Jeremy Keeshin

World War I Study Guide

War of attrition is the idea of having a war whose goal is not to gain more territory, but
to wear the other side down with heavy casualties. The significance was that World War I
was a war of attrition, and because of that the death rate was outrageously high and each
country lost lots of resources.

Mobilization was the process of getting ready for war and assembling the military and
the necessary troops. Mobilization was significant because it was almost an act of war,
and mobilization of different countries caused others to declare war and so forth.

Brinksmanship was the practice of threatening to go to war to see who would in a sense
not step back. The reason brinksmanship was significant was because the one time a
country did not step back was the time the war actually started.

Nationalism was loyalty and a feeling of duty to ones country. Nationalism was
significant because it was one of the driving forces that caused the war because as
countries developed nationalist feelings, it gave them an incentive to protect and win was
they felt was theirs.

The Schlieffen Plan was a war strategy designed by Alfred von Schlieffen to help
Germany fight a two-front war versus France and Russia. They would send most of their
troops to France initially for the quick wipe out, and then transfer all of them to Russia
hoping to win there also. The significance of the Schlieffen Plan was that its failure
caused Germany to need to stay in the war and continue battle with other countries.

The Black Hand was a Serbian terrorist organization that wanted to free Bosnia from
Austria Hungary and therefore was responsible for the assassination of Archduke Francis
Ferdinand. The Black Hand was significant because its assassination was an immediate
cause of the war.

No Man’s Land was the area in trench warfare between the two trenches. The reason this
area was significant because if a soldier entered he most likely was not coming back, and
this was responsible for many deaths during the war.

Verdun was a city near Paris, which was the location of a major German attack on
France. The significance of Verdun was that is was the bloodiest battles of the war and
around 700,000 men got killed at this battle.

Unrestricted Submarine Warfare was a practice used by the Germans in which they
used U-boats to sink passenger liners such as the Lusitania as well as naval ships. This
was significant because it marked a new stage in warfare, which broke some of the
unwritten rules of war.
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Gallipoli was a city near Constantinople in which a battle took place where the Allies
tried to gain land but lost miserably. Gallipoli was significant because of the major Allied
losses that caused them to retreat.

The Armenians were an ethnic group who were the victims of genocide during the war.
They were significant because the killings showed the pure brutality of the war.

The Soviets were a council made of deputies from the working and military class in
Russia. They were significant because they symbolized the ideas in Russia and the
change it was to experience in the near future.

War Communism was the practice of having the government control the banks and other
industries and the centralization of the government. This was significant as it was a
communist tactic used to manipulate the citizens and get communist ideas across.

Bolsheviks were a specific soviet group under Lenin who were determined to have a
violent revolution and eventually to overthrow the Provisional Government in Russia.
They were significant because that is what they did and eventually became the ruling
party soon to be renamed the Communists.

The Fourteen Points was an outline by Woodrow Wilson of his idealist view of the best
peace settlement possible including that a country should have self-determination along
with other things. This was significant because helped show a different view to the
situation along with calling for the creation of the League of Nations.

Mandates were the systems set up by the League of Nations to figure out a way to rule
other territories that were lost by the Central Powers in the war. They were significant
because they exhibited the power that these winning nations had to organize land as they
pleased.

The League of Nations was a group set up by Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points
that was supposed to in theory prevent further wars. This association was significant
because it made a worthy attempt towards peace, but its efforts were shattered later when
World War II erupted.

Treaty of Versailles was a major peace treaty ending the war whose main points were
that the Germans had to accept all responsibility for the war along with having to pay
reparations for their damages. The significance of the treaty was that it tried to make
Germany a non-factor on the world scene by eliminating all of its potential threats.

The Big Four was the group of the four major nations of the United States, France,
Britain and Italy and their four leaders Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Orlando
that led the peace organizing after the war. They were significant because they were the
leading powers at this influential time in history.
 Jeremy Keeshin

1. The fighting in World War I was different than previous wars for many reasons. New
types of technology were introduced or used much more, such as the machine gun. Tanks
and poison gas were all brought into play and had an effect on the destructive trench
warfare. Also on the part of the Germans, U-boats were used to kill of civilians along
with soldiers. The new weapons made for an even more brutal war.

2. War was an omnipresent possibility in early twentieth century Europe because of four
main factors. Militarism was important because lately many countries had been building
up their armed forces. Alliances were key because if one country would go to war, their
alliance with another country would bring more countries into war. Imperialism was also
an important part because as nations took over other nations the want to rule and conquer
grew even stronger. Nationalism was also vital because the loyalty to the country caused
entire countries, not just soldiers to become involved. These for components combined
made World War I inevitable in the beginning of the twentieth century.

3. Breakthrough was such an important military goal on the Western Front because there
had been a stalemate after the failed Schlieffen Plan that was halted at the First Battle of
the Marne. The Germans and French were both engaged in a trench warfare that lasted
much longer than each of them had expected. This caused the German invasion of
Verdun, also a failed attempt. The Russians attacked Germany in the Battle of Tannenberg
and the Battle of Masurian Lakes, but failed their attempt to. The war was not really
going anywhere, and that was why it was so fundamental for each side to break the
stalemate.

4. Governmental power increased in many areas around the world. In Russia, specifically,
war communism attempted to centralize the government and control most industrial and
agricultural facets of life. In most nations participating in the war, such as Britain, the
propaganda movement by the government had a enormous effect on the citizens by trying
to persuade them to aid the war effort in some way or another.

5. Europeans after 1919 referred to World War I as we know it today as the Great War
because, simply, the number of casualties and the tremendous size of the wars battle and
toll on the resources of all of the countries were so great.

6. Total War and Global War are the ideas that the war is not just fought on the battlefield
but everywhere in each of the participating countries. Total War involved the women
participating in factories, and having everyone possible contribute metal from pots to be
made into weapons to aid the war effort. Total War and Global War also came with the
conscription for the army. Planned economies were set up to try and combat the enemy in
the most ways possible. It was Global War in the way that it was taking place all over
Europe, with soldiers from the United States, Australia, and other places also fighting.

7. The war had a devastating impact on the Eastern European countries and empires such
as the Ottoman, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian. Basically, after the war the Austro-
Hungarian Empire evaporated along with the Ottoman Empire. Out of the total
mobilized, there was a 90% casualty rate for Austria Hungary. Much of this number is
 Jeremy Keeshin

due to the fact that the empire failed to exist after the war. Russia was terribly weakened
after losing 76.3% of the troops mobilized as well as losing considerable amounts of land.
Also the division of the land from the treaties left Russia surrounded by countries in an
effort to keep the communist movement from spreading. Overall, the war did not turn out
well for the Eastern European countries.

8. The final outcome of the peace treaties was a mild embodiment of the Fourteen Points
laid out by Wilson. The League of Nations was created, although it lacked the United
States, going with Wilson’s call for a “general association of nations.” The self-
determination aspect of his plan was not accomplished so well as most of the newly
created nations were under foreign control. In regards to Germany, the idea not to have a
dominant military power was kept strictly as they were severely limited on those aspects.
Overall the Fourteen Points and the Peace Treaties were somewhat aligned.

9. The excitement of the war was in big part a function of the nationalism in the
countries as well as the concept of total war. If everyone could be involved in the war, it
gave the country a much more patriotic feel to it. In reality, the reality of war was brutal.
Trench warfare and all aspects surrounding it were horrendous. The conditions were
atrocious and the overall number of deaths caused by the war was one of the greatest up
until that time. The territorial changes in Europe and the Middle East after the Great War
were generally that all of the Central Powers lost land. Theses three ideas show that the
war was an atrocious worldwide conflict that had significant implications for many of the
losing countries.