World War I
Between 1871 and 1914, Europe's great powers built alliances and war plans that turned one assassination into a continental war. Four years of fighting killed about 20 million people, and the peace signed in 1919 helped set up the next war.
1871 to 1919 · 4 parts · 32 lessons · about 3 hours
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Questions this course answers
- How did Bismarck keep Europe at peace for twenty years after unifying Germany through three wars?
- Why did defensive alliances designed to prevent war guarantee that any war would be continental?
- Why was Germany, the most powerful country in continental Europe, also the most anxious?
- How did Verdun and the Somme produce 1.7 million casualties without deciding anything?
- How did the Russian Revolution free German troops for the 1918 Spring Offensive?
- Why was the Treaty of Versailles too harsh to be accepted and too lenient to be enforced?
Four parts, 32 lessons
Part 1 · 1871 to 1914
Europe Before the Storm
Europe split into two armed camps, Britain and Germany raced to build navies, and every army expected a short war. In 1914 one assassination led to a continental war.
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1
6 min
Bismarck's Europe
Bismarck unified Germany through three wars, then spent twenty years keeping the peace. Wilhelm II dismissed him in 1890 and let the Reinsurance Treaty lapse.
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2
6 min
The Alliance System
By 1907, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy faced France, Russia, and Britain. Their defensive alliances could turn a local quarrel into a continental war.
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3
6 min
The Imperial Rivalries
Germany could never outbuild Britain at sea. Britain could never be invaded by land. Both spent billions preparing for a war each believed the other wanted.
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4
5 min
The Balkans: Powder Keg of Europe
The Ottoman Empire withdrew from the Balkans and left behind a vacuum where Serbian nationalism, Austrian fear, and Russian ambition all collided.
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5
5 min
The Assassination and the July Crisis
Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. Five weeks later, Europe was at war. At every point, a different decision could have stopped it.
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6
6 min
The Technology of Killing
Machine guns, quick-firing artillery, and barbed wire made defense far stronger than attack. Yet every army in 1914 still planned for a short, mobile war.
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7
7 min
Why They Fought
Every army planned for victory in weeks. Germany needed to beat France in six weeks. France attacked into Alsace-Lorraine. Every assumption was wrong.
Part 2 · 1914
The Geopolitics of 1914
Germany feared encirclement and Russia feared looking weak. France and Britain went to war for different reasons. Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans gambled on war.
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8
6 min
Germany: The Restless Giant
Germany had the best-equipped army in Europe but felt encircled. It backed Austria-Hungary in 1914 because it could not afford to lose its only real ally.
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9
6 min
Russia: The Colossus with Feet of Clay
Russia had Europe's largest army, but a third of its soldiers went to war without rifles. The war destroyed the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty.
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10
6 min
France and Britain: The Reluctant Allies
France wanted Alsace-Lorraine back. Britain wanted the Channel ports safe. Two democracies fought the same enemy for entirely different reasons.
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11
7 min
The Doomed Empires
Austria-Hungary's army chief, Conrad, proposed war on Serbia 25 times in 1913. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire gambled on war and were destroyed by it.
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12
7 min
The War Plans That Failed
By December 1914 every war plan had failed, including the Schlieffen Plan at the Marne. About 100,000 British and German troops joined the Christmas Truce.
Part 3 · 1914 to 1918
The War
The war was fought for four years on four continents. It saw trench deadlock, Verdun, the Russian Revolution, and America's entry, and ended on November 11, 1918.
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13
6 min
1914: The Race to the Sea
The British army stunned the Germans at Mons. France lost 206,000 men in August but counterattacked at the Marne. Serbia drove Austria-Hungary out twice.
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14
7 min
Into the Trenches
On the Western Front, men lived in trenches seven feet deep, among rats and the unburied dead. They stood ready at dawn and tried to survive until dusk.
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15
6 min
Verdun and the Somme: 1916
Germany fired a million shells on the opening day at Verdun. Britain suffered 57,470 casualties on the Somme's first day. Neither battle decided anything.
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16
6 min
The Eastern Front
The Eastern Front was a war of movement, from Tannenberg to Brusilov's offensive. Russia suffered over 9 million casualties before revolution ended its war.
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17
5 min
Italy: Betrayal, Blood, and Broken Promises
Italy fought twelve battles on the Isonzo River and lost 600,000 men. Anger at the peace terms helped bring Mussolini to power within four years.
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18
6 min
The Global War
About 1.5 million Indians served, and Japan seized Germany's Pacific islands. The Arab Revolt and the Sykes-Picot Agreement shaped the modern Middle East.
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19
6 min
The War at Sea
Britain's blockade killed up to 763,000 German civilians. Germany's U-boats left Britain with six weeks of grain. The naval war decided who could keep fighting.
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20
5 min
The Home Front
Nearly a million British women made shells. Germany lost hundreds of thousands to starvation. The Spanish Flu killed more American soldiers than combat did.
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21
7 min
The Revolution That Changed the War
In 1917 Russia's Tsar abdicated and the Bolsheviks seized power. Russia's exit from the war then freed 50 German divisions for the Western Front.
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22
5 min
America Enters
Wilson won re-election on 'He Kept Us Out of War.' Five months later, Wilson asked Congress to declare war. More Americans died of flu than of enemy fire.
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23
5 min
The Spanish Flu: The Pandemic That Shaped the Peace
The 1918 flu killed 50 to 100 million people, more than the war. It weakened Germany's spring offensive and struck Woodrow Wilson during the peace talks.
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24
7 min
1918: The War's End
Ludendorff's Spring Offensive advanced 40 miles and then stalled. The Allies' Hundred Days broke the German army, and the Armistice followed in November.
Part 4 · 1919 to 1939
The Peace That Failed
The Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany for the war and demanded 132 billion gold marks. Yet it left Germany strong enough to start another war twenty years later.
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25
6 min
The Paris Peace Conference
Clemenceau wanted security and Wilson wanted his Fourteen Points. Lloyd George wanted Germany punished without ruining European trade. Germany was not invited.
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26
5 min
Sykes-Picot: The Carving of the Middle East
In 1916, while Arabs fought for promised independence, Britain and France agreed in secret to divide the Ottoman Arab lands between them.
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27
6 min
The Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles blamed Germany for the war in Article 231, set reparations at 132 billion gold marks, and limited the German army to 100,000 men.
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28
6 min
The New Map of Europe
Poland was reborn after 123 years, and Hungary lost 72% of its territory. Every new state contained millions of minorities who did not want to be there.
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29
6 min
Whose Fault Was It?
Fritz Fischer argued that Germany provoked the war. Christopher Clark argued that the great powers sleepwalked into it. There is still no consensus.
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30
6 min
The Human Cost
Serbia lost up to 28% of its population. Wilfred Owen was killed one week before the Armistice. Owen's mother received the telegram as church bells rang.
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31
7 min
Shattered Minds: Shell Shock and the Lost Generation
Britain executed 306 soldiers for desertion and cowardice, many with clear trauma symptoms, and pardoned them in 2006. PTSD was not recognized until 1980.
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32
6 min
Why World War I Matters
Communism, fascism, the modern Middle East, and American global power all trace to 1914. The war to end all wars built the world we still live in.
Lessons you can finish in one sitting.
Each lesson tells one part of the story and explains why it happened, with maps, images and quotes from the sources. A few questions at the end check that it stuck, and the key facts go into the course's flashcards.
- 5 to 7 minutes a lesson
- Two to three questions after each lesson
- 277 flashcards for this course
