The Learn Tracker
...life-long learning: structured, organized, searchable...
924
Lectures Watched
Since January 1, 2014
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:
Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:

VIEW ARCHIVE

Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info
Notes on video lecture:
1914-1916: All War Plans Fail Horribly
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on July 31, 2013 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
Russians, economic, British, asphyxiate, bleed, kit, Crimean, Western, Gallipoli, Verdun, million, Marne, failed, Balkans, Somme, Belgium, Serbians, crossroads, Brusilov, Sardinia, overextended, British, submarines, artillery, social, French, Ottoman
•
all elaborate plans to win the war are failing
•
vast plans moving millions of men, huge amounts of                   , careful railway time tables comes to bloody wreckage
•
war starts out with              unity
•
management vs. working class now takes a second seat to war-time unity as countries rally to their flags
•
what did countries expect of WWI?
•
expected what had happened in the past
•
Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905, lasted 2 years
•
Franco-Prussian 1870-1871, lasted 1 year
•
               War 1853-1856, lasted 3 years
•
conflict between Russian Empire vs. French, British,                Empires plus Kingdom of                 
•
they expected a violent clash of armies and a quick outcome, that's not what happened
•
key decision: what to do about               
•
had been a lynchpin of European politics since 1830s
•
France and Germany had to decide who would enter Belgium first to secure the territory
•
Germany decided to invade first to gain high ground, knowing it would bring the                into the war
•
after Germany invaded Belgium, British joined the war
•
Germans invasion of Belgium did not bring them success in the                Front
•
French launching attacks again German frontier, collapse in bloody failure
•
discovering that the defensive power of modern weapons are devastating with men and cavalry charge out in the open
•
German armies in Belgium sweep down into France from the north heading toward Paris (Schlieffen Plan)
•
Schlieffen Plan
•
avoid a two-front war by concentrating troops in the West and quickly defeating the French and then, if necessary, rushing those troops by rail to the East to face the Russians before they had time to mobilize fully
•
Battle of the           
•
Sep 5-12, 1914
•
battle effectively ended the month long German offensive that opened the war and had reached the outskirts of Paris
•
six French field armies and one British army along the Marne River
•
Germans were                         
•
The Western Front
•
the front of the war that the war ground down to after the German defeat at the Battle of the Marne
•
the war in the East
•
                 don't get very far
•
                 invade into Bosnia but are driven back by the Austrians
•
Serbia occupied by Central Powers, the battle line by 1915 pushed south to border with Greece
•
1915: war begins widening rapidly
•
Japan, a treaty ally of England, joined on England's side in the war
•
Japan uses this as an opportunity to occupy German territory on the Chinese mainland
•
Japanese occupy German-held islands in the Pacific
•
Ottoman Empire joins with Germany, Austria and Bulgaria to form a united front
•
declare Holy War against British and French
•
colonies in Africa
•
some minor wars with each other in jungles of Africa
•
British involved in battles against the Turks in Asia
•
gas and                     
•
combatants begin using the new marvels of chemistry against each other, releasing poison gas that when inhaled will cause the lungs to inflame and                      people
•
soldiers find that gas masks are part of their standard       
•
Germans advancing in submarine technology to disrupt world trade and offset                naval advantages
•
1915 end of illusions of quick war
•
countries realize that that initial war plans did not work, so they make their next plans
•
                   Campaign
•
also New Zealand and Australian troops
•
encounters modern Turkish army
•
goal was to knock Turkey out of the war but ultimately failed
•
countries realize they are straining their economies just to produce enough shells to fight this war
•
realize that war is going to be prolonged
•
once so many citizens are dying, the countries had to develop war aimed that matched
•
dismantle the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires
•
the war moved rapidly from a conflict in the                to a war to determine the future existence of multiple empires
•
1916: German offensive plans fail
•
Germans develop elaborate plans for war-winning offensives
•
center on the Western Front
•
Germans set out to wage a battle in which they will            the French army to death, a war of attrition, one which will make the French nation not be able to stand to continue the war. They pick as this blood bath a place called             .
•
Battle of Verdun, Feb-Dec 1916
•
714,231 casualties, 377,231 on the French side and 337,000 on the German one, an average of 70,000 casualties for each of the ten months of the battle
•
intensify submarine warfare
•
sinking ships which are carrying raw materials from America
•
submarine war is effective but not effective enough
•
Americans warn the Germans that if their submarines sink American ships or disrupt American trade, the Americans will join the war on the side of the British and the             .
•
1916: Allies offensive plans fail
•
                 Offensive
•
successful Russians offensive aimed at debilitating the Austrians, but it hurts the Russians just as bad
•
took place in what today is the Ukraine
•
Battle of the           
•
the battle was one of the largest of World War I, in which more than a                men were wounded or killed, making it one of humanity's bloodiest battles
•
20,000 British casualties on the very first day of fighting, July 1, 1916
•
conclusion
•
every side has tried its grand big to win the war and none of it is working, all the plans have             
•
all nations involved are feeling the strain: loss of lives, financial losses,                  strain
•
each side is thinking: where is this going to go now, how can we win the war?
•
this creates a very interesting moment, between August 1916 and January 1917, a                      were many things were possible
1914: Schizophrenic Germany
1914: The Balkan Whirlpool
1914: From Balkan Crisis to War
1914-1916: All War Plans Fail Horribly
The 1916 Missed Opportunity for Peace
WWI Pushes Warring Countries Toward Total States
Why the Allies Won World War One
Post-WWI: Filling the Void of Collapsed Empires
Post-WWI Communism vs. Anti-Communism
Post World War I: The Age of Uncertainty
1910s/1920s: Modern Women
The World of 1930
The 1930s World Crisis
1930s: The Decade of Contingency
America's Entry into World War II
WWII: Strategies for Total War
1945: Hour Zero
Post WWII: Imagining New Countries
Conflicts in Postwar Nation Building
The Two Europes That Emerged After WWII
1947 China: Undesirable Communists vs. Flawed Nationalists
Post WWII: The Age of America
Reasons for the Korean War
How WWIII was Avoided in the Korean War
1950-1952: The Cold War Comes to Main Street
1950-1954: The H-Bomb and the Nuclear Revolution
1950s: Loosening Empires and Building Confederations
The Emergence of the Third World
1958-1962: The World at the Brink
Third World Proxy Wars of the 1950s and 1960s
Managerial States and the Transnational Disruption of 1968
1970s Obstacles to Reducing Cold War Tensions
1970s Democratic Socialism Becomes a Non-Choice
1980s Political Polarization
1980s: Global Capitalism Transformed