 1. The deadlock region in Northern France became known as the Western Front

II.A Bloody Stalemate A. Conflict Grinds Along 2. Germany developed the Schlieffen Plan, named after Alfred Graf von Schlieffen. It was designed to fight the war on two fronts; France to the West and Russia to the East; for this plan to work the war needed to end quickly.

II.A Bloody Stalemate A. Conflict Grinds Along 3. In the beginning it looked possible as Germany was within miles of France but the Allies regrouped on September 5 th and stopped the advance at the Marne River

II.A Bloody Stalemate A. Conflict Grinds Along 4. Russia meanwhile was able to invade Germany forcing the Germans to send thousands of troops to the East to fight them off

II.A Bloody Stalemate B. War in the Trenches 1. Trench Warfare- is where soldiers fought from dug in fortified positions trading huge losses of human life for small land gains

II.A Bloody Stalemate B. War in the Trenches 2. Men slept in foul, mud drenched, rat infested trenches

II.A Bloody Stalemate B. War in the Trenches 3. “No man’s land” was the space between the opposing trenches

II.A Bloody Stalemate B. War in the Trenches 4. Stretched 500 miles from the North Sea to the Swiss border

II.A Bloody Stalemate B. War in the Trenches 5. The slaughter reached a peak in 1916 when a combined 300,000 men lost at the battle of Verdun

II.A Bloody Stalemate B. War in the Trenches 6. In the battle of the Somme, in the Verdun Valley, on the first day of fighting the British lost 20,000 men; by the time the Battle of Somme ended in November there were over a half million casualties-total of 9 miles were won and lost

III. The Battle on the Eastern Front A. Early Fighting 1. Eastern Front- War fought along German/Russian border; Germans & Austro- Hung vs. Russian & Serbs

III. The Battle on the Eastern Front A. Early Fighting 2. Russia launched an attack into both Germany & Austria but were repelled by the Germans in Tannenberg; in four days of battle the Russians lost over 30,000 troops