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Establishment of the German Republic
On November 3, 1918, AustriaHungary surrendered to the Allies. That same day, German sailors mutinied against government authority. The mutiny spread quickly. Everywhere in Germany, groups of soldiers and workers organized revolutionary
councils. On November 9, socialist leaders in the capital,
Berlin, established a German republic. The kaiser gave up the throne. -
Cease-fire and armistice
World War I was the bloodiest war in history up to that time.
Deaths numbered about 22 million, more than half of them civilians. In addition, 20 million people were wounded, and 10 million more became refugees. The direct economic costs of the war may have been about $338 billion. The United States lost 48,000 men in battle, with another 62,000 dying of disease. More than 200,000 Americans were wounded. -
War Industries Board
The main regulatory body was the War Industries Board (WIB). It was established in 1917 and reorganized in 1918 under the leadership of Bernard M. Baruch (bE-rLkP), a prosperous businessman. The board encouraged companies to use mass-production techniques to increase efficiency. It also urged them to eliminate waste by standardizing products—for
instance, by making only 5 colors of typewriter ribbons instead of 150. The WIB set production quotas and allocated raw materials. -
Food Administration
To help produce and conserve food, Wilson set up the Food Administration under Herbert Hoover. Instead of rationing food, he called on people to follow the “gospel of the clean plate.” He
declared one day a week “meatless,” another “sweetless,” two days “wheatless,” and two other days “porkless.” Restaurants removed sugar bowls from the table and served bread only after the first course. -
Espionage and Sedition Acts
In June 1917 Congress passed the Espionage Act, and in May 1918 it passed the Sedition Act. Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts a person could be fined up to $10,000 and sentenced to 20
years in jail for interfering with the war effort or for saying anything disloyal, profane,or abusive about the government or the war effort. -
Allies
By 1907 there were two major defense alliances in Europe.
The Triple Entente, later known as the Allies, consisted of France, Britain, and Russia. The Triple Alliance consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. -
Central Powers
That spark flared in the Balkan Peninsula, which was known as “the powder keg of Europe.” In addition to the ethnic rivalries among the Balkan peoples, Europe’s leading powers had interest there.Russia wanted access to the Mediterranean Sea. Germany wanted a rail link to the Ottoman Empire. Austria-Hungary, which had taken control of Bosnia in 1878, accused Serbia of subverting its rule over Bosnia. The “powder keg” was ready to explode -
1914 Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, visited the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. As the royal entourage drove through the city, Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip stepped from the crowd and shot the Archduke and his wife Sophie. Princip was a member of the Black Hand, an organization promoting Serbian nationalism. The assassinations touched off a diplomatic crisis. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared what was expected to be a short war against Serbia -
Schlieffen Plan
On August 3, 1914, Germany invaded Belgium, following
a strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan. This plan called
for a holding action against Russia, combined with a quick
drive through Belgium to Paris; after France had fallen, the
two German armies would defeat Russia. As German
troops swept across Belgium, thousands of civilians fled in
terror. In Brussels, the Belgian capital, an American war
correspondent described the first major refugee crisis of
the 20th century. -
Battle of the Somme
The scale of slaughter was horrific. During the First Battle of the Somme— which began on July 1, 1916, and lasted until mid-November—the British suffered 60,000 casualties the first day alone. Final casualties totaled about 1.2 million, yet only about seven miles of ground changed hands. This bloody trench
warfare, in which armies fought for mere yards of ground, continued for over three years. Elsewhere, the fighting was just as devastating and inconclusive. -
Sinking of British liner Lusitania
One of the worst disasters occurred on May 7, 1915, when a U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania (lLQsG-tAPnC-E) off the southern coast of Ireland. Of the 1,198 persons lost, 128 were Americans. The Germans defended their action on the grounds that the liner carried ammunition. Despite Germany’s explanation, Americans became outraged with Germany because of the loss of life. American public opinion turned against Germany and the Central Powers. -
Sinking of British liner Arabic
After the election, Wilson tried to mediate between the warring alliances. The attempt failed. In a speech before the Senate in January 1917, the president called for “a peace without victory. . . . a peace between equals,” in which neither side would impose harsh terms on the other. Wilson hoped that all nations would join in a “league for peace” that would work to extend democracy, maintain freedom of the seas, and reduce armaments. -
Zimmermann note
The overt acts came. First was the Zimmermann note, a telegram from the German foreign minister to the German ambassador in Mexico that was intercepted by British agents. The telegram proposed an alliance between Mexico and Germany and promised
that if war with the United States broke out, Germany would support Mexico in recovering “lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.” Next came the sinking of four unarmed American merchant ships, with a loss of 36 lives. -
Selective Service Act of 1917
To meet the government’s need for more fighting power, Congress passed the Selective Service Act inMay 1917. The act required men to register with the government in order to be randomly selected for military service. By the end of 1918, 24 million men had registered under the act. Of this number, almost 3 million were called up. -
Convoy System
German U-boat attacks on merchant ships in the Atlantic were a serious threat to the Allied war effort. American Vice Admiral William S. Sims convinced the British to try the convoy system, in which a heavy guard of destroyers escorted merchant ships back and forth across the Atlantic in groups. By fall of 1917, shipping losses had been cut in half. -
Austria-Hungary surrenders to the Allies
York eventually decided that it was morally acceptable to fight if the cause was just. On October 8, 1918, armed only with a rifle and a revolver, York killed 25 Germans and—with six other doughboys—captured 132 prisoners. General Pershing called him the outstanding soldier of the AEF, while Marshal Foch, the commander of Allied forces in Europe, described his feat as “the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all the armies of Europe.” -
National War Labor Board
By contrast, stockholders in large corporations saw enormous profits. One industrial manufacturer, the DuPont Company, saw its stock multiply in value 1,600 percent between 1914 and 1918. By that time the company was earning a $68-million yearly profit. As a result of the uneven pay between labor and management, increasing work hours, child labor, and dangerously “sped-up” conditions, unions boomed. Union membership climbed from about 2.5 million in 1916 to more than 4 million -
Second Battle of the Marne
O During the fighting in the Meuse-Argonne area, one of America’s greatest war heroes, Alvin York, became famous. A redheaded mountaineer and blacksmith from Tennessee, York sought exemption as a conscientious objector, a person who opposes warfare on moral grounds, pointing out that the Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill.” -
Committee on Public Information
To popularize the war, the government set up the nation’s first propaganda agency, the Committee on Public Information (CPI). Propaganda is a kind of biased communication designed to influence people’s thoughts and actions. The head of the CPI was a former muckraking journalist named George Creel.