USC IR 369 - Lecture 2 - The Great War and its Legacy

News ReportsEurobond debateCombine national debt into Eurobonds, remove individual credit ratings for countriesEnd to eurozone crisis, because ECB has been buying up individual debts to save economyAllow for greater develop in periphery, Greece PortugalEncourage by a lot of EU members, Germany is largest opponentMake it harder for Germany to borrow moneyRest of the world needs stronger EU; to buy their exports, safe investmentsGovernment have more jurisdiction over social networking (England)Against validity for human rights, IRAN against it for human rights reasonsResults from riots in Egypt and TunisiaSpanish government legally responsible for controlling national deficit318/350 parliament members voted in supportformally debated and voted on Fridaybudgetary discipline into Spanish constitutionSpain has been suffering from economic recession resulting from excessive borrowing; it will reassure markets that Spain will keep finances under control. Help Euro zoneThe Great WarOutlineWhy did war break it?Once it broke out why was the war so long and destructive?4 phases of war: 1. Phase of Illusions, 2. stalemate, 3. slaughter, 4. revolution and peacehow and why Europe lost dominant and US rose to super power status after WWI? People thought Germany would become most dominant, not US. Best colleges there, auto industrywhat was legacy of US denial of that new found dominance?War to end all wars; 14 million deathsLate 19th century: European dominanceWhy did WWI startApril 1912: British-French Naval AgreementJuly Crisis of 1914: The Spark that Started the WarThe assassination of the ArchdukeFranz ferdinand and family (next in command)Heir to throne of the austro-hungarian empireAssisanted 28th of june 1914 in Sarajevo, man who assassinated just wanted serbian independence, not a World WarStarted the July crisisKaiser Wilhelm II- Germany; pseudo democracy, essentially a monarchy thoughBelieved in War as necessary right of passageEarly july 1914 austro Hungarian (AH) empire decides to take hard line stance, Vienna sends envoy to Berlin to seek supportJuly 5th: Viennese envoy meets with German Kaiser, who grants AH a “blank check”23 July: AH empire delivers ultimatum to Serbia, accusing Belgrade of the AssassinationViennese delay weaken legitimacy of their response, waited a month after the assassinationSerbian govt was NOT involved in assassination and tried to work with Vienna, but that’s not what Vienna wanted, they wanted to start hostilities (war) with Serbia28 July: AH empire formally declares War on Serbia30 July: AH orders general mobilization31 July: Russia starts mobilization even though nobody had declared war on them, they just wanted to be prepared b/c soldiers wouldn’t get to frontline on timeAug 1: Germany independently declares war on Russia and mobilizes, France mobilizes as well. Many important people weren’t even their because it was a random weekend in augustAugust 3: Germany declares war on France even though France wasn’t even involved in the original conflictPeople CELEBRATED the start of the war; WHY?Strong belief in Social Darwinism: bastardized form of Darwin’s survival of the fittest; popular in Vienna. Hitler believed in it firmly. Politics operated like biological world, in order to get better people had to get suffer, weak had to be killed, for better to rise up. War is a biological necessityFalse belief that soldiers would be home by ChristmasShlefin Plan: operational/strategic weaknessGermans thought France would give up and they would be having dinner in Paris; supposed to capture paris and “behead” france very quickly.HOWEVER number of issuesNo plan will survive the first engagement of any battle because then the war uncertainties takes over; just gives you a false sense of security. Plans need to be changed on the ground often and its stupid to stick to original plansPlan completely ignored political strategiesWAR: Military HistoryTactics: how you physically get yourself off the boat and on the beach without getting killedOperations: How you are going to get the beach of Francestrategy: how US and Britain going to get onto continent to defeat nazi germanygrand strategy: main priorities and meansno calculations w/ fact that Belgium had army of their own and that theyd be resistant (Belgium between germany and France)meanwhile Russia was successfully mobilized in east and moving to eastern border of Germany. Didn’t leave time for troops to leave France and protect Germany from Russia and Russia successfully invaded Germany. Were able to hold off the Russians in the end, and Germany began fighting a defensive war against Russia rather than an offensive war against FranceGeneral Erich von falkenhayn became German leader for the rest of the war: Smart man who correctly reaized that it was not going to be a short war and that many people were going to die and he began to make preps for total warWalter Rarthenau, successful industrial business manager and Falkenhayn asked him to provide his business success to help war effort and led to continuance of warPhase of illusions ended very quickly 1914… of stalemate, 1915Early tanks made little difference (although there was more movemtn on estenr thatn western frontTurned into bloddy stale mate by 1915Increase in # of countries in war but no actual movementLife and death in the trenches, lots of great literature because spent lots of time waiting in trenches and they were well educated men…of slaughter, 1916…of revolution and peace, 1917-18Phase of stalemateThe Great War and its legacy← News Reports← Eurobond debate- Combine national debt into Eurobonds, remove individual credit ratings for countries- End to eurozone crisis, because ECB has been buying up individual debts to save economy- Allow for greater develop in periphery, Greece Portugal- Encourage by a lot of EU members, Germany is largest opponentoMake it harder for Germany to borrow money - Rest of the world needs stronger EU; to buy their exports, safe investments← Government have more jurisdiction over social networking (England)- Against validity for human rights, IRAN against it for human rights reasons- Results from riots in Egypt and Tunisia ← Spanish government legally responsible for controlling national deficit- 318/350 parliament members voted in support- formally debated and voted on Friday- budgetary discipline into Spanish constitution- Spain has been suffering from economic recession