WWI

Events leading up to WWI.

Assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand by Principe let Austria Hungary invade Serbia.

CENTRAL POWERS: German allied with Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire & Bulgaria

ALLIES (ALLIED POWERS) - France allied with Russia, Serbia, Great Britain, Italy and 7 other countries including the U.S.

__Causes of WWI__ 1. Imperialism 2. Nationalism 3. Militarism 4. Alliances

New technology used in war: trench warfare tanks machine guns poison gas airplanes submarines

__America's path to war.__

President Woodrow Wilson said American would be neutral (a policy of neutrality - refusing to take sides in a war)

1915 - German U-boat sank the Lusitania, killing 1,198 including 128 Americans.

Zimmerman telegram - Germany encouraged Mexico to join the Germans - in exchange they would get back TX. NM, and AZ

In March 1917 German u-boats sank 3 American ships.

Russian Revolution - Lenin - 1st leader under Communism

Allies asked American troops to come quickly because Germany was winning!

2 million American soldiers went to France in **1918**. General John J Pershing - American Expeditionary Force (AEF)

convoy system - for supplies

Americans in France help stop the German advance. Second Battle of the Marne - pushed Germans back from territory that they had gained.

Manfred von Richthofen - German "The Red Baron" Top Ace of WWI - 80 victories

 armistice - end to fighting - **November 11, 1918**

 8.5 million soldiers died in the war.

Americans killed in WWI - a little over 100,000

Back home in America... At the beginning of WWI America had 200,000 troops War bonds were sold to raise money for the war victory gardens wheatless Mondays and Wednesdays meatless Tuesdays Selective Service established Draft enacted for WWI Women went to work for the first time in factories.

propaganda - opinion expressed for the purpose of influencing the actions of others

Schenck v. United States - Supreme Court said free speech could be limited, especially during wartime

1918 - Great Flu Epidemic - 500,000 died in U.S.

Treaty of Versailles Germany had to accept full blame for the war Germany had to pay reparations - $33 billion Germany had to give up colonies and large military force Territories were divided - Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland's borders were established Ottoman Empire was divided.

=//Germany to pay off WWI debt//= = = //[|Saturday, October 2, 2010]//

//ELIZABETH JACKSON: While the debt crisis appears to be deepening in the Eurozone, Germany is finally clearing one of its longest standing debts.//

//Tomorrow, Germany will finally finish paying off reparations it incurred at the end of World War I.//

//The payments were intended to weaken Germany, but they ended up playing a key role in the rise of Adolf Hitler.//

//Meredith Griffiths reports.//

//MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: At the end of the First World War, the Allied powers demanded Germany pay 269-billion-gold-marks to repair some of the damage.//

//Political scientist Dr Rick Kuhn from the Australian National University explains.//

//DR RICK KUHN: France and Belgium in particular - to some extent Britain as well - wanted to get some money back from Germany and the scale of the reparations that were demanded was very significant, especially given that the German economy was very run down.//

//MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: So to pay the reparations Germany took out a series of loans, which made its economic problems even worse. The country experienced hyperinflation, which Dr Kuhn says impoverished Germany's middle class.//

//DR RICK KUHN: The money in their bank accounts turned into ashes. They were the core of Hitler's support base.//

//Then with the Depression, the middle classes were faced by another blow and turned away from mainstream politics to a radical alternative and a radical alternative on the right.//

//MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: Germany wasn't charged reparations for the Second World War.//

//Instead the United States tried to rebuild the German economy through the Marshall Plan, and a lot of Germany's debt was cancelled at a conference in London in the 1950s.//

//But not all.//

//DR RICK KUHN: It was in part symbolic of Germany's participation in the international financial system and indicated that Germany was reliable debtor.//

//MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: Dr Kuhn says West Germany had paid off many of its inter war debts by the end of the 1980s.//

//DR RICK KUHN: Apart from one provision, which is that certain kinds of debt would not be paid off until Germany was reunified - 1953, where in the frozen depths of Cold War, nobody really thought a reunification of Germany was particularly likely.//

//But then the Soviet Union collapsed and suddenly this clause came into play. And the German financial authorities after 1990 they issued new bonds in order to be able to pay off this older inter war debt.//

//**MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: Germany is set to make its final repayment on Sunday at midnight. (OCTOBER 3, 2010)**//

League of Nations established. - US not a founding member

The "Red Scare" - Americans were afraid that workers were going to unite under communism. radicals - people who favor extreme measure to bring about change anarchists - radicals who do not believe in any form of government

Great Migration - 1910 -1920 African Americans left the South to work in the factories of the North (NY, Chicago, Detroit)