The Age of Total War

Handout 1

Topic: Background to World War I

 OUTLINE:

 I. Background to World War I

A.     Introduction

B.     Diplomatic Revolution in Foreign Affairs

C.     Road to War

D.     Military and Social Pressures for War

E.      The Fatal Mistake

F.      The World on the Eve of Armageddon

 QUESTIONS:

 1.      Everyone can agree that World War was a mistake, but what factors caused the war to happen in the first place? How did imperialism, nationalism, and militarism all play a critical role in the coming of the conflict?

2.      Europeans had forgotten about the horrors of war and that may be one of the factors that made war highly probable in 1914. What were wars like between 1871 and 1914? What should have policymakers learned from those conflicts before deciding on war in the summer of 1914?

3.      John Foster Dulles, the future secretary of state for Dwight D. Eisenhower, was one of the architects of the infamous “war quilt clause” of the Versailles Treaty in 1919. Was the verdict of the victors justified? If not Germany, then who was responsible for the war?

4.  What role did the Serbian government play in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?

 TERMS:

 Imperialism                       Spanish-American War            Otto von Bismarck

Reinsurance Treaty           Triple Entente                       Triple Alliance

Plan XVII                           Schlieffen Plan                      Anglo-Russian Understanding

Fashoda                             Tirpitz                                   Conscription

De Grandmaison               Furious Offensive                     Ivan Bloch

Franz Joseph                      Franz Ferdinand                       Mayerling

Trialism                             Narodna Odbrana                     Black Hand

Mlada Bosna                       Apis