Transcript The Emergence of "Total War,"

NOT ACCORDING TO PLAN:
THE OPENING ROUNDS OF THE GREAT WAR
1. German troops drive toward Paris in August 1914 but
suffer defeat in the Battle of the Marne (September 5-9)
2. Russia invades Germany quickly but suffers crushing
defeat in the Battle of Tannenberg (August 26-30)
3. November 1914: The Ottoman Empire joins the Central
Powers and endures invasion at Gallipoli in March 1915
4. May 1915: Germany achieves a breakthrough on the
Eastern Front; Italy joins the Allies but cannot advance;
sinking of the Lusitania outrages USA
5. October 1915: Austrian, German, and Bulgarian troops
conquer Serbia
The “Schlieffen Plan” vs. the French “Plan XVII”
The actual
German
advance by
September
5, 1914.
The French
assembled a
new 6th Army
to threaten
the flank of
the German
1st Army.
THE GROWTH OF MILITARY FIREPOWER, 1815-1914
ARMIES AT WATERLOO,
1815:
70,000 men each under
Napoleon & Wellington,
fighting on a 1.5-mile front
Smooth-bore muskets
FIREARMS:
RANGE: 150 yards
RATE OF FIRE: 2 rounds
per minute
3 cannon per 1,000 men,
firing solid shot or canister
RANGE: ½ mile for shot,
ARTILLERY:
150 yards for canister
RATE OF FIRE: 1 round per
minute
ARMIES AT BATTLE OF THE
MARNE, 1914:
1 million men on each side,
fighting along a
90-mile front
High-powered rifles
RANGE: 1 mile
RATE OF FIRE: 12x per minute
PLUS 2 machine guns per
thousand men;
RATE OF FIRE: 400x per minute
6 cannon per thousand men,
firing high explosive shells
RANGE: 4-10 miles
RATE OF FIRE: 20 rounds per
minute
A German trench on the Western Front, November 1914
(by now they stretched from Switzerland to the English Channel)
The Western Front: Aerial view of a German trench network
Artist’s rendering of the failure of the first
Austrian assault on Belgrade in August 1914
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
SUFFERED UTTER DEFEAT
IN ITS FIRST ATTEMPT TO
INVADE SERBIA
The old fortress of Belgrade,
which survived all bombardment
Russian troops invade East Prussia, August 1914
(but coordination was poor between the 1st & 2nd Armies)
The Battle of Tannenberg, East Prussia, August 27-30, 1914:
30,000 Russians killed, 100,000 captured
Russians surrendering at Tannenberg,
August 30, 1914 (published in Germany)
General
Alexander
Samsonov
committed
suicide…
The offer of huge gains at Austria’s expense brought
Italy into the war in May 1915, but it proved almost
impossible to launch offensives in Alpine regions…
The conquest of
Serbia after Bulgaria
declared war in
October 1915
Oscar Laske, “Street Fighting in Belgrade,
9 October 1915”
The situation in December 1915
In February 1915 Berman U-Boots began to torpedo Allied
merchant vessels around the British Isles without warning
The RMS Lusitania passenger liner, with ad
placed by the German embassy in
the New York Times on April 22, 1915.
One German torpedo sank it on May 15,
killing 1,195 of the 1,955 persons aboard.
THE EMERGENCE OF “TOTAL” WAR
Carl von Clausewitz prophesied the emergence of “total
war,” but most historians regard the First World War as the
first “total war” for these four reasons:
1. Economic: industrial warfare by huge conscript armies
demanded the reorganization of the whole economy.
2. Psychological: combat became utterly terrifying, with a
killing zone over 5 miles deep; “shell shock” became a
major source of casualties.
3. Social psychological: massive propaganda campaigns
demonized the enemy in each country.
4. Ethical: hunger blockades, bombardments, and antipartisan actions broke down the distinction between
combatants & noncombatants.
In 1916 combat reached maximum intensity in the Battles of
Verdun & the Somme….
“On Her their Lives
Depend”
(Great Britain, 1916):
Economic mobilization
required the
recruitment of women.
Workers in a British shell factory, 1918
General Erich von Falkenhayn chose the
fortress complex of Verdun as the
battlefield on which to “bleed France white”
in February 1916
The Verdun fortress complex before the battle
The Germans fired 80,000 heavy artillery shells at
Fort Douaumont on February 21, 1916
The French commander at Verdun & his protegé:
Philippe Pétain (1856-1951) & Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)
French troops recapture Fort Vaux, 2 November 1916:
Each side lost over 300,000 killed
French 400-mm railway gun,
Battle of the Somme, 1916
British Mark I tank
in history’s first tank assault,
Battle of the Somme,
September 15, 1916.
These early tanks only
drove at 2-3 m.p.h. and
were prone to breakdown.
DAVID LLOYD GEORGE (1863-1945)
founded the Ministry of Munitions in
1915 and an all-party coalition
government in December 1916
Arthur James
Balfour,
Conservative P.M.,
1902-05, Foreign
Secretary, 1916-19
TYPICAL DEMANDS BY THE FRENCH MUTINEERS, MAY 1917
(from a letter by a soldier in the 36th Infantry Regiment to his uncle)
“When the time came to advance to the front line, an
incident happened in the army corps in which we
demanded our rights in the following things:
1. Peace and the right to leaves, which are in arrears.
2. No more butchery; we want liberty.
3. On food, which is shameful.
4. No more injustice.
5. We don’t want the blacks in Paris and in other regions
mistreating our wives.
6. We need peace to feed our wives and children and to
be able to give bread to the women and orphans.
We demand peace, peace.”
In 1917 the Radical Republican Georges Clemenceau
developed a program for “total war” with Pétain
Kaiser Wilhelm II and the new heads of the Supreme
Army Command, Hindenburg & Ludendorff, 1916/17
The
“Hindenburg
Program”
included
labor
conscription
and
unrestricted
U-Boot
warfare
“Destroy This Mad Brute”
(USA, 1917):
A commentary on the
resumption of unrestricted
U-Boot warfare.
SYMPTOMS OF ILLNESS
IN THE RUSSIAN BODY POLITIC
Russia mobilized 11 million soldiers in 1914/15 but
could not train competent officers to replace those
killed at the front.
Most promotions to major commands were based on
connections at court, not performance.
Russia produced a major food surplus, but the system
to distribute food often broke down.
By the end of 1916, almost 2 million soldiers were
Absent Without Leave.
By the end of 1916, the cost of living was 4X higher
than in 1913.
By the end of 1916, 1.7 million workers had
participated in strikes.
Revolutionary soldiers and workers control Petrograd
War Minister Alexander
Kerensky addresses troops
about to leave for the front
in 1917
“War until Victory!”
(an attempt to arouse
“Jacobin nationalism”)
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, i.e., “Lenin” (1870-1924),
leader since 1903 of the “Bolshevik” faction of Russian socialism
LENIN’S APRIL THESES
1. Transform the Imperialist
War into Civil War!
2. All Power to the Soviets!
3. Land for the Village Poor!
Climax of the “Great October Revolution”:
Red Guards storm the Kremlin in Moscow
Fraternization on the Eastern Front, November/December 1917
Europe at the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, March 1918
German troops moving through San Quentin to prepare
for the “Ludendorff Offensive” launched on March 21, 1918
The Ludendorff
Offensive,
March-July 1918:
Each assault was very
well prepared, but
their force tended to
dissipate…
American troops disembark at Le Havre, July 12, 1918
The breach of the “Hindenburg Line” at St. Quentin, 2 Oct 1918
British troops line the banks
Their multitude of
of the St. Quentin Canal
German prisoners