2. The War was bound to come
Germany Russia
- Best trained - Badly equiped
- Plan Schlieffen: quickly attack and - Plan: Overwhelm Germany with a
defeat France to be able to turn its troops to huge number of soldiers
Russia on time
army
France
Great Britain
- Large and well-equiped army
- British Expeditionary Force (BEF):
- Plan 17: quickly attack Germany well-equipped and trained soldiers that
through the frontier and force its would fight alongside with the French
surrender
3. I World War Stages
1914: War of Movement
1914-16: The Attrition War
1917: USA in, Russia out
1918: The Allies Victory
5. 1914: War of Movement
• 4 August, following the
Schlieffen Plan, Germany
invaded Belgium
• Belgium resistance
bought time for British
and French troops to
mobilise
• British and French troops
stopped German advance
along the line of the River
Marne.
A cartoon from Punch
6. 1914: War of Movement
• Surprisingly, Russia
quickly mobilised its
troops and invaded East
Prussia
• Germany was caught in
two fronts
• Germany stopped the
Russian advance in the
Battle of Tannenberg
8. 1915-16: The War of Attrition
• By the end of 1914, the
fighting has reached an
stalemate.
• Troops were dug into a
line of trenches that
stretched from the
Atlantic coast to the Alps.
• The War of Attrition had
begun.
9. War of Attrition
• Both military forces are • The side who can not
in static defensive stand the losses would
position in trenches not be defeated.
being able to maneuvre.
• The objective of this
warfare is to crush the
enemy by repeated
attack and defeat him
by exceeding its
number of soldiers and
materials.
10. Fighting Technology
Artillery
• Scientific advances made artillery more powerful.
• Its accuracy converted it on a key weapon.
• It pounded trenches with hundreds of shells.
Trenches
• Static war forced to transform simple shelters into complex defensive
systems.
• Most of the time soldiers spent time digging new trenches, on sentry
duties and watching time go by until the next charge.
Infrantry charge
• If enough soldiers charged, no matter how many would be killed or
wounded on the way by machine guns, there would still be enough
men alive to capture the enemy trenches.
11.
12.
13. Fighting Technology
Poison Gas
• Used for the first time in 1915 by the Germans.
• At first it was used only to disable enemy troops but later
lethal gases such as mustard gas were developed.
• Mustard gas burned, blinded or slowly killed the victim in
less of 5 weeks.
• Gas masks were also invented while soldiers lived in
constant fear.
Tanks
• British invention to advance ahead of infantry, crushing
barbed-wire defenses and shooting the enemy.
14.
15. 1915-16: The War of Attrition
• Italy entered the war on • Battle of Somme: 4
the side of the Allies. months and a half; 1, 25
New front between Italy million casualties = little
and Austria-Hungary. advance
• Battle of Verdun: 6
months, 700000
casualties= little
advance
16. 1915-16: The Triple Alliance Advances
• Germany occupied • Romania entered the
Poland and Lithuania. war on the side of the
• Austria-Hungary Allies but is occupied by
occupied Serbia the Central Powers.
• Bulgaria entered the • The French disembark
war on the side of the in Greece
Central Powers
18. Blockade: trying to prevent the enemy from
getting essential supplies
Great Britain Germany
• Blockaded German ports to • U-boat campaing: submarine
strangle its industry and warfare against all ships
economy suspected to be carrying goods
to Great Britain
19. 1917: The Turning Point
German U-boat
USA was
Campaign +
neutral but USA enters
alliance with
supplied the war
Mexico against
Allies
USA
Lenin
Communist
takes Russia leaves the
Revolution war (Brest-Litovsk Treaty
over
in Russia 1918)
power
20.
21. USA’s entrance in the war provided:
• Fresh troops (10,000
soldiers a day in 1917)
• Battleships and
submarines
• Artillery and supplies
• Loans of millions of
dollars
22. Russia leaving the war meant:
• The Treaty of Brest-
Litovsk ceded the
Baltic
Provinces, Finland, pa
rts of Poland and
Ukraine to the
Central Powers.
• Germany was able to
transfer hundreds of
thousands of troops
back to the Western
Front.
23.
24. 1918: The end of the war
• The Allies blockade had • On August the Allies, with
starved German economy fresh troops and best
and population. supplies, counterattacked
• Germany was able to and made Germany
transfer troops from the retreat.
Eastern to the Western
front. • 11 November 1918 the
• Germany launches the Armistice was signed. The
“Ludendorff Offensive”: War was over.
bombardment, gas
attack, storm troops to
break the line of
trenches.
28. The War is Over!
Can anything be
stupider than that a
man has the right to kill
me because he lives on
the other side of a river
and his ruler has a
quarrel with
mine, though I have not
quarrelled with him?
(Blaise Pascal)
29. When people don’t understand
that the government doesn’t
have their interests in
mind, they’re more susceptible
to go to war. (Howard Zinn)
30. You can’t say civilization
don’t advance—for in
every war, they kill you in
a new way. (Will Rogers)
31. Historically, the most terrible things– war, genocide, and slavery–
have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.
(Howard Zinn)
