LOS AMIGOS HIGH SCHOOL
AP EUROPEAN HISTORY
Unit
XVII: THE GREAT WAR (1873-1919)
Causes of the First World War (1873-1914) Kagan (838-847)
"The Eastern Question is not worth the healthy bones of
a single Pomeranian musketeer."
-
Otto von Bismarck
"Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans..."
-
Otto von Bismarck
jingoism, British-German
Naval Race, The Young Turks, The
First Balkan War (1912),
The Second Balkan War
(1913), The London
Conference of 1913
DOCUMENTS:
World War I Document Archive: 1914
GUIDED READING QUESTIONS:
- Why did the Three
Emperor's League dissolve just four years after its creation?
- In what ways was the treaty which ended The
Russo-Turkish War of 1875 - the
Treaty of San Stefano
- a Russian triumph? In what ways
were the other Great Powers
alarmed by the settlement?
- In what ways did The Berlin Congress
(1878), which met to review the provisions of San Stefano,
change the geo-political situation in the Balkans?
- In the end, what was the ultimate result of
Wilhelm II and his ministers' destruction of
Bismarck's alliance system?
- During the Bosnian Crisis of 1908,
why did Austria's annexation of Bosnia humiliate Russia and
enrage Serbia?
- What effect would Germany's bullying during the Second Moroccan
Crisis of 1911 have on
British-French relations?
- In what ways did the lessons learned from the
First (1912) and Second (1913) Balkan war crises
influence events during the final pre-war crisis of the Summer of 1914?
- Why had Franz Ferdinand been unpopular among
Austrians, Hungarians, and Slavs in the
Austrian Empire?
- List the many reasons why Wilhelm II and his
chancellor choose to give Austria a "blank check"?
- Even though the summer crisis began as a feud
between Austria and Serbia, why did it end
with
Germany being the first nation-state to engage in hostilities against another?
- Who was to blame for the outbreak of the First World War?
PEOPLE:
Otto von Bismarck Kaiser Wilhelm II General Leo von Caprivi
Admiral Alfred von
Tirpitz Prince Bernhard von
BŸlow Sir Edward Grey
Gavrillo
Princip Archduke
Franz Ferdinand Emperor Franz Josef
Kaiser Wilhelm II T. von
Bethmann-Hollweg Czar Nicholas II
IMAGES: JUNE 28,
1914
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, arrive by train in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Archduke and his wife leave the Sarajevo city hall.
The Archduke tours central Sarajevo on foot.
11:25 am: The Archduke and his wife continue their tour of Sarajevo by car, minutes before they are assassinated.
11:29 am: The royal couple's motorcade approaches just moments before the assassination.
11:30 am: The assassin, Gavrillo Princip, is arrested after shooting Franz Ferdinand and Sophie.
The bodies of the Archduke and his wife lie in state a few days later in Vienna, Austria.
The Great War:
Strategies and Stalemate (1914-1917) Kagan (848-854)
"Paris for
lunch, dinner in St. Petersburg." - Kaiser
Wilhelm II
BATTLES:
The First Battle
of the Marne (1914)
The Battle
of Tannenberg (1914)
The Battle of Gallipoli
(1915)
The Battle of Jutland
(1916)
The Battle of Verdun
(1916)
The Battle
of the Somme (1916)
LITERATURE (* Not in Flash-Cards)
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
GUIDED READING QUESTIONS:
- At the onset of the First World War, what
kind of war did both sides expect?
What
advantages did the Allies and the Central Powers each have over the
other?
- Describe, in detail, the Schlieffen Plan -
Germany's only war plan when the war began.
What
were the risks of the plan?
- How did the nature of the war change on the Western Front
following the Allies successful
halting of the German advance on Paris at the First Battle of the Marne
in September, 1914?
What
new weapons were introduced to deal with these new realities of warfare?
- Why did Turkey and Bulgaria join the Central Powers? Why did Italy, formerly a member of
the
Triple Alliance, join the Allies?
- How did both side appeal to nationalistic
sentiment in areas held by the enemy?
- What was the purpose of Britain's naval blockade
of Germany? In what ways was the
blockade a violation of international law? How did the Germans respond to the blockade?
- What impact would Germany's sinking of the
British liner Lusitania
have on the war at sea?
- How did each of the following events of early
1917 lead to the American declaration of war
on
the Central Powers on April 6, 1917:
1) Germany's resumption of unrestricted
submarine
warfare,
the Zimmerman
Telegram, and the March Revolution in Russia?
PEOPLE:
Erich Ludendorff Paul von Hindenburg T. E. Lawrence
("Lawrence
of Arabia")
Winston Churchill Erich von Falkenhayn Henri PŽtain
The Great War: War
on the Home Front
GUIDED READING QUESTIONS:
- How was the outbreak of war typically greeted
across the European continent?
What
evidence is there that even socialists - with the exception of a few
extreme left-wingers -
supported the war?
- What steps were taken by the governments of
national unity that formed during the first
weeks
of the war to plan, organize, and control the economic and social aspects of
waging
"total war"? Why was such regimentation necessary?
- How did the "total war" nature of the
First World War begin to blur the distinction between
soldiers on the battlefield and civilians at home?
- How did the ability of governments to manage and
control highly complicated economies
strengthen the cause of socialism in Europe? How did the activities of Germany's War Raw
Materials Board illustrate this general trend?
- In 1917, following the battles of Verdun and the
Somme, who became the real rulers of
Germany? How did they
intensify the war effort on the home front? What king of society did
this
create?
- Why was mobilization for "total war" in
Great Britain less rapid and less complete than it
had
been in Germany?
- What social changes came about for labor unions,
women, and the social-class system due to
the
tremendous demand for labor which was created by the war?
- What factors account for the astonishingly strong
loyalty to the state which most Europeans
maintained through 1916? By
1917, however, uprisings, rebellions, or mutinies had broken
out
in which countries and among which national armies?
- Why did the German military insist on the
all-or-nothing gamble of unrestricted
submarine
warfare
in early 1917? What other factors
suggested that Germany was beginning to crack by
early
1917?
The Great War:
Mutiny and Collapse (1917-1918) Kagan
(858-862)
BATTLES:
The Battle of Caporetto
(1917)
The Second
Battle of the Marne (1918)
LITERATURE
*A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
GUIDED READING QUESTIONS:
- What advantages did Germany gain as a result of
Russia's collapse and the subsequent
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? Why were these new gains for Germany,
in the end, not decisive?
- Why did Ludendorff, who, by 1918, was the
effective ruler of Germany, allow a new German
government to be established on democratic principles? What kind of peace was asked for by
this
new government of Prince Max of Baden?
- Why did the majority branch of Germany's Social
Democratic Party proclaim a republic - the
Weimar Republic - in
November, 1918?
- What were the overall social and economic costs
of the Great War to the nation-states of
Europe? In what ways did
the war destroy the old international order which had existed
before 1914?
PEOPLE:
An Uneasy Peace:
Paris and Versailles Kagan (862-868 & 878-879)
GUIDED READING QUESTIONS:
- Why was the task faced by the "Big
Four" at the Paris Peace
Conference in 1919 far more
difficult than that faced by those who had sat at the Congress of Vienna
a century earlier?
PEOPLE:
David Lloyd George Georges Clemenceau Woodrow Wilson
Europe's Lost Generation:
Poetry and Art of the Great War
Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen 
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Aftermath by Siegfried Sassoon 
Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same-and War ’s a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz-
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench-
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, ‘Is it all going to happen again?’
Do you remember that hour of din before the attack-
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads-those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.
Does it Matter by Siegfried Sassoon
Does it matter? - losing your legs?....
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.
Does it matter? - losing your sight?....
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.
Do they matter? - those dreams from the pit?....
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For people they'll know you've fought for your country
And
no one will worry a bit.
PEOPLE:
