US History Michallik: Februar 2015

1. When did World War I (The Great War) begin, and Why? (What was the immediate cause?) Between what two groups of allies was it fought? Give the name and member countries for each of the opposing sides.

· World War I, which is also called the Great War because it was the second largest war in human history a,nd can be seen as the ultimate cause for WWII, began in July 1914 with the declaration of War from Austria-Hungary to Serbia. Following to that the supporter Countries of Germany (Austria-Hungary) and Russia (Serbia) declared war against each other and Germany also declared War against France. The immediate cause was the shooting of the Austrian Archduke from a Serbian Nationalist in his Car to which Austria-Hungary wanted to send police forces into Serbia to enlighten the deed or declare war. But because the conditions were unacceptable even for War Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on the 28^th of July.

· The Main actors in the War were Germany and Austria-Hungary on one side and Britain, France and Russia including all their colonies on the other side.

2. When and Why did the United States enter the War.

· The US declared war on Germany on April, 6^th 1917, because of two main reasons. One was that Germany was using a total Submarine War in the Atlantic to stop deliveries to the UK coming from the US and therefore destroyed almost every ship in the Atlantic including US passenger ships. As a result to this killing of a neutral country the opinion from the Citizen shifted and went more and more against Germany. And the second reason was that Germany offered to Mexico, that Germany would finance a War to take back their old territory in New-Mexico and Texas. And therefore openly spoke against the US.

3. When and why did WWI come to an end?

· World War I ended at 11.11 am on the 11.11.1918 with the surrender of Germany. The ended because of various reasons like the Germany Kaiser fleeing from Germany, the tiredness from War or just simply the fact that with the entering of the United States Germany was losing really badly. And one of the first parliamentary actions of the German Government without a Kaiser was to start negotiations about peace.

4. What were the terms of the major agreement ending the War? Why did the United States not ratify this treaty, even though President Wilson had played such a major role in negotiating it?

· The biggest and most important “agreement” was that Germany and his allies have the main only responsibility for the War. Further Germany has to lose 1/5 of his territory, all his colonies, 4/5 of its coal industry and 1/4 of the iron industry. Germany is not allowed to have a Fleet, artillery or War Planes. And the trade fleet is to reduce to 10%. Furthermore Germany has to pay reparations to almost all of the wining nations. Also the army is to reduce to 100.000 men defensive force (very, very small).
President Wilson was played a major role in negotiating the treaty in his role of trying to lower the payload for Germany because he directly saw that a humiliated Germany is also a dangerous Germany because the democracy was just arising. It is said that 1919 when the treaty of Versailles was signed one of the American delegation pointed on the map (on Poland) and said this peace is going to stay for 20 and here it will begin again. Also as a minor reason the US was always interest in new markets but a Germany that had to pay reparations would not be able to buy from other nations.

5. The Fact that me wonder most is that every War and every conflict in the 20th century had its roots in the first world war but yet no one really knows some thing about it. When I started my own journey through that huge topic I started with the fact, that the war started in 191, ended in 1918 and that it was a world war... not enough!!!

My sources are Wikipedia for the exact day when things happend and the magazin: "Wissen von A-Z Der erste Weltkrieg"

http://wissen-az.jimdo.com/magazinverzeichnis/

The Adventure of the Great White Fleet was one of the biggest events that ever happened in the US Navy. The Cruise of 16 Battleships – huge amounts of steel floating in water – that traveled around the world. They made port on almost every Continent except of the Antarctic and managed a distance of 43.000 miles. Which was more than most persons thought they could do because the American Fleet was never in combat or bigger training missions before. Actually after the end of the Spanish-American War that left the US with colonies all around world, most of the ships were produced and therefore relatively young in duty.

The Idea of moving such a big part – 16 Battleship, which was most of the larger ships in the Atlantic Ocean – arose after Japan was getting more and more provocative. The Japanese felt that President Roosevelt betrayed them after the Japanese-Russo War. The War was clearly won by the Japanese but from their perspective they didn´t got all they deserved and blamed Teddy Roosevelt for it. And also because in 1906 California made some laws against Japanese immigration the Japanese population was getting more and more angry against the US. Together with the fact that Japan had the Sea Power in the Pacific Ocean, it was not likely for the US to defend their new colonies in the Philippines in case of an attack. And so Roosevelt decided to show the world what role America wanted to play. In the Years 1904 to 1907 11 new Battleships were build what was after Great Britain the largest number of ships newly build.

With that new Fleet the US grow to an international sea power. The problem was that most of the ships were deployed in the Atlantic Ocean but Japan, the most likely enemy, would attack in the Pacific Ocean. So Roosevelt decided to show the world and especially Japan that the US could shift their fleet to another Ocean easily. And that´s what happened: on December 16/1907 a fleet of 16 Battleships painted in white left the east coast to travel around the south cap of America and return on to the west coast. What most people didn´t knew and what first got public on the day of the departure was that Roosevelt actually planned to send his fleet around the world.

The Journey around the world was a test and training mission now one of the most powerful fleets on earth. Roosevelt himself said that he wanted to “have failure reported”. But the fleet was constructed very well and besides that two of ships had to be replaced while making port on the west coast and two of the older ones were unable to go real combat all the ships made their way back to the east coast.

The actual need of fleet for the US was very high in this time. And this had different reasons. The most obvious one is that in the late 19^th century almost all the nations that wanted to contribute on the international stage were build ships like they were crazy. And with the UK as the best example what benefits a great Fleet had they did well with building ships. The Sun never sets in the British Empire and even today it is always anywhere Day in Great Britain and it is not likely to change. But this empire was build up of a big fleet and other nations like France lost most of their colonies because they couldn´t support them via sea. And even further back in history where the Greeks stop the invasion of the Persians simply because of controlling the sea.

All those thoughts about a healthy nation that needs a strong fleet where written down by Alfred Thayer Mahan in his book: “The influence of Sea Power upon History”. Where he describes all the aspects of a good and strong fleet that has big ships as the most important part of it. Many nations took his opinion to design their own fleets. Germany and Great Britain even pushed it so far to make an arms race in the pre-WWI time with constructing more ”big ships” than the opponents.

And Great Britain made a good start for that with the launching of the HMS Dreadnought in 1906 which was the model for the following class of Battleships. The Dreadnought class was heavier armed than the so called pre-dreadnought battleships and had a thicker wall. Also the Dreadnought class made all the pre-dreadnought battleships look old and worthless, what was the reason that it was the most often build type of ship in the days before WWI. Also it lead to the construction of even heavier class the super-dreadnought.

The problem with the launch of the HMS Dreadnought was that it started an age of battleships and even a year before the Great White Fleet left port it didn´t contain the newest technology. For example the USS Connecticut that was leading the First squadron of the Great White Fleet was 140 meters long and armed with four 12 inch heavy guns and lot of medium and light artillery. And was able to make remarkable 18.8 kn. The HMS Dreadnought which was now the most wanted tool of nations was 180 meter long and had 10 12 inch guns together with a lot of medium artillery and was design to make a total 22 kn.

But nevertheless: it must have been a great spectacle when the sixteen entirely white painted ships were leaving the east coast with a distance of 400 yards between each other and steaming southwards to make the first rounding of world by the US Navy. And it didn´t failed it purpose because after it was made public that the fleet was going around the world many countries invited them to their harbors to stay. And as we know Japan didn´t attacked the US until WWII so also in this sense the adventure was a full success.