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Levels of Militarization before WWI
Germany had a powerful army. France prepared themselves for an invasion by expanding the size of their military. Seeing France expand their army caused Germany to do the same which made the Russians expanded their army, too. Austria also did the same because they wanted to counter the Russian army. Germany also built a navy to match France and Britain’s navies, who owned most water, but this only made Britain to build a stronger navy. During this time, spending on militaries raised by 300%. -
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Alliance Systems (Cont.)
and wanted to gain same land as the other two nations.
The next alliance formed was the Franco-Russian Alliance where Russia joined with France to protect each other from Germany and Austria-Hungary. Anglo-Russian alliance was an agreement between Britain and Russia to protect each other. The different alliances cause tension between Europe and helped spark World War I. -
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Alliance systems
Austria-Hungary joined with Germany to form their dual alliance. Germany and Austria-Hungary shared a common language and a desire to grow as a country. Austria-Hungary wanted to gain the Balkan League especially.Italy, Germany, and Austria-Hungary signed a document making the promise of supporting each other in the case of a war to form the triple alliance.This alliance gave each protection from an enemy country. This was especially important for Italy because they were threatened by France... -
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U-boats & Unrestricted Warfare
U-boats were German warships. The real name is called unterseeboot. These boats replaced surface commerce raiders. Germany only had about 38 of these submarines, but they were able to do lots of damage to the British Navy. The u-boats led to the United States entering the war because of the unrestricted warfare with them. 430 ships were sunk because of the German u-boats. By the end of World War 1, Germany was using over 300 u-boats and building over 200 of them. -
Assassination of Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austrian throne. He was killed by a shot to the neck by people of the Black Hand in Bosnia.The Serbian terrorist group, the Black Hand was formed because Serbia wanted its independence from other nations. This angered the people of Austria-hungary and started World War I. -
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Trench Warfare
The British and their allies used four different types of trenchess.In total, the Europeans dug nearly 6,2500 miles of trenches by the end of 1914. The land in between the trenches was unoccupied and filled with barbed wire to prevent attacks, which were impossible because of the weapons used. The attacks with the trenches happened at dawn so they could remain unseen by the enemy and that their poisonous gases would work correctly. -
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Bolshevik Revolution
Russia was losing to Germany in World War 1. Because of the war, there was a lack of food, employment, and other necessary things to live. This made the people of Russia very angry and they formed revolutionary groups called soviets. The soviets striked and Tsar Nicholas II was taken from the throne and a new power was put in place. The new government system was the Provisional Government. The government was made up of socialist who wanted everything to be regulated by the government. -
Entry of the United States
Throughout the war, America had remained neutral until British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from Zimmerman, a German foreign minister. The telegraph was to the Minister of Mexico and said that Germany would give them American land if they joined Germany in the war. America then engaged in World War II. President Woodrow Wilson declared the entrance of the war. The United States allied with England and Russia. -
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League of Nations
The task of the League of Nations was to eliminate war in Europe. One of the weaknesses was that America’s president Woodrow Wilson refused to join the league. Also, Germany and Russia were not allowed to join the league, which were 3 of the world's major powers. They did have some successes though in Greece, Memel, Turkey, and Bulgaria. The League of Nations also didn’t have any way to follow through with their rules because they didn’t have an army and refused to partake in fighting. -
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Stalin coming to power in Russia
Stalin was the successor of Lenin and gained power in Russia gradually. He was into industrialization and economic growth but this costed the people lots of money. Stalin was very harsh to the people who rebelled in the 1930s during the Great Terror. This prepared Stalin for the Germans. -
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Rise of Facism
After the war, many countries throughout the world were in an economic depression. Because of the state of the economies, this led to the rise of fascism in countries such as Italy, Germany, and Japan. In Italy, Mussolini fought revolutionist with terrorist.Because it appeared that Mussolini was protecting the people, the middle class supported him for the protection.Germany was also in a depression after World War I. Hitler became a powerful leader and ruled very similarly to Mussolini using... -
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Rise of Facism (cont.)
...the tactics of fascism. Hitler had the Nazi’s attack his opponets. The desperate people began to agree with the Nazi’s attacks on different people and supported Hitler. -
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The Great Depression (cont.)
...unemployed. Because of the poor conditions in Germany, Hitler’s ideas of a perfect raised sounded promising to the nation. -
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The Great Depression
The United States economy crashed and the country stopped imports from other countries to build up their own economy. Because the United States wasn’t buying foreign goods and giving European countries loans, it caused depression in other countries around the world, include Britain, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. These areas did not modernize after the war and their coal, iron, steel, and shipbuilding industries crumbled. Twenty-five percent of the people were them unemployed. Because of -
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German invasion of Austria, Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia, Rhineland
Because of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was not allowed to expand. Hitler wanted to unify all of the German speaking nations, though. Britain and France were recovering from World War I, so they could not prevent Germany from invading Rhineland without causing themselves more economic trouble. Next, Germany invaded Austria and then Czechoslovakia. Britain and France didn’t do anything to stop this until 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Poland was not a German nation, which broke the treaty -
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Spanish Civil War
Spain was also hit with a depression after the war. The government was unable to fix the problems of unemployment and poverty. This started a revolt against the government. The rebels, also known as the nationalists, were helped by Italy and Nazi Germany. The republican side was generally made up of peasants and compromised workers, and the rebels being made up of the army, industrialists, and middle class workers. The nationalists eventually were victorious.Francisco Franco began a dictatorship -
German Invasion of Poland
The Germans engaged in warfare in Poland on September 1st, 1939. This was the first combat engagement in WW2. It was called “Operation White” and over 1200 people were killed. U-boats attacked Polish naval forces and they bombed the airfields. Germany was victorious in this because of their strong militia. This was a big deal to France and Britain because Germany had broken the Treaty of Versailles and invaded a non-German nation. -
Evacuation of Dunkirk
During German invasion, British and French troops were trapped by the German troops in Dunkirk. Operation Dynamo was established by Admiral Ramsey to get as many men off of the beaches as they could because these soldiers were very important. Small ships would transfer solders to larger ships out in the ocean. While this was happening, Hitler did not call on attack which surprised most people. A total of 338,000 soldiers were taken off of the beaches of Dunkirk and none of them were harmed. -
Fall of France
The maginot line was a line of French fortification facing Germany along eastern France. This is where the French predicted the Germans to attack from but instead, German armies entered France from Belgium in the north. French armies were not able to prevent the German forces from invading because they were to far southern at the maginot line. This allowed Germany to take over much of France, including Paris. Finally, on June 22, 1940, The new French premier, Reynaud, was able to stop the fight -
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Battle of Britain (cont.)
...not have power in the sky, Hitler changed his focus to the Soviet Union but continued to bomb Britain throughout the war. -
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Battle of Britain
After France fell, Britain was the only major country Germany had to defeat. This battle was between the German air force, the Luftwaffe, and the British Royal air force. Germany focused on attacking Britain’s coastline so it made trading difficult. When this didn’t work, they switched to trying to take down London and other major cities. On September 15, 1940, the Luftwaffe attacked London and the southern coast but the British Royal air force was able to withstand them still. Realizing they di -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
Japan attacked 21 ships at US Naval base at Pearl Harbor, including 8 battleships. Around 2,400 Americans were killed in the incident. The Philippines were also attacked. President Franklin Roosevelt immediately declared war on Japan, proposing America’s entrance into WW2, despite their attempts at peace from the Neutrality Acts of 1933. This gave the allies an advantage because they had a fresh army to support them. -
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Battle of Midway/Battle of Guadalcanal
The Battle of Midway was fought between the American and Japanese navies in the Pacific ocean. The United States won this battle by destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers. These were vital for Japan’s control of the Pacific ocean. The Battle of Guadalcanal was in Solomon Islands. Japan had started building airfields there and the United States wanted to stop them. The allies did take control of Guadalcanal, which gave them a led in the war for the first time. -
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Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the bigger battles of the World War II and considered the greatest in Russian history., This battle was between the allies and Germany. The allies stopped German advancement into the Soviet Union. The city of Stalingrad (Volgograd) in Russia, was an important and large industrial city. It was a very bloody battle and there was a lot of hand to hand combat. Over 800,000 Germans, Italians and Hungarians were wounded, missing or dead. This time was also the... -
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Battle of Stalingrad (cont.)
...height of Hitler’s concentration camps. Germany was not expecting the war techniques that the Russian army used and lost this battle. -
D-Day
At this point in the war, Germany occupied most of western Europe except Britain. Britain became a large air force base for all of the allied air forces. Starting June 5th, the allies flew into different parts of France to take over different axis’s bases. Canadian, British, and United States forces landed on the beaches of France and because of poor preparation of the Germans, the allies were able to dismantle the axis forces. -
Bombing of Tokyo
The fire bombs dropped on Tokyo was the first bombing the United States attacked Japan with after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Over 100,000 people died in the bombings for poisonous gases, lack of oxygen, and other reasons. The attack ruined the city of Tokyo. The United States did this to try and force Japan to surrender, which they didn’t untill nine days later when the atomic bombs were dropped. -
V-E Day
V-E Day is the formal end of Hitler’s war. The final document of surrender was at General Eisenhower’s headquarters on May 7th. USSR waited one day for formal celebrations. People reacted in many different ways, some reflecting on what had happened and others throwing parties and celebrating because the war was over. -
Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in Japan. The bombing not only destroyed the city and killed 80,000 people that day, but had long term effects on the people. Three days later, another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki by the United States. Again, the effects of the bombing was devastating. On August 15, the emperor of Japan, Hirohito, finally surrendered and the war was over. -
V-J Day
The celebrated victories of the allies over the defeat of Japan was on August 15th, 1945. The Japanese general Koiso did not sign the document until September 2nd, 1945. Japan played a large part in the war, and attacked Burma, Malaya, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The US dropped the first ever atomic weapon on the city of Hiroshima. VJ Day marked the end of the battle with Japan and World War Two.
