1. World War I

2. Causes of World War I
World War I ( ) was caused by competition among industrial nations in Europe and a failure of diplomacy. The war transformed European and American life, wrecked the economies of Europe, and planted the seeds for a second world war.
Alliances that divided Europe into competing camps
Nationalistic feelings
Diplomatic failures (failure to create agreements between nations)
Imperialism
Competition over colonies
Militarism

3. Causes of World War I M.A.N.I.A.C.S Militarism
Alliances divided Europe
Nationalism (desire for war)
Imperialism
Alliances caused diplomatic Failures
Competition for colonies in Africa/Asia
Serbian assassination of Archduke Ferdinand

4. Expanded Information
In the years before WWI two powerful alliances, the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Great Britain, France and Russia) Formed.
Nationalist feelings in Serbia provided the “Spark” that started the war. Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian Nationalist named Gavrilo Princip who hoped the assassination would help to build a “Greater Serbia” that united all the Slavic people in the region.
As imperialist European countries tried to gain access to new markets and raw materials they encourage the growth of militarism.
Militarism is the glorifying of war and relying on military strength to solve problems. Before WWI, many European countries began stockpiling weapons and building up their militaries.

5. Major Events/Leadership WWI
Assassination of Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand. June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by a Serbian nationalist. Ferdinand’s death activated a chain of alliances and led to world war.
United States enters the war. The U.S. remained neutral for three years but finally entered the war on the Allies side in 1917 as a direct result of the German use of submarine warfare.
Woodrow Wilson- President of the U.S. during WWI
Russia leaves the war. Vladimir Lenin arranged, in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, for Russia to end her involvement in WWI.
Kaiser Wilhelm II- The leader of Germany during WWI.

6. U.S. Enters War
When the war first started in 1914 the U.S. declared neutrality.
The U.S. entered the war for the following reasons:
Zimmerman telegram
Sinking of the Lusitania
Sinking of 4 U.S. merchant ships in April 1917

7. Lusitania
On May 1, 1915, the ship departed New York City bound for Liverpool. Unknown to her passengers but probably no secret to the Germans, almost all her hidden cargo consisted of munitions and contraband destined for the British war effort.
May 7, a torpedo fired by the German submarine slammed into her side. A mysterious second explosion ripped the liner apart. Chaos reigned. Within 18 minutes the giant ship slipped beneath the sea. One thousand one hundred nineteen of the 1,924 aboard died. The dead included 114 Americans.

8. Zimmerman Telegram
January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. This message helped draw the United States into the war and thus changed the course of history.
The American press published news of the telegram on March 1. On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress formally declared war on Germany and its allies.

9. Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles ended WWI with Germany forced to:
Accept guilt for the war
Give up territory (such as the territories of Alsace and Lorraine to France and land in eastern Germany to Poland)
Limited the German military
League of Nations

10. Outcomes and Global Effect
Colonies’ participation in the war, which increased demands for independence.
End of the Russian Imperial, Ottoman, German, and Austro- Hungarian empires.
Enormous cost of the war in lives, property, and social disruption.

11. Russian Revolutions
Tsarist Russia entered World War I as an absolute monarchy with sharp class divisions between the nobility and peasants. The grievances of workers and peasants were not resolved by the Tsar. Inadequate administration in World War I led to revolution and an unsuccessful provisional government. A second revolution by the Bolsheviks created the communist state that ultimately became the U.S.S.R.
Defeat in war with Japan in 1905
Landless peasantry
Incompetence of Tsar Nicholas II
Military defeats and high casualties in World War I

12. Rise of Communism
Bolshevik Revolution and civil war. In October 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government established after Tsar Nicholas II Stepped down in March Civil war broke out between the Communists known as the Bolsheviks. The communists won creating the U.S.S.R.
Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Plan that allowed for some free enterprise but left heave industry, banking and mining in the hands of the government. The NEP replaced the policy known as War Communism that Lenin adopted during the Civil War.
Joseph Stalin- After Lenin died in 1924 a power struggle began over who would be his successor. Ultimately, Stalin emerged as the clear leader of the U.S.S.R.