This class consists of a series of three lectures. The first week's lecture will focus on the causes of Great War and the first year of the conflict. The class will examine the Imperial German Army's Schlieffen Plan intended to defeat France in a matter of weeks before turning its might against the Czarist armies on the Eastern Front. The second class will examine the widening war of 1915 with the entrance of Italy on the side of the Allies. The class will also concentrate on the great battles of Verdun and the Somme of 1916. The third lecture will concentrate on America's entrance into the war, the collapse of Czarist Russia, the end of the war, and the Treaty of Versailles. The events of the first Great War of the 20th century still impact the world into the 21st century.