Rabourn Notes On US Involvement in World War I (Great War)

Today in class, we took a lot more than average notes about the origins and US involvement in World War 1, which was also known as the great war at that time. Then, we watched the HBO film Iron-Jawed Angels about Alice Paul and Lucy Burns and the women's suffrage movement.

• World War I ended the progressive era because people became busy with the war and didn't worry about internal issues anymore
  

Origins of the War

• The countries in Europe were competing for colonies overseas, especially in Africa and Asia
  
• Colonies provided prestige and wealth for the home country
  
• Germany was united very late so it had to catch up to the other countries in terms of colonies and industry
  
• Germany quickly nationalized, industrialized, and militarized
  
• There was a lot of tension between Germany and France because of previous wars between them
  
• There were tangling alliances in Europe that made it that if any country went to war, many others would be forced to join
  
• There were 2 groups: the Entente between France and Russia, and the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy
  
• The Ottoman Empire had parts of the Balkans and was beginning to fall apart
  
• Austria-Hungary wanted to take Serbia and other Balkan countries as colonies
  
• The heir of Austria-Hungary got killed by a Serbian nationalists in a parade
  
• Austria-Hungary demands a lot from Serbia, then Russia backs up Serbia because they have a border with them, then Germany backs up Austria-Hungary from Russia, and France joins Russia to protect itself from Germany
  
• Germany attacked France through Belgium to make a sneak attack, so Britain joins the French side to honor Belgium's neutrality
  
• This was the first total war, which means that the entire nation's resources were devoted to war, like factories were converted into weapons factories
  
• On land, the armies relied on trench warfare, which consisted of 2 trenches with the no-man's-land in the middle
  
• Artillery shells, which created shrapnels, and poison and mustard gas made the trench warfare much more horrifying
  
• In the air, airplanes armed with machine guns took out land targets and also engaged in dog fights with planes from the other side
  
• In the sea, Germany relied on submarine warfare while Britain enacted a blockade
  

America's Position

• America wanted to be neutral when the war broke out
  
• It continued trading with all of the countries in Europe and supplied the weapons and ammunitions
  
• Germany resorted to submarine warfare to combat Britain's strong naval blockade because it was preventing supplies from getting in
  
• The Lusitania was sunk by Germany because it had 
  

To be continued....

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