Paper 2:
Causes Practices and Effects of War
Case Study:
World War One
First World War (1914-1918) = The Great War =
The War to End all Wars = Total War
Long Term Causes: [ANIMAL]
Awful Governments
· Few countries were democracies – many were autocracies
· Italy was corrupt
· Germany – Wilhelm was mad
· Russia – tsar was weak
· Turkey – was falling apart
Nationalism - the belief that your country is better than others. This meant nations were assertive and aggressive.
· Intense national pride
· Many peoples wanted self-determination
· Panslavism
· Weltpolitik
o Weltpolitik or the extremely aggressive German colonial expansion policy
o Policy leads to the arms and naval races as well as rivalry between Britain and Germany
· Franco-Prussian war
o Alsace-Lorraine was lost to Germany angered the French who believed this was a part of France and wanted the territory back
Imperialism - the desire to conquer colonies, especially in Africa. This brought the powers into conflict - especially Germany, which wanted an empire, against France and Britain, which both already had empires.
· British Empire covered a fifth of the world
· Belief in superiority
· Fight for resources mainly in Asia and Africa, but also Latin America and Middle East
· Wilhelm wanted ‘a place in the sun’
Militarism - (Arms Race) - where military concerns influence a country's policy, especially the attempt to build up a strong army and navy. This gave the nations the means and the will to make war.
· Germany’s Navy Law 1900 - committed Germany to building up a navy capable of competing with the Royal Navy of Britain.
· Germany’s Schlieffen Plan – was no secret that Germany had plans to attack France through Belgium (Russia mobilized faster than Germany anticipated, drawing German resources away from Western Front and creating a stalemate in France)
· Plan XVII: French plan to regain Alsace-Lorraine Entirely offensive
· Britain’s War Plan: Planned to send the British Expeditionary Force to Belgium if Belgium Neutrality was violated
· Austria-Hungary Plans B and R: Plan B was to keep the war in the Balkans and Plan R was to be prepared to fight Russia
· Plan G: Russian plan for full-scale war against Germany
· Standing, professionally trained armies
· Military was not just an arms race, it was a valid means of foreign policy
· New Weapons - Submarines, dreadnoughts, zeppelins, airplanes, tanks, machine guns, etc
Alliances - in 1882, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy formed the Triple Alliance. Alarmed, France and Britain in 1904, then Russia in 1907, formed the Triple Entente. Thus Europe was divided into two armed camps, obliged to help each other if there was a war.
· European countries thought alliance system would be a deterrent to war
· Triple Alliance
· Triple Entente
· Assassination and ‘blank cheque’ lead to ultimatum
Short Term Causes
List of Events: [Beasts Fabricate Decisions Because Dads Assume Bad Activities]
During 1900-1914, the great powers of Europe clashed a number of times. Each of these events increased international tension and rivalry, and made war more likely. War was going to come sooner or later.
1. Boer War 1899-1902 / Germany opposed Britain's attempt to defeat the Boers in South Africa.2. First Moroccan crisis 1905 / Kaiser Wilhelm promised to support the sultan of Morocco against France's attempts to take over the country.
3. 'Daily Telegraph' article 1908 / In a newspaper interview, Kaiser Wilhelm said the English were mad and the Germans hated them. This caused great offence in Britain.
4. Bosnia 1908 / Austria annexed Bosnia in the Balkans from Turkey. This annoyed Serbia, which had wanted to take over the area. Russia wanted to help Serbia, but had to back down.
5. Dreadnought crisis 1909 / Scared by the growing German navy, the British people demanded that the government build eight of the new Dreadnought battleships.
6. Agadir 1911 / There was a revolution in Morocco, so France sent an army to take over. Kaiser Wilhelm sent the gunship 'Panther', but Britain and France forced him to back down.
7. Balkan Wars 1912-1913 / Serbia and other countries in the Balkans conquered most of Turkey's land in Europe. Serbia became a powerful country, and said Austria-Hungary was its next target.
8. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand 1914 / The heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary was shot by GavriloPrincip, a young Serb terrorist, in Sarajevo in Bosnia.
Events and consequences
1. The Boer War, the 'Daily Telegraph' article and the Dreadnought crisis made the British public hate the Germans.
2. The first Moroccan crisis and Agadir made France think that Germany wanted to destroy its empire.
3. The Dreadnought crisis showed that the British thought Germany wanted to challenge the British navy.
4. Bosnia, the Balkan Wars and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand made Austria-Hungary determined to destroy Serbia.
5. Bosnia made Russia determined to support the Serbs.
6. The Balkan Wars made Austria-Hungary frightened of Serbia.
7. The Boer War made Britain think that Germany wanted to destroy its empire.
8. Agadir made Germany determined to stand up to France and Britain.
Immediate Causes
Assassination at Sarajevo/ 1. Sarajevo was in Bosnia, the province that - to Serbia's anger - had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908.
2. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. He was inspecting the army in Sarajevo with his wife Sophie. The royal couple arrived by train at 9.28am.
/ 3. Seven young Bosnian Serbs planned to assassinate Franz Ferdinand as he drove along the main road in Sarajevo, the Appel Quay.
4. The first conspirator who tried to kill Franz Ferdinand was Nedeljko Cabrinovic - he threw a bomb at his car. He missed and was arrested.
/ 5. The Archduke escaped unhurt and went to the town hall. He decided to abandon the visit and return home via a different route to the one planned. The royal couple left the town hall immediately.
6. No one had told the driver the route had changed. On the way back, therefore, the driver turned into Franz Josef Street, following the published route and, when told of his error, stopped the car to turn around.
/ 7. Unfortunately, the car stopped in front of Gavrilo Princip, one of the conspirators, who was on his way home thinking he had failed.
8. Princip pulled out a gun and shot at Franz Ferdinand, hitting him in the jugular vein. There was a tussle, during which Princip shot and killed Sophie. By 11.30am, Franz Ferdinand had bled to death.
The steps to war 1914
If it was a Serbian who shot an Austrian, why did Germany, Russia, France and Britain become embroiled in a war? Why couldn't Serbia and Austria-Hungary sort out their own problems? Was Germany really to blame for the war? Alliances
Steps to war
July 23rd / The Austrian government sends the Serbian government an ultimatum.
July 25th / The Serbians accept all the conditions except one - that Austrian police should be allowed into Serbia.
July 28th / Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.
July 30th / The Russian army is mobilized.
August 1st / Germany declares war on Russia.
August 3rd / Germany declares war on France and, following the Schlieffen Plan, attacks Belgium.
August 4th / Britain keeps the promise made in a treaty of 1839 to defend Belgium, and declares war on Germany.
Technology
New Kind of Warfare
· WWI saw death and destruction on a scale never experienced before
· Technological developments were seen as vital to both sides, but each new weapon brought further destruction
· No one invention was decisive though as both sides quickly copied each other
Defensive War
· Development of new weapons technology meant WWI became a defensive war
· The development of machine guns made traditional methods of attack impossible
· Attempts to break the stalemate with heavy artillery failed, so both sides turned to new technology
Gas
· Poison chlorine gas was first used by the Germans at Ypres in 1915
· The main weakness was that the wind could blow it back towards your own side
o 1st - Chlorine gas, which was used at the battle of Ypres in 1915, killing thousands
o 2nd - Phosgene gas
o 3rd - Mustard gas - burned the lungs of the inhaler leaving them to die in agony. Gas masks were issued to everyone in the country, but they weren’t so useful and many people died.
Tanks
· Tanks were developed by the British and used in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme
· Were initially very unreliable – breaking down – and horrible to drive
· ‘The Chariots of God’
· 5 kilometers per hour
· Battle of Amiens - British sent 525 tanks, and after four days, only 25 were left in working order.
· Huge propaganda and morale boost, and proved to be very effective by the end of the war
Sea
· New and more powerful battleships – dreadnaughts – were developed but only involved at Jutland
· German submarines (uboats) were a great threat, causing serious disruption
· Following Lloyd George’s insistence, the convoy system was introduced
Air
· Planes were initially used for reconnaissance and dropping bombs by hand, but technological developments such as fixed machine guns made dogfights and attacks on enemy trenches possible
· German airships called Zeppelins began to bomb London and other cities
Machine guns
· first used in the American Civil War
· 600 bullets a minute (the equivalent of 250 men with rifles),
· ‘weapons of mass destruction’
Artillery
· upgraded versions of cannons
· British = firing 170 million shells in that time
· ‘Big Bertha’- fire at the heart of Paris from 120 kilometers away
· High-explosive shells were developed
Transportation
· British forces - train, lorries and even taxis.
· They transported 500 men in 1914
· 250 taxis took the reserve troops to the Battle of the marne
Communication
· radios and telephones were the main ways of communication
· messengers, dogs and pigeons also used
Tactics
The Schlieffen Plan
Germany had been preparing for war long before 1914. In fact, Germany had started drawing up a plan for war - the Schlieffen Plan - in 1897. It took nine years to finalize, but it was based on the theory that Germany would be at war with France and Russia at the same time. It did not prepare for many of the events that occurred in July and August 1914.
The Schlieffen Plan
Germany's plan for war was the Schlieffen Plan. It was based on the belief that, if the country went to war, Germany would be faced with a war on two fronts with France and Russia.
© The plan assumed that France was weak and could be beaten quickly, and that Russia was much stronger, but would take longer to mobilize its army.
© The plan began to go wrong on 30 July 1914, when Russia mobilized its army, but France did not. Germany was forced to invent a pretext to declare war on France (3 August 1914).
© Things got worse when Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914 because, in a Treaty of 1839, Britain had promised to defend Belgium.
Extra facts
· The plan was the work of the German army chief-of-staff Alfred von Schlieffen.
· It took nine years to devise - it was started in 1897, presented in 1905, and revised in 1906.
· The plan imagined a huge hammer-blow at Paris, using 90 per cent of the German army, swinging down through Belgium and northern France, to take out France in a quick, decisive campaign.
· It was a plan of attack - for Germany, mobilization and war were the same thing.
· It was Germany's only plan for war.
· It did not plan for a situation where Germany was at war with Russia, but not with France. When the German chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg asked: "Is the Fatherland in danger?", the German general Moltke declared: "Yes".
· In the event, Russia took only ten days to mobilize, and Moltke was forced to send some troops to the eastern front, which weakened the main attack on Paris.
· When the German army asked permission to go through Belgium on 2 August 1914, the Belgians refused, so the German army had to fight its way through Belgium. This slowed it down and tired the soldiers.
· Britain's decision to uphold the 1839 Treaty with Belgium amazed the Germans. "For a scrap of paper, Great Britain is going to make war?" said the amazed Bethmann-Hollweg.
· In the event, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) arrived to resist the Germans, and held them up at the Battle of Mons on 23 August 1914. With his army exhausted and many of his best forces killed, Moltke was defeated at the battle of the Marne on 6-10 September 1914. "Sir, we have lost the war," he told the Kaiser.
Conditions
· Conditions in the trenches were unimaginably bad
· Constant fear of attack, stench of dead bodies and site of rats feeding on corpses
· Bitterly cold in winter, horribly hot in summer
· Trenches were mainly in low-lying land, so soldiers were often up to knees in water or sewage, leading to trench foot
Mental Torture
· For much of the time life was boring, on guard duty or repairing or digging trenches
· When fighting took place casualties were great
· Shelling, gas attacks and conditions led to nervous breakdowns. Initially soldiers were shot for refusal to obey orders, but later shell-shock was officially recognized
Frontlines
· It was clear defense was far easier than offense