world war 1 Essay

Submitted By julkaribka
Words: 721
Pages: 3

World War 1
World War 1 began on June 28, 1914, a month after Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to Austria- Hungary’s throne, was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. Before going to war with Serbia, Austria- Hungary made sure they had Germany to back them up. This gave Serbia time to get back up from Russia, with whom they had a treaty. But this was not the end; Russia had treaties with France and Britain, so by the time Austria- Hungary declared war, the whole Europe was already entangled in this dispute.
Germany took the full force; they were being attacked from both the east and west. To still stand against this attack, Alfred Graf von Schrieffer, who used to be the chef of Germanys general staff, came up with the Schrieffer Plan. Germany first decided to attack France by going through Belgium. Belgium had a treaty with Britain so this attack is what officially brought Britain into war. While Germany was still mobilizing, France came up with the Plan XVII. This plan called for a quick assemble of troops to the response of the German attack on Belgium.
As the Germans were moving south into France, the French and British troops went north to meet up with them. The massive armies met in a standstill, that even by September 11 they still haven’t made any progress. Both sides of forces began to dig trenches, which for the next four years they would fight from these trenches.
Life in the trenches wasn’t too good. Soldiers each fired artillery from their trench onto the enemy’s position and tried to lobby the grenades. There would be times when the military leaders ordered a full-fledged attack of the enemy’s trench, for this to happen, the soldiers had to cross the “No Man’s Land” by foot. “No Man’s Land” was the area between the trenches. Out in the open the soldiers would race across the open place hoping to reach the other side without getting shot. Most often than not, most were shot by machine-gun fire and artillery before they even got close. Trench warfare slaughtered millions of the young men in the battles of WW1. War quickly became a war of attrition. By 1917 the allies were running out of young men.
For the first couple years, U.S. was neutral even though the allies needed help. However, after two major events, the U.S. opinion changed. The first event that happened was when German’s U-boat, sunk the British ocean liner, RMS Lusitania. The liner was considered a neutral ship that carried mostly passengers. This made the Americans furious, especially since there were 159 American passengers. The second event was the Zimmermann Telegram. This telegram was sent by the Germany to Mexico,