WOH-4244 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Finnish Civil War, Dual Monarchy, Central Powers
Document Summary
Wwi fought between central powers (germany, austria, ottoman empire) and. Germany attacks france through belgium, but is halted before paris. Defensive side in trenches are very successful. Over 10 million soldiers killed, 30 million wounded. British invent the tank but they fail to break trenches because they have fragile, unsophisticated machinery. Brutality thesis : the violence of wwi makes some trench vts desensitized to violence, and as a result fascism arises around wwii. 1917 bolshevik revolution led by lenin, leads to soviet union. Lenin pulls out from wwi and fight with germany as soon as he is in power. Germans demand a huge chunk of western russia including ukraine which is heavy in agricultural resources. Germany now gets to fight only a one-sided war (from the west) now that. Launch spring offensive against uk and france but fail. German/austrian offensive is failing as american troops show up and there is a sudden collapse of morale in those countries.
