I. b) After the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, France was able to pay off its $5 billion indemnity to Germany relatively quickly, but it was still diplomatically isolated in Europe. It sought some alliances with other first-rate powers, and since Italy and Austria-Hungary were allied w/Germany, it sought alliances with Russia and Britain.
Russia had always had a keen eye for its Baltic brother states, which had a Slavic background and an Orthodox religion like Russia. It was contested in the Baltics, thought, by Austria-Hungary (AH), who wanted Serbia for its own. This was a straining problem on Germany’s alliances with both Russia and AH. While Bismarck was a skillful enough diplomat to handle this problem, his eventual replacement, William II, was not. This led to the break off of Russian diplomatic relations with Germany. Meanwhile, during an effort to modernize Russia, France gave Russia a large cache of French-made rifles. The show of goodwill led to the making of a defensive treaty between the two, stating that if either were attacked, the other would come to its aid. With one country under it belt, France wasn’t strong enough yet.
It turned to Britain, which was an unlikely ally since it had hated France since the Middle Ages, and had typically stay away from continental alliances. A number of factors contributed to Britain’s decision to ally France. In colonial Africa, Britain had dreamed of making a N/S railroad over the continent, while France wanted to make and East-West strip of territory in North Africa. The British started in the south, and the French in the West. When they met at Fashoda, the French decided to give in and let the British claim that area. This was a show of goodwill on France’s part. In a military demonstration, British general Wilson and French leader Foche apparently took a liking to each other, ending up with Wilson saying, unofficially, that Britain would devote 5 divisions to France if Germany attacked. Further discussions led to the unofficial word that the British fleet would protect the English Channel if the French fleet went to the Mediterranean, which eventually led to the Entente Cordial. Germany also didn’t help its own cause by making vague statements like “our future is on the water” and building a huge fleet, which scared the British. They depended on their ships for protection and saw Germany as threatening them. The grouping of France, Britain, and Russia formed the Triple Entente and put France back in standing as a first-rate power.
II. a) The US initially wanted to stay out of WWI because it was a lucrative conflict for them, but eventually they were forced to enter the war. There are a number of reasons the US entered the war, including a certain feeling of kinship towards the Allies and an ever-growing hatred towards Germany since the war began. The Allies had several factors in common with the US. Britain and America shared the same language, while the US felt it was indebted to the French who had helped it win the Revolutionary War. Also, if the US were to come in and save Britain from defeat, it would signal once and for all that the US was definitely no longer a colony, but instead a world power. The US also wanted to join its fellow democratic states, rather than the authoritarian Central Powers. The hatred towards Germany had started at the beginning of the war when the British began their effective use of propaganda. Newspapers had headlines such as “Germans kill Belgian Priest”, and accompanying stories which didn’t mention the fact that the priest had a machine gun behind the altar with a few bullets for German soldiers going to pray. The media began dehumanizing the Germans into the Huns – a bunch of barbaric tribesmen from Central Europe. Most importantly, the use of unrestricted submarine warfare by the Germans, which brought about the deaths of numerous Americans, on ships like the Lusitania, forced president Wilson to declare war. The British had only aggravated US merchant ships, but the Germans had actually harmed them, so the US chose to side w/the Allies.
American entrance into the war was a big damper on German plans. Though they had achieved victory over a rebelling Russia and the ability to focus on the Western Front, the US entrance into the war forced Germany to rush it big offensive on the Western Front. Because it had entered the war around the time of the Russian Revolutions, the US gave Germany only the spring of 1918 in which to crush France and Britain. If the all-or-nothing offensive failed, the growing might of the US-bolstered Allied army would eventually defeat Germany by rolling through its defense like a steam roller. The sheer numbers of men and the industrial production provided by the US would be too much to hold back. This is what happened.
