World War I: Total War, Fronts and Technologies

World War IFronts, Technologies and Total War

Multiple Layers of Causality• Alliances and Strategic Competition• Nationalism, Imperialism and the instabilities of pseudo-democracy• Industrialism and commercial competition• Regional (Balkan) Instability and unresolved issues• Bad decisions in moments of crisis.

Big Picture

Outbreak of War• 28 June 1914, Bosnian Nationalist assassinates Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife, heirs to the Austrian throne• Serbias involvement assumed. Austrians already considering military action against Serbia.• Germany takes "calculated risk" to support ally and weaken Russian position in Balkans.• Serbians concede most Austrian demands, but Austria declares war prior to military mobilization

• Russians mobilize in reaction, with French support• Austria begins mobilizing against Russia• Word that Russian mobilization has begun arrived oneminute before German mobilization announced.Schlieffen Plan:• 1 August, Germans occupy Luxembourg;• 3 August, Germans violate Belgian neutrality, triggeringBritish defense agreement and British public opinion.• The plan was to turn south; Defeat of France expected totake 6 weeks, while Russia is held off.• German generals and field commanders failed "narrowly" tocarry it out.

Schlieffen Plan

Course of the War

"Home Front": Total War• Full investment of modern bureaucratic state and private resources within the nation.• Total mobilization of people, industry.• Rationing of essentials and non-essentials.• Shift to female factory labor, and employment even for middle-class women; freedom of behavior for women, due to situation and stresses.• Morale-building

Western Front: "No Mans Land"• Machine Gun• Trenches• Barbed Wire• Poison Gas• Airplanes and Airships• Telephone and Radio• Infiltration Units• Tanks• Instant Potatoes and Safety Razors

Eastern Front• Dangers of Radio• Diesel Mobility• Fomenting Insurrection

Ocean Front• Blockade• Submarine Warfare• Aerial Attacks

Public Diplomacy• Propaganda – Highlighting enemy atrocities – Building morale at home• Strategic Alliances: Japan, Italy – Mexico (Zimmerman Telegram)• Fomenting Insurrection – Lenin in Russia – Irish Easter Uprising – Lawrence of Arabia• Wilsons 14 Points

Wilsons Fourteen Points1, open diplomacy 10, Austria-Hungarians given "freest2, freedom of the seas opportunity of autonomous3, freedom of trade development"4, arms reductions 11, realignment of Balkans "along5, colonial self- historically established lines ofdetermination; allegiance and nationality"6-8, German evacuation 12, division of Ottoman empire intofrom Russia, Belgium, Turkish and self-determining peoplesFrance, including Franco- 13, independent PolandPrussian War losses 14, "a general association of nations ...9, Italian national affording mutual guarantees of politicalunification independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike."

Ending the War• Russian Revolution• US involvement• German Resource Exhaustion• Paris Peace Settlement, aka Versailles Treaties – German War Guilt – Reparations – Disbanded German Military – Demilitarized French Border• Breakup of Empires and Mandate System

After the War

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World War I: Total War, Fronts and Technologies

by Jonathan Dresner

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