The Coming Chapters : Recap Of WWI

In the coming chapters, we will finally start talking about the US during WWI and the situation leading up to that.  I thought it would be nice to give everyone a recap of what we learned about WWI in our past history classes.  

The War unofficially began with the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in an assignation set up by serbian officials.  On the twenty eighth of July 1914, Austria declared war on Serbia, pulling in with them their German allies and the Russians, who were interested in preserving the Serbian state.  The next to join the war was the French who were forced into war on august second by the German attack in Belgium known as the Schlieffen Plan (Schlieffen Plan). The British joined the war after Germany refused to answer their ultimatum to leave belgium neutral, declaring war on germany on August fourth of the same year.  

WWI also saw a lot of new fighting styles.  Of course there was the development of trench warfare, seen in small quantities in the American Civil War, which was a bloody new style of warfare developed to compensate for armies abilities to kill their opponents much more affectively and accurately.  In addition to trench warfare, WWI also saw the first use of submarines in warfare.  The particularly famous German sub, known as the U-boat, helped to bring the US into the war in _____ with the sinking of the British ocean liner, the Lusitania.  

The war was finally brought to a close on June twenty eighth 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles.  In this treaty Germany was forced to admit full responsibility for the start of the war, and pay huge reparations to the Allied nations.  In addition to this, there were limits put on the sizes of their military and naval forces, in an attempt to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.  Ironically these restrictions and reparations helped to bring Hitler to power in 1931, and eventually start the second World War.  

Hope this refresher helped!!