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Nationalism
Italy was unified in 1870 and was barely large enough to be considered a great power. Italy wanted Tunis and Tripoli in northern Africa. This caused conflicts with France because Tunis was adjacent to the French colony Algeria. Germany was united in 1871 as a result of the Franco-Prussian war and rapidly became the the strongest economic and military power in Europe. When German ambition turned to many parts of the globe Germany came into serious conflict with most major powers of Europe. -
Alliances
The three emperors league formed in 1873 and was a three way alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.The triple alliance formed in 1882 between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. In response to the triple alliance in 1894 the Franco-Russian alliance was formed. Many alliances formed between 1873 and 1907. -
Imperialism
Prior to world war 1 the largest, richest, and most dominant imperial power was Great Britain. In 1884 Germany acquired Togoland, the Cameroons, and South West Africa. Six years later they had a sizable piece East Africa under their control. This caused problems for Britain and France. Many in London dreamed of a British-owned railway running the length of Africa and the German colonies in eastern Africa were and obstacle to this vision. -
Militarism
From 1898 to 1914 Britain and Germany were in a naval arms race. Kaiser Wilhelm the 2nd was eager to build a fleet to rival Britain's fleet the worlds most powerful fleet. Because of this Germany became identified as the chief foreign threat by Britain. In 1906 Britain created a new battleship called the dreadnought. Britain won the arms race. -
The assassination of Archduke Franz and his wife
On June 28th 1914 Archduke Franz and his wife Sofia were assassinated by a teenage Serbian nationalist while their motorcade maneuvered through the streets of Sarajevo. After his assassination there was a rapid descent into war. Austria-Hungary gained German support for punitive action against Serbia. It then sent Serbia an ultimatum, worded in a way that made acceptance unlikely. Serbia proposed arbitration to resolve the dispute, but Austria-Hungary instead declared war on July 28, 1914. -
Germany's blank check to Austria-Hungary
On July 5, 1914, in Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany pledges his country’s unconditional support for whatever action Austria-Hungary chooses to take in its conflict with Serbia, a long-running rivalry thrown into crisis by the assassination, the previous June 28,The kaiser’s pledge, which historians have referred to as the carte blanche or “blank check” assurance, marked a decisive moment in the chain of events leading up to the First World War in Europe during the summer of 1914. -
Start of World War 1
July 28th Austria declared war on Serbia. On august 1st Germany declares war on Russia. Then on august 3rd Germany declared war on France and invaded Belgium. The next day Britain declared war on Germany. On October 29th Turkey entered the war on Germany’s side. Trench warfare started to dominate the Western Front. On April 6th 1917 America declared war on Germany. November 11th 1918 Germany signed an armistice with the Allies – the official date of the end of World War One. -
Sinking of the Lusitania
On May 7, 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner en route from New York to Liverpool, England.On January 31, 1917, On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war.On April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. -
Zimmerman Telagram
In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. This message helped draw the United States into the war and thus changed the course of history.The American press published news of the telegram on March 1. On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress formally declared war on Germany and its allies. -
Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare
In 1917 the lethal threat of the German U-boat submarine raises its head again, as Germany returns to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare it had previously suspended in response to pressure from the United States and other neutral countries. On January 31, 1917, Bethmann Hollweg went before the German Reichstag government and made the announcement that unrestricted submarine warfare would resume the next day, February 1. -
US entry into the war and her effect on it
On June 26, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed in France to begin training for combat. After four years of bloody stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America’s well-supplied forces into the conflict marked a major turning point in the war and helped the Allies to victory. When the war finally ended, on November 11, 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50,000 of them had lost their lives. -
Rise of Hitler
Hitler took up political work in Munich in May–June 1919. As an army political agent, he joined the small German Workers’ Party in Munich (September 1919). n 1930 Hitler made an alliance with the Nationalist Alfred Hugenberg in a campaign against the Young Plan, a second renegotiation of Germany’s war reparation payments.Hitler insisted that the chancellorship was the only office he would accept. On January 30, 1933, Hindenburg offered him the chancellorship of Germany. -
Effect of World War 1
The casualties suffered by the participants in World War I dwarfed those of previous wars: some 8,500,000 soldiers died as a result of wounds and/or disease. The Treaty of Versailles created nine new nations: Finland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The treaty was written by the Allies without German help starting in January of 1919 and ending in June of 1919 -
Treaty of Versailles
Germany lost 10% of its land, 12% of its population, 16% of its coalfields and half its iron and steel industry.The economy was ruined as much of the produce and profit had to be sent to the allies as reparations payments. The disarmament of the armed forces made the Germans feel very insecure about their inability to defend themselves.The German people felt bitter that they were excluded from the league of nations and enforced to live by other peoples rules. -
Dawes plan and young plan
Headed by Charles G. Dawes the committee presented its proposal in April 1924. Under the Dawes Plan, Germany’s annual reparation payments would be reduced, increasing over time as its economy improved In 1929, the committee, under the chairmanship of Owen D. Young, the head of General Electric and a member of the Dawes committee, proposed a plan that reduced the total amount of reparations demanded of Germany to 121 billion gold marks, almost $29 billion, payable over 58 years -
The great depression
The American economy entered an ordinary recession during the summer of 1929, as consumer spending dropped and unsold goods began to pile up, slowing production. At the same time, stock prices continued to rise, and by the fall of that year had reached levels that could not be justified by anticipated future earnings. On October 24, 1929, the stock market bubble finally burst, as investors began dumping shares in bulk.