The Road to War
This 1914 assassination in Sarajevo served as the "spark" that ignited a global "powder keg" fueled by imperialism and militarism.
What is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
As the war's only major surface action, this 1916 engagement saw the German fleet driven back, leaving Britain in control of the North Sea.
What is the Battle of Jutland?
Germany used these small, stealthy vessels to conduct unrestricted submarine warfare and invisibly starve the Allies.
What are U-boats?
This predominant type of front-line battleship was defined by its "all-big-gun" armament and massive tonnage.
What is a Dreadnought?
This intercepted secret dispatch revealed a German proposal for an alliance with Mexico to attack the United States in exchange for lost territory.
What is the Zimmermann Telegram?
This alliance, also known as the Allies, primarily consisted of Great Britain, France, Russia, and Serbia.
What is the Triple Entente?
Launched in April 1915, this amphibious invasion of a Turkish peninsula ended in a catastrophic failure and heavy losses for the Allies.
What is the Gallipoli Campaign?
The sinking of this British ocean liner in 1915 killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and pushed the U.S. toward war.
What is the RMS Lusitania?
Known as "Ash Cans," these canisters packed with TNT were designed to detonate automatically at a preset water depth based on ambient pressure.
What are depth charges?
This innovation grouped merchant ships together under heavily armed naval escorts, causing U-boat sinkings to plummet.
What is the Convoy System?
To bypass French border fortifications, Germany implemented this strategy that involved marching through neutral Belgium.
What is the Schlieffen Plan (or the invasion of Belgium)?
In December 1914, the British eliminated the last major German surface force outside the North Sea in this engagement off the coast of South America.
What is the Battle of the Falkland Islands?
These early acoustic listening devices allowed surface crews to track submarines by the mechanical hum of their propellers and engines.
What are hydrophones?
These vital geographic bases served as essential fuel depots for the coal-burning warships of the early 20th century.
What are coaling stations?
Over 2 million of these American soldiers were safely transported to the trenches of France without a single troopship being lost to a torpedo.
Who are the "Doughboys"?
This strategy creates diplomatic power simply by having a fleet ready in port.
What is a "Fleet-in-Being"?
This Turkish commander emerged as a national hero after his victory at Gallipoli and would later found the Turkish Republic.
Who is Mustafa Kemal?
This type of gas could be formed with saltwater contacting the sulfuric acid of the lead cell batteries in early submarines?
What is chlorine gas?
To create the "Northern Barrage," the U.S. Navy manufactured and laid over 70,000 of these "antenna" devices across the North Sea.
What are sea mines?
This 1918 treaty forced Germany to accept war guilt and pay massive reparations, resulting in a fragile twenty-year peace.
What is the Treaty of Versailles?
Maintaining a tradition of isolationism, these two U.S. Presidents were initially more focused on the domestic "Progressive" movement than the naval competition in Europe.
Who are Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson?
As a direct result of the Allied failure to take the Dardanelles, this nation joined the Central Powers to assist Germany in the conquest of the Balkans.
What is Bulgaria?
This Commander of U.S. Destroyer Division 8 arrived in Europe in May 1917, famously telling the British, "We are ready now, sir"
Who is Joseph Taussig?
In a process called the "Three-Bearing Cross," three subchasers worked in unison to "fix" a U-boat's exact location using this method.
What is triangulation?
The war officially ended on November 11, 1918, after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and internal mutinies within this specific German fleet.
What is the High Seas Fleet?