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Moroccan crisis
In the Moroccan crisis Germany tried to get the best of France and Britain. France was in control of morocco while Britain was in control of Egypt. The Germans were edging for independence in morocco. The purpose of this was to try to get the French and British tensions to rise but all it did was make the French and British become stronger ultimately creating the Anglo-French entente. Germany succeeded in making morocco an independent country but tensions rose between the French and Germany. -
July crisis
The July crisis refers to mobilization of troops to start WWI. After Serbia rejected to meet with Austria, Austria declares war on Serbia and starts to mobilize troops as well as Serbia begins to move troops. This gets Germany and Russia to mobilize troops because Serbia was allies with Russia and Austria was allies with Germany. The Russians and French was also in an alliance, this cause France to step into the war. The Germans had a plan to take out France first by going through Belgium. -
July crisis cont.
The Germans invading Belgium cause great Britain to declare war on Germany since Belgium had a treaty with each other. -
Lusitania
German submarines sank the RMS Lusitania killing British and American citizens on board. Britain wanted America to take action on the Germans after the incident but Woodrow Wilson refused to act on the matter. Woodrow Wilson held German government accountable for any ships sinking with American passengers on board. The sinking of the Lusitania ultimately entered the U.S. into the war -
The schlieffen plan
Germany created a plan to avoid fighting a war on two fronts since they were in between France and Russia. The plan was to go through Belgium and attack Paris from the France and defeat France before moving to Russia. They thought that Russia would mobilize slowly and they could defeat France before Russia was ready to fight. The plan was destroyed due to the fact that troops were hundreds of miles away from railways so supplies ran low with no income for more. -
The schlieffen plan
The Germans also didn't anticipate Belgium fighting back the German forces. This also caused Britain to mobilize its troops because of the treaty it had with Belgium. The German troops could not handle fighting the triple entente by themselves. -
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungarian throne, and his wife were shot in Sarajevo by a terrorist group known as the black hand. This outraged Austria and they gave an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia met some of the demands that Austria gave them which triggered WWI. This also put the alliance system into place and mobilization of troops. -
Unrestricted submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare dealt with German U-boats mainly on the Mediterranean sea and English Channel. The Germans relied heavily on domestic food production and food while the British relied on imports to feed their population. The plan was to block each other to keep the raw materials from getting to one another. German U-boats sunk almost 5,000 ships and lost tons of imported goods. -
Zimmerman telegram
This was a note sent to Mexico from Germany to join their alliance in case the U.S. joined the war. The British intercepted the note and decoded it. The Americans were outraged and were forced to move ships to defend themselves against German forces. The United States declared war on Germany and Mexico refused the proposal from Germany.