The Entente Powers

 

The word Entente in French means friendship, understanding, and agreement.  The Entente Powers of World War I originated as the Triple Entente of France, Russia and the United Kingdom.  As Germany and the Central powers began to gain power in Europe, more and more nations joined the Triple Entente to prevent Germany for overtaking all of Europe, becoming an opposition known as the Entente Powers, or the "Allied Powers."  Germany even lost one of its own allies, Italy, to the Entente Powers, exhibiting the momentum that the Entente Powers gained throughout the war.   Although the Entente Powers emerged victorious, their need for vengeance was not met.  As nations came together to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles, The Entente Powers sought to ensure that Germany and its allies would pay for the destruction and turmoil they allegedly caused by holding Germany wholly responsible for the conflict and most of the reparations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember:

Please keep in mind as you explore your nations' needs and concerns that the original Treaty of Versailles is considered a major cause for World War II because of the Entente Powers' fixation on punishing Germany and its allies through the negotiations enforced by the treaty.  Unlike it had been when the original Treaty of Versailles was created, our goal in this recreation of the Treaty is not retaliation, but peace.

 

Ask yourself:

How do you think your nation could have better reflected their concerns in a way that would not greatly offend or limit the progress the central powers to bring about another global conflict?  

How can your knowledge of the repercussions of the original Treaty of Versailles guide you in the class's negotiation of our own Treaty of Versailles?  

 

 

The United States of America

Total Casualties: 350,000 (8% of mobilized troops)

Total Cost of War: $22,625,253,000

 

 

Consider these questions:

Was the United States' intended purpose of the Treaty of Versailles fulfilled?

View this link for an American perspective on the Treaty

          

What did the United States want to gain from the Treaty of Versailles?

President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points

January 8, 1918 (published over a year before the Treaty of Versailles was negotiated)

 

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world's peace, therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is this:

 

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.

XI. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations (**League of Nations**) must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

 

In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.

For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this programme does remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this programme that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other peace- loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, -- the new world in which we now live, -- instead of a place of mastery.

*drawn from the Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library

 

What were the United States' greatest concerns in the war?  In other words; what was the United States fighting for?

 

     While the United States had been determined to stay out of the war, and had managed to do so for three years, Germany's use of unrestricted submarine warfare began to threaten US trade and economic interests, which compelled Woodrow Wilson to ask Congress to declare war on the Central Powers.  The United States entered the conflict after many nations had been worn and their resources had been tapped out, meaning that they were the strongest power involved and had the potential to end the war within a year.  This circumstance gave American's confidence in their ability to bring the conflict to an end, and motivated them to fight.  Please click on the 48-star flag below to explore the reasons why the United States got involved in WWI, as well as what they expected to gain from that involvement:

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

United Kingdom

Total Casualties: 3,190,235 (35.8% of mobilized troops)

Total Cost of War: $35,334,012,000

 

Consider these questions:

What was Britain's Perspective on World War I and the Nations involved?

Visit BBC History for more info!

 

               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the UK, who was to blame for WWI?

Click the image below to find out for yourself!

 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soviet Union

Total Casualties: 9,150,000 (76.3% of mobilized troops)

Total Cost of War: $22,293,950,000

 

Consider these questions:

 

What was happening on the Russian homefront throughout WWI and the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles?

The 1910's were a time of great change in Russia.  Not only was the nation swept into war, but it underwent a major socio-political revolution, known as the Bolshevik Revolution as the war came to a bitter end.  Please view the clip below for more information about the Russian homefront during WWI and in the midst of a revolution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why was Russia fighting in WWI?  What were they trying to accomplish both domestically (at home) and internationally (with other nations)?

Russia's provisional government was greatly pressured by Western Entente Powers to contribute to their war efforts, because, after overthrowing the czar, they were dependent on funds and resources from their Allies to maintain power and infrastructure.  Russia wanted to hold on to its international ties and the support they were drawing from them in order to prevent the rebels from overthrowing a weakened provisional government and Russia itself from falling into a violent revolution.  Learn more about Russia's involvement in WWI here.

 

Why did Russia stop fighting?

After the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolshevik Party rose to power and brought Russia out of the war to focus on socio-political change on the homefront.  Please visit this link to learn more!

 

France

Total Casualties: 6,160,800 (73.3% of mobilized troops)

Total Cost of War: $24,265,583,000

 

Consider these questions:

What did France lose in the war?

     Before WWI: Before the war, France was re-establishing itself as a world power after a century of major defeats in the Napoleonic Wars and the Franco-Prussian War.  Among the nation's efforts to do so was its imperialist expansion, particularly to its African colonies.  France was also making efforts to regain territory lost during Franco-Prussian War, but was facing significant oppression from German occupation. To evade and potentially combat this German presence in France, the nation made alliances with Russia and UK to prevent Germany from becoming too powerful. 
     During WWI: France immediately lost ground to the invading Germans, but halted their progress early in the war, creating a stalemate inside their eastern borders that would soon become known as the infamous "Western Front." France also launched successful campaigns against the Germans in their colonies in Africa and the the Middle East to maintain its imperial power. 
     After WWI: Although France emerged WWI a victor and regained territory between modern-day France and Germany lost during Franco-Prussian War, its armed forces were devastated by the trench warfare fought against the Germans on the Western Front.  French troops and civilians suffered a high loss of life, which lowered national morale, crippled French industry and caused economic devastation.

 

How did the war affect the French people?