WWI


 * Three Emperor’s League:** an unstable alliance between tsar alexander 2 of russia, emperor franz joseph 1 of austria hungary and germany.


 * Black Hand:** a secret military society formed by members of the serbian army. it was founded in September of 1901, was intent on uniting all territories where serbs were living. Was a suspected cause of WWI because of their assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.


 * Triple Entente:** Great Britain, France, and Russia (and eventually the US and Italy) allied themselves against Germany and Austria-Hungary to protect themselves both from Germany's new found power and from the growing threat of war. When Great Britain threw her hat in the right, the Central Powers (as they were called during the war) kinda freaked because they were not expecting Great Britain to get involved or to side with France.


 * Trench warfare: ** By November 1914, trenches were dug along the western front to protect the troops from machine-gun fire. The trenches extended from Belgium to Switzerland.This stalled both sides and brought the war to a stalemate. Barbed wires, mines, and a never ending firing of the artillery were used to prevent the other side from going over the top of trenches and charging. This kind of warfare resulted in mass loss of life with only a slight gain in land. //All Quiet on the Western Front// (1917) details the terrors of trench warfare.

** Lusitania: ** A British passenger liner that was sunk by a German submarine in May 1915. It was carrying arms and munitions as well as 1000 passengers (139 Americans), who were killed. President Woodrow Wilson was outraged at the attack and ordered German leaders to discontinue submarine warfare unless they wanted to risk the United States also joining the war. Germany relaxed its policy for two years, but then continued due to desperation.


 * Total war: ** Policiy in which the government and citizens of a nation gives everything possible to win a war. Every aspect of civilian life and economic function is devoted to the cause. Free-market capitalism is abandoned to prioritize products and ration materials. The government imposes price and wage controls as well as restrictions on workers' movements. Each of the great nations' political leadership used planned economies to make the greatest possible military effort in WWI.


 * War Raw Materials Board:** was created in germany by jewish walter rathenau. board was used to ration and distribute all of germanys war materials. Rathenau planned the German economy to ration food, which gave most only about one thousand calories a day. Only pregnant women and children were allowed milk.


 * League of Nations:It was created after the first World War. They had one task and that was to make sure that war did not break out again. It was based in Genoa, Switzerland because Switzerland had remained neutral in the war.**


 * Petrograd Soviet: The Socialist govermant formed in petrograd by 3,000 russian soldiers, workers, and intellectuals. butted heads frequently with the provisional government.**


 * Army Order No. 1:** The order that basically established anarchy in the army. It dismissed all officers and allowed "councils" to form and make decisions.


 * Bolsheviks: These are the "Red" Russians who staged a revolution in February (March) of 1917 to establish a communist state in Russia. Formed and lead by Vladimir Lenin, these die-hard Marxist socialists would not stand for revisionist ideas but wanted a bloody revolution to bring equality to Russia.**


 * Constituent Assembly:** Used to have the Petrograd Soviets be elected by the people but backfired seeing as how they only got 25% of the votes so they used the army to break it up after one day and the people were not pleased with this so two camps were formed the whites and the reds


 * War communism: policy used by the Bolsheviks to wage war against their own country in the time of revolts and civil war. The government seize grain, introduced rationing, nationalized all banks and industry, and required everyone to work. It helped the Bolsheviks to keep the Red Army supplied and maintained labor discipline. The use of war communism is one of the reasons that the communistcover kent maintained power during the red v. White fiasco.**


 * Cheka:** A secret police meant to squash all evil anti-communists! Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Which was very efficient in its task and successfully used fear to have the people goaded into supporting the new dictatorial government and killed all who opposed or sent them off to Siberia


 * Treaty of Versailles:Peace settlement after WWI in 1918. It was between the Allies and Germany. Discussed at the peace conference in Paris by America's Woodrow Wilson, Britain's Lloyd George, and France's Georges Clemenceau, but signed by German representatives of the ruling moderate Social Democrats and the Catholic party at Versailles. It declared that Germany was responsible for the war and had to pay reparations because of it. Germany lost its colonies to France, Britain, and as League of Nation mandates but lost little in Europe (Alsace Lorraine returned to French). Poles living in Germany were joined to the new Polish state. Germany also had to limit its army to 100,000 men and to agree to build no military forts in the Rhineland. The Germans did not want to sign but had no other choice so they gave in. The resulting actions from Germany's bitterness were some of the main causes for World War 2.**


 * Balfour Declaration:** Issued by Arthur James Balfour that promised the establishment of a Jewish homeland reintegrated in Palestine that would not affect the non-Jewish people already residing there.


 * Nicholas II:** A good guy, but a terrible leader. He was more interested in his family than in Russia. He also followed in Russian tradition and dismissed the Duma. After that, he left the country that was on the verge of rebellion and went to rally the front lines to go and win the war (but failed). He left the homeland to Tsariana Alexandra and Rasputin (both were disliked by the people). After the February/March Revolutions, he abdicated. The royal family then became virtual prisoners, and were eventually shot.


 * Revolution of 1905:** It was a mass wave of social and civil unrest throughout Russia. It included but was not limited to worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies.


 * October Manifesto:** It promised to grant civil liberties to the people, including the freedom of speech, religion, and assembly. Not very useful though, because the Tsar still did whatever he wanted.


 * Vladimir Lenin:** became an enemy of imperial Russia when he brother was executed for plotting to kill the tsar. When he was exiled to Siberia for three years he studied Marxian doctrines. His three central ideas:1. capitalism should be destroyed only by a violent revolution 2. under certain conditions a socialist revolution was possible 3. necessity of highly disciplined workers party, strictly controlled by a dedicated elite of intellectuals and full time revolutionaries. (he didnt want them to take their eyes off the prize and get distracted by small short time goals) Trotsky helped him and was the main reason he was so successful with the public.Leader of the Bolsheviks


 * Mensheviks:** The "minority" or the political party that wanted a more liberal and democratic government which was opposed by the Bolsheviks or the "majority"


 * Leon Trotsky: Lenin's organizational minister and the leader of the red army during the russian civil war.**


 * February Revolution: (it was our March and Russia's February, different calendars)**


 * Rasputin:** A seemingly invincible man with weird eyes and insatiable desires for the opposite gender. Man, he was awesome! He hypnotized people and had lots of...fun...with women. When Nicholas II went to the front lines to rally the troops (but they still lost), he increased his influence over Czarina Alexandria. Some homies did not like this and plotted to murder him. They invited him to dinner, telling him he could...meet...a special lady. They put arsenic in his wine, but nothing happened; HE WOULDN'T DIE! So they decided to try a more direct approach. They got their guns and shot him. He fell down, but then he got up again! They could not believe it! So they decided to beat him and bash his head in. They did this, but it didn't work! He still would not die! Finally, they threw him in the river and he died. Alexandria was crushed and the monarchy crumbled. It was a sad day.


 * Provisional Government: The name given to the government in Russia from March 1917 to November 1917. It had two main features: refused to give land to the poor peasants in the rural areas and was the decision taken by the government to keep Russia in WWI**


 * April Theses: this was the speech given by Lenin. He rallied the support of the people by stating he would give them "Peace, Land, and Bread" if he was given power. Peace related to pulling Russia out of WW1, something the people desperately wanted. Land was promised for people to farm and be able to provide themselves with food. And lastly, bread referred to giving peasants more food than rationing gave them. Speeches such as this were what gave the Bolsheviks their majority in the Petrograd Soviet an eventually what propelled them to control.**


 * October Revolution: The October Revolution caused the overthrowing of the Provisional Government in Petrograd, and set the Bolsheviks in power. Since it was not fully recognized by the rest of the nation, the Russian Civil War ensued, and eventually the creation of the Soviet Union.**


 * Red Army: The communist faction of the russian army after the abdication of the czar. fought and defeated the loyalist white army.**


 * Reds: ** The Bolshevik proponents during the Russian Revolution. Most lived in southern Russia, Ukraine, Siberia, and west of Petrograd. It seemed at first that they were going to be defeated, but their unity and organization prevailed in the end.


 * Whites: ** The Menshevik proponents during the Russian Revolution, they opposed to the Bolsheviks. They came from various social groups, such as democratic soviets and officers of the old army. They were eventually defeated by the Bolsheviks during the civil war for control of Russia, too disorganized and separated to seal the deal.