| Term | Definition |
| Triple Entente | Britain, France, and Russia joined together to create this group |
| self-determination | the ideas that people who belong to a nation should have their own country and government |
| Balkans | south eastern European region |
| Central Power | Germany and Austria-Hungary joined with the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria to create this power |
| Allies | Italy, Great Britain, France |
| nationalism | a feeling of intense pride of one's homeland |
| self-determination | the idea that people who belong to a nations should have their own country and government |
| Franz Ferdinand | archduke, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, assassinated by Serbian nationalist |
| Lusitania | a British passenger ship shot down by German U-boat, resulting in 128 Americans killed |
| Zimmerman Telegram | March 1917. Sent from German Foreign Secretary, addressed to German minister in Mexico City. Mexico should attack the US if US goes to war with Germany (needed that advantage due to Mexico's promixity to the US). In return, Germany would give back Tex, New Mexico, and Arizona to Mexico. |
| U-boats | German submarines |
| Triple Alliance | Alliance between Germany, Italy, Austria Hungry |
| conscription | forced military service |
| selective service | the requirement that all men between 21 and 30 must register for the military draft |
| neutral | one who does not side with any party in a war or dispute |
| propaganda | the spreading of ideas about an institution or individual for the purpose of influencing opinion |
| contraband | goods whose importation or exportation or possession is illegal |
| Sussex Pledge | after French ship Sussex was sunk, Germany promised not to sink anymore merchant ships without warning; this kept the U.S. out of the war for a little while longer |
| War Industries Board | agency established in July 1917 to coordinate the production of war materials in the U.S. |
| Victory Bonds | sold to American people to raise money for the war efforts |
| Liberty Bonds | sold to American people to raise money for the war efforts |
| National War Labor Board | to prevent strikes from disrupting the war effort; chaired by William Howard Taft and Frank Walsh |
| Great Migration | massive population movement; African Americans left the South to settle in Northern cities |
| victory gardens | garden planted by American citizens during war to raise vegetables for home use, leaving more for the troops |
| Slavs | Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, and Slovenes; all spoke similar languages and came to see themselves as one people; pushed for independence |
| Army Nursing Corps | only women to serve in the army were army nurses in this group |
| Bolsheviks | group of communists who competed for power in Russia |
| no man's land | space between opposing trenches; a rough, barren landscape with craters from artillery |
| doughboys | nickname for inexperienced American soldiers |
| convoy | a group that travels with something, such as a ship, to protect it |
| Lenin | leader of the Bolshevik Party, overthrew the Russian government and established a Communist government |
| Treaty of Bret-Litovsk | this treaty was signed on March 3, 1918; Lenin agreed with Germany; Russia lost territory, Germany removed army from Russia |
| armistice | an agreement to stop a war |
| League of Nations | Wilson's 14th point for a "general association of nations" to help preserve peace and future wars |
| Irreconciliables | nickname for senators completely against the League of Nations |
| Reservationists | senators who pledged to vote in favor of the Treaty of Versailles if certain changes were made to the League of Nations; led by Henry Cabot Lodge |
| reparations | payment by the losing country in a war to the winner for damages caused by the war |
| Treaty of Versailles | the treaty imposed on Germany by the Allied powers in 1920 after the end of World War I which demanded reparations from the Germans and stripped Germany of all military forces |
| trenches | holes or ditches dug in the ground to protect the soldiers from gunfire |
| poison gas | introduced by the Germans and was used by both sides during the war; caused vomiting, blindness, and suffocation |