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What does YOUR COUNTRY LOOK LIKE NOW AT THE END OF WWI?

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What does YOUR COUNTRY LOOK LIKE NOW AT THE END OF WWI?

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a soldier fighting in Europe or in one of the colonies

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a soldier fighting in Europe or in one of the colonies

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VIDEO #1:
TEAM PLANNING SESSION
(2-3 mins)

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WWI Summative Investigation, Presentation & Reflection:
Crit. A & B

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WWI Summative Investigation, Presentation & Reflection: Crit. A & B

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What kind of TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN WARFARE?

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What kind of TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN WARFARE?

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What's the reality of the soldier's experience?

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What's the reality of the soldier's experience?

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VIDEO #2:
TEAM DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS (2-4 mins)

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Experiment with methodologies for collecting & analyzing evidence...

experiment with the padlet features to expand your thinking & learning (click on those 3 little dots on the padlet post-it)

locate reliable sources to provide relevant information to answer the questions

be sure to DOCUMENT YOUR NAME on EACH of your PADLET POST-ITS for individual accountability

hyperlink/ embed/ upload

Photos of hand-written notes?

Digital notes (Google docs/ slide; Google drawings)

Audio notes/ video notes (vlogs)

screencasts

Sketchnotes (digital/ hand-drawn)

Mind-maps

Images, photos, maps, illustrations, videos

Visual Cornell notes

evidence of collaboration

upload video of team planning session (2-3 mins)

upload video of team discussing findings  (2-3 mins)

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Broken up empire?
Loss of colonies?
Creation of successor states?
Economic crisis?
Rise of Fascism?
Emergence of Communism?
Reparations?

HOW? WHY?

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Germany's enemies during WW1 were Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States.

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CONFLICT: WWI
PADLET

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Triumph of Liberal Democracy?
Collective security? How?
Economic boom?

HOW? WHY?

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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How much power does the government have?

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How much power does the government have?

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Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe-especially in the troubled Balkan region of southeast Europe-for years before World War I actually broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the Ottoman Empire, Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the Balkans (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand -heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire-was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of events: Austria-Hungary, like many countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia's ally, France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or "blank check" assurance of Germany's backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms as to make it almost impossible to accept.

World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe's great powers quickly collapsed.

Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

The Western Front

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east.

On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal-enormous siege cannons-to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France, shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of inciting civilian resistance.

First Battle of the Marne

In the First Battle of the Marne, fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading German army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris. The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back to the north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both sides dug into trenches, and the Western Front was the setting for a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years.

Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.

World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works of art as " All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque and " In Flanders Fields"by Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. In the latter poem, McCrae writes from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench warfare and exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes decimated by war.

The Eastern Front

On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland but were stopped short by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914.

Despite that victory, Russia's assault forced Germany to move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia's huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had hoped to win under the Schlieffen Plan.

Russian Revolution

From 1914 to 1916, Russia's army mounted several offensives on World War I's Eastern Front but was unable to break through German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the bulk of Russia's population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime of Czar Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia's simmering instability exploded in the Russian Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, which ended czarist rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.

Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early December 1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by President Woodrow Wilson while continuing to engage in commerce and shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, it was increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of Germany's unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships, including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and German U-boats sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S. ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania-traveling from New York to Liverpool, England with hundreds of American passengers onboard-in May 1915 helped turn the tide of American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign

With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915. The invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering 250,000 casualties.

Did you know? The young Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia, while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The First Battle of the Isonzo took place in the late spring of 1915, soon after Italy's entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, also known as the Battle of Caporetto (October 1917), German reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy's allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British and French-and later, American-troops arrived in the region, and the Allies began to take back the Italian Front.

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain's Royal Navy was unchallenged by any other nation's fleet, but the Imperial German Navy had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval powers. Germany's strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal fleet of U-boat submarines.

After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German navy chose not to confront Britain's mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.

World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes. Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany's U-boats, the use of planes in World War I presaged their later, pivotal role in military conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903. Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions. During the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push Germany out of France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of 1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from. The Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The Morane-Saulnier Type L was used by the French, the British Royal Flying Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service and the Imperial Russian Air Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system in 1915. His "interrupter" synchronized the firing of the guns with the plane's propeller to avoid collisions. Though his most popular plane during WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-engine bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long-range heavy bombers like Germany's Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917) were used to strike cities like London. Their speed and maneuverability proved to be far deadlier than Germany's earlier Zeppelin raids.

By the war's end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft than the Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF, the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the navy or army.

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne. The Allies successfully pushed back the German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany's best hope of victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the months that followed.

The Harlem Hellfighters and Other All-Black Regiments

By the time World War I began, there were four all-Black regiments in the U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry. All four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War and American-Indian Wars, and served in the American territories. But they were not deployed for overseas combat in World War I.

Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first African American troops sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance, removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the military formed two Black combat units in 1917, the 92nd and 93rd Divisions. Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September 1918. The 93rd Division, however, had more success.

With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial army. The 93 Division's 369 regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters, fought so gallantly, with a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than any AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their heroism. More than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in World War I in various capacities.

Toward Armistice

By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts.

Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such a devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I "the War to End All Wars." But the Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations, Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having believed any peace would be a "peace without victory," as put forward by President Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points speech of January 1918.

As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II.

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.

The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the world's deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as "the first modern war." Many of the technologies now associated with military conflict-machine guns, tanks, aerial combat and radio communications-were introduced on a massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use. The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in warfare and remain in effect today.

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World War I: Summary, Causes & Facts | HISTORY

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World War I began in 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and lasted until 1918. During the conflict, Germany, Austria‑Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers).

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Germany had six principle colonies. These also included native kingdoms and polities. This included, Togo, Cameroon, German South-West Africa, now known as Namibia, German East Africa, now known as Tanzania, three territories now in Papua New Guinea, which are Kaiser Wilhelmsland, Bismarck Archipelago, the German Solomon Islands, and several territories in the Pacific: The Marshall Islands.

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Germany had six principle colonies. These also included native kingdoms and polities. This included, Togo, Cameroon, German South-West Africa, now known as Namibia, German East Africa, now known as Tanzania, three territories now in Papua New Guinea, which are Kaiser Wilhelmsland, Bismarck Archipelago, the German Solomon Islands, and several territories in the Pacific: The Marshall Islands.

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Germany got thrown into troubling economic and social disorder.
Kaiser Wilhelm II lost support from his military and the German people. he was soon forced to resign.

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In August 1914, both sides expected a quick victory. Neither leaders nor civilians from warring nations were prepared for the length and brutality of the war, which took the lives of millions by its end in 1918. The loss of life was greater than in any previous war in history, in part because militaries were using new technologies, including tanks, airplanes, submarines, machine guns, modern artillery, flamethrowers, and poison gas.

The map below shows the farthest advances of Axis and Allied forces on the fronts to the west, east, and south of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Most of the war's major battles took place between those lines of farthest advance on each front. Germany's initial goal was to knock the French out of the war by occupying Belgium and then quickly march into France and capture Paris, its capital. German troops could then concentrate on the war in the east. That plan failed, and by the end of 1914, the two sides were at a stalemate. Before long, they faced each other across a 175-mile-long line of trenches that ran from the English Channel to the Swiss border. These trenches came to symbolize a new kind of warfare. A young officer named Harold Macmillan (who later became prime minister of Britain) explained in a letter home:

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the modern battlefield is the desolation and emptiness of it all. . . . Nothing is to be seen of war or soldiers-only the split and shattered trees and the burst of an occasional shell reveal anything of the truth. One can look for miles and see no human being. But in those miles of country lurk (like moles or rats, it seems) thousands, even hundreds of thousands of men, planning against each other perpetually some new device of death. Never showing themselves, they launch at each other bullet, bomb, aerial torpedo, and shell. And somewhere too . . . are the little cylinders of gas, waiting only for the moment to spit forth their nauseous and destroying fumes. And yet the landscape shows nothing of all this-nothing but a few shattered trees and 3 or 4 thin lines of earth and sandbags; these and the ruins of towns and villages are the only signs of war anywhere.

The glamour of red coats-the martial tunes of fife and drum-aide-de-camps scurrying hither and thither on splendid chargers-lances glittering and swords flashing-how different the old wars must have been. The thrill of battle comes now only once or twice in a [year]. We need not so much the gallantry of our fathers; we need (and in our Army at any rate I think you will find it) that indomitable and patient determination which has saved England over and over again.

The area between the opposing armies' trenches was known as "No Man's Land" for good reason. Fifty years after the war, Richard Tobin, who served with Britain's Royal Naval Division, recalled how he and his fellow soldiers entered No Man's Land as they tried to break through the enemy's line. "As soon as you got over the top," he told an interviewer, "fear has left you and it is terror. You don't look, you see. You don't hear, you listen. Your nose is filled with fumes and death. You taste the top of your mouth. . . . You're hunted back to the jungle. The veneer of civilization has dropped away."

Unlike the war on Germany's western front, the war on the eastern front was a war of rapid movement. Armies repeatedly crisscrossed the same territories. Civilians were frequently caught in the crossfire, and millions were evacuated from their homes and expelled from territories as armies approached. On both sides of the conflict, many came to believe that what they were experiencing was not war but "mass slaughter." A private in the British army explained, "If you go forward, you'll likely be shot, if you go back you'll be court-martialed and shot, so what the hell do you do? What can you do? You just go forward."

The carnage was incomprehensible to everyone, as millions of soldiers and civilians alike died. Historian Martin Gilbert details the loss of life:

More than nine million soldiers, sailors and airmen were killed in the First World War. A further five million civilians are estimated to have perished under occupation, bombardment, hunger and disease. The mass murder of Armenians in 1915 [see reading, Genocide Under the Cover of War], and the [Spanish] influenza epidemic that began while the war was still being fought, were two of its destructive by-products. The flight of Serbs from Serbia at the end of 1915 was another cruel episode in which civilians perished in large numbers; so too was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, as a result of which more than three-quarters of a million German civilians died.

The chart below provides estimates of the number of soldiers killed, wounded, and reported missing during World War I. Exact numbers are often disputed and are nearly impossible to determine for a variety of reasons. Different countries used different methods to count their dead and injured, and some methods were more reliable than others. Records of some countries were destroyed during the war and its aftermath. Also, some countries may have changed the number of casualties in their official records for political reasons. The numbers of civilians from each country killed during the war are even more difficult to estimate. The numbers in the chart reflect the estimates made by most historians today (see reading, Negotiating Peace in Chapter 3).

World War I Casualties

Source:
WWI Casualty and Death Tables, "The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century," PBS / WGHBH.

* Includes deaths from all causes.

When World War I began in August 1914, both sides expected a quick victory. Neither leaders nor civilians from warring nations were prepared for the length and brutality of the war, which took the lives of millions by its end in 1918. The loss of life was greater than in any previous war in history. The carnage from World War I was incomprehensible to everyone, as millions of soldiers and civilians alike died.

The chart below provides estimates of the number of soldiers killed, wounded, and reported missing during World War I. Exact numbers are often disputed and are nearly impossible to determine for a variety of reasons. Different countries used different methods to count their dead and injured, and some methods were more reliable than others. Records of some countries were destroyed during the war and its aftermath. Also, some countries may have changed the number of casualties in their official records for political reasons. The numbers of civilians from each country killed during the war are even more difficult to determine, though historians estimate civilian deaths at about 5 million. The numbers in the chart reflect the estimates made by most historians today.

World War I Casualties

Source:
WWI Casualty and Death Tables, "The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century," PBS / WGHBH.

* Includes deaths from all causes.

1. How was war different in World War I? Why did this war result in so many casualties?

2. How did the reality of combat in World War I compare to the beliefs and attitudes many Europeans had about war before fighting broke out?

3. What did Richard Tobin mean by his statement, "The veneer of civilization has dropped away"?

4. How would you describe the mood and tone of the voices of soldiers quoted in this reading?

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In August 1914, both sides expected a quick victory. Neither leaders nor civilians from warring nations were prepared for the length and brutality of the war, which took the lives of millions by its end in 1918.

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The First World War, which began in the Summer of 1914 and ended in November 1918, claimed around twenty million lives. The war ended empires and disrupted political systems and economies across the world.

In April 1917, the United States of America joined the war against Germany. Arriving on the battlefields in 1918, the American army was well trained and equipped, while the Germany army was exhausted. The British navy blockaded German ports, starving German industry of raw materials and the people of food. Between April and August 1918, the German army decided to make one last, determined effort to win the war. They had early successes, but were quickly overwhelmed. By the autumn of 1918, the Germans were losing and senior generals could see that defeat was inevitable. Peace negotiations began and an armistice was signed on 11 November 1918. After four years and millions of lives lost, the guns fell silent.

In Germany, impending defeat triggered a revolution and brought down the German Emperor, the Kaiser. In this section you will find out about the circumstances in which the new democratic German state, The Weimar Republic, came into existence after the First World War.

The First World War, which began in the Summer of 1914 and ended in November 1918, claimed around twenty million lives. The war ended empires and disrupted political systems and economies across the world.

In April 1917, the United States of America joined the war against Germany. Arriving on the battlefields in 1918, the American army was well trained and equipped, while the Germany army was exhausted. The British navy blockaded German ports, starving German industry of raw materials and the people of food. Between April and August 1918, the German army decided to make one last, determined effort to win the war. They had early successes, but were quickly overwhelmed. By the autumn of 1918, the Germans were losing and senior generals could see that defeat was inevitable. Peace negotiations began and an armistice was signed on 11 November 1918. After four years and millions of lives lost, the guns fell silent.

In Germany, impending defeat triggered a revolution and brought down the German Emperor, the Kaiser. In this section you will find out about the circumstances in which the new democratic German state, The Weimar Republic, came into existence after the First World War.

As the war came to an end, the German nation was in a state of collapse. On 29th October 1918, sailors at the German naval base at Kiel refused to obey an order to attack British ships. The German sailors set up councils in order to defy their superiors. Only a year earlier, councils like these, set up by workers in Russia, had led to a communist revolution. Many people feared Germany would end up like Russia, with a communist dictatorship and civil war. By 6th November, the revolution had spread to many German cities and even to soldiers fighting on the Western Front.

Kaiser Wilhelm was the Emperor of Germany and Commander-in-Chief of the German armed forces. On 9 November 1918, with defeat certain and a revolution underway, Wilhelm was forced to abdicate his throne and flee Germany.

Without the Emperor, the Germans had no strong leader in charge of the country. There were different groups who thought now was the time to make changes to the way the country was governed. Some of them believed that Germany should become a democracy, but others believed that strong, military leadership was the only way to keep society safe. Some thought that communism, where everyone was equal, but controlled by a strong state, was a fairer way of living.

Eventually, power was handed to the leader of the moderate left-wing Social Democratic Party, Friedrich Ebert. This did not stop the food shortages or the civil unrest and street battles between rival political groups.

In late 1918 and early 1919 revolutions spread throughout Germany. In the region of Bavaria, in the south, a communist state was established in the capital Munich. In January 1919 revolution threatened Berlin itself. Chancellor Ebert saw that democratic rule was under threat, so he called in the German army and the Freikorps (ex-soldiers who banded together to form small private armies).

They crushed the revolution in Munich and executed the leaders. Although Chancellor Ebert used the army and the Freikorps to crush the Bavarian communists, there were still revolutionaries in other German cities, and fear of revolution still threatened peace in Germany.

ADVANCED CONTENT

On 11 November 1918 Germany found itself without a monarch. It had serious economic and social problems, and there was open political fighting for control.

Two army generals, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, led the military which had controlled Germany during the war. They asked the politicians to start peace negotiations with the allies. Hindenburg and Ludendorff were keen to avoid being blamed for losing the war.

All the political parties blamed each other. The generals pointed to the fact that at the start of their last big push to win the war, they had been successful.

This argument was used to persuade people that the German army had been 'stabbed in the back' by politicians just as they were about to defeat the Allies.

The very soldiers who had felt victory was close now came home to Germany unsure as to how defeat had come so suddenly, further supporting the "stab in the back" myth.

Patriotic

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The aftermath of the First World War in Germany

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The First World War, which began in the Summer of 1914 and ended in November 1918, claimed around twenty million lives. The war ended empires and disrupted political systems and economies across the world. In April 1917, the United States of America joined the war against Germany.

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The Treaty was signed on June 28, 1919, and it ordered Germany to reduce its military, take the responsibility for war, abandon some of its territory and pay reparations to the allies. this treaty also prevented Germany from joining the League of Nation at that time.

Hilarie

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The most important fighting force in the First World War was the artillery. Chemical agents were added to the German arsenal in early 1915 and played a substantial role in trench warfare for the rest of the war.

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The most important fighting force in the First World War was the artillery. Chemical agents were added to the German arsenal in early 1915 and played a substantial role in trench warfare for the rest of the war.