Letter to Home

To my dearest wife,

     I hope you are doing well at home with my mother. Please take care of her, and tell her I'm fine and still doing well and working very hard in the military. Because of the recent death of the artillery commander I have been promoted out of the trenches, finally.  The trenches were some of the worst experiences of my life.  There was disease everywhere and rats running throughout the trenches eating human flesh. Now instead of sitting in trenches waiting for my feet to rot and the explosions to stop, I seem to endlessly the bomb the German lines to make way for our boys. After we stop our barrage of shells my friends, fellow soldiers, and commanding officers pour over the trench wall usually to their death but some make it to the opposite trench to take care of the remaining Germans. But so far I have only slightly been affected by mustard gas, I was lucky enough to have my mask on in time. But do not worry about me Ill be alright I'm strong ill make it. 

Love,

Commander Killgore

WWI Causes

1)Describe and define the four MAIN causes of WWI.

List and define each, and link to the start of the war.

militarism- The idea that a country should have a strong military force.  Every country began creating a larger army and a bigger military.

alliances- Alliances, or strong bonds were made between countries. When one country went into war basically everyone did.

imperialism-Countries wanted to invade other countries and gain more land and resources.  The invading caused war bringing out the alliances.

nationalism-People had a strong love and passion for their country and would do anything to keep it the way it is, even war.  Nationalism brought out so much emotion that people would fight.

2)What was the spark of war?  Explain it

The assassination of arch-duke Franz Ferdinand in Austria-Hungary caused WWI.  As soon as Serbia and Austria-Hungary got into a war all of the alliances came together creating a world war.

3) Put these in order, and explain, each of the following; include the date. (a,b,c,d)
Lusitania-1915-A boat that carried not only several hundred people but also a lot of weapons secretly, a German U-boat sank it.

Sussex pledge-1916-A french boat sank by Germans

unrestricted sub warfare-January 9th, 1917-German submarines could fire torpedos without letting the other boat know

Zimmerman note- January 16th, 1917-A telegram sent to Mexico from Germany attempting to create an alliance to take down America but was intercepted by the British.

Balfour Declaration

   The Balfour Declaration was an important part of WWI by entrusting the United Kingdom with the Palestine Mandate in 1922.  The goal of the declaration was to keep the Jews safe with "their own country."  The Jews were shocked in 1894 by the Dreyfus Affair in France, this showed that they would no longer be safe from arbitrary semitism in other countries.  However through Zionism, or political maneuvering, the Jewish people believed that they could in a sense create a "Homeland."  Arthur Balfour who was the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1902-1905 and secretary in 1916 worked alongside with several other Zionists to attempt to create this "homeland" in Palestine.

With the help of fellow zionists, Arthur Balfour was able to put through the
Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917 after going through several drafts.  It took nearly 5 years to be accepted by the League of Nations but once accepted the United Kingdom was under temporary ownership of Palestine.  However the Jews were only safe for so long.  By 1939 The White Paper declared that Great Britain may no longer create a jewish state.  This prevented millions of Jews from being safe of European countries and isolation.  Eventually this caused millions of deaths in the Holocaust because of the lack of safety the Jewish people had.  Without any safety the Jews were stuck where they were and could only attempt to hide for so long before being found and sent away to be put to work or executed.

http://history1900s.about.com/cs/holocaust/p/balfourdeclare.htm 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Balfour