Chapter 13-2 War Consumes Europe I) The Alliance System Collapses II) A Bloody Stalemate Along the Western Front III) The Battle on the Eastern Front

I) The Alliance System Collapses The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a single terrorist act that set off a chain reaction within the alliance system that would result in the largest war the world had ever seen. The countries of Europe followed through on their numerous and complex pledges to support one another, and as a result, nearly all the nations of Europe were soon drawn into war. Germany quickly put its military plan into effect to avoid a two front war The Schlieffen Plan, named after its designer General Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, called for a large part of the German army to race west to defeat France, then return to fight Russia in the East. Speed was vital and the general figured that Russia, with its lack of railroads, would have trouble mobilizing its troops.

I) The Alliance System Collapses France had troops all along its border with Germany, so the Germans demanded Belgium allow its troops to pass through. Belgium a neutral country, refused, and Germany invaded Belgium, which brought Britain, a close ally of Belgium into the war. The battle lines were clearly drawn, on one side were Germany and Austria-Hungary (Central Powers) On the other side were Great Britain, France and Russia (Allies) Japan joined the Allies within weeks and Italy claimed it’s membership in the triple Alliance had been a defensive strategy and Germany had made an unprovoked attack on Belgium argued the were not obligated to stand by their old ally and joined the other side.

II) A Bloody Stalemate Along the Western Front Early on Germany’s Schlieffen plan worked brilliantly, and by September 3 German troops were on the edge of Paris. The Allied victory at the Marne breaks the back of the Schlieffen Plan, and a quick victory is no longer possible when the Germans are pushed back 60 miles. Germany’s plan for a lightening quick strike had instead failed and by early 1915, the war on the Western Front in northern France had turned into a stalemate.

II) A Bloody Stalemate Along the Western Front Opposing armies had dug miles of parallel trenches to protect themselves from enemy fire (trench warfare) In this type of warfare soldiers fight each other from trenches, trading huge losses for pitifully small land gains. Life in the trenches was pure misery, men slept, washed, ate in mud along with the rats, fresh food and slept were nonexistent. The land between the trenches became know as “no man’s land” where soldiers blew a whistle and ordered the men “over the top”, usually to their death.

II) A Bloody Stalemate Along the Western Front Despite major battles, new weapons (machine guns, poison gas, tanks, larger artillery) neither side advances. The slaughter reached its peak in 1916 when in February the Germans launched a massive attack near Verdun, with both sides losing more than 300,000 men. The British counter attacked in July in the Valley of the Somme River, and by November each side had over a ½ million casualties.

III) The Battle on the Eastern The area between Germany and Russia was known as the Eastern Front Millions of more men were sent to fight, the war was more mobile than the West, but here too slaughter and stalemate were common While Germany gains the upper hand over Russian troops, Austrian army pushes Russia out of Austria-Hungary Without modern technology, the Russian army hangs on through the sheer strength of their numbers. More than 2 million Russian soldiers were killed, wounded or captured in 1915 alone, yet the army continually rebuilt its ranks from the countries enormous population. For more than 3 years the battered Russian army managed to tie up hundreds of thousands of German troops, thus preventing them from hurling its full fighting force west.