Transcript [1] - bYTEBoss

THE FIRST WORLD WAR:
What’s Come Before
• War had been brewing in Europe for many years
– Rivalries between the Great Powers, the
glorification of the military and the building up of
armed forces.(Militarism)
– The delicate Alliance system and the ‘balance of
power’ had prevented war before 1914
– Competition for colonies (imperialism)
– Nationalism within great empires - War seemed
to be the greatest form of patriotism
• (Remember – M-A-I-N)
–New technologies (railroads, machine
guns, etc.) led military leaders to
believe that the war would end quickly
• With everyone pushing for war, it was
bound to come
The Problem…
• The problem was that European military leaders’
great theories were all based upon the last Great War,
the Napoleonic Wars. When the Generals last went
to war, battles were fought with swords and
charging horses. Guns fired a single shot and then
had to be reloaded by hand.
• Technologies and strategies had changed but these
generals were SO SURE that they could predict their
opponents’ movements that the order went out and
couldn’t be taken back.
The Great War
• World War I claimed 20 million lives
–Nearly 10 million of those were
civilians
• It was a war of new weapons: battleships,
poison gas, air raids, submarines, barbed
wire, machine guns, trenches, etc.
• It was a war that could have been
prevented and that most soldiers couldn’t
explain
Europe Plunges Into War
• Millions of Europeans marched out to war
believing that the war would be over in no
more than six months
–“They’ll be home for Christmas”
• Few saw the horror and stalemate that
was to come
1914 - Germany Invaded France
• Throughout August 1.5 million Germans
invaded France
• The Germans pushed the western forces
all the way to Paris which was about to
fall when the Germans made a critical
mistake
• German General Moltke split the German
army sending half to fight the Russians in
the Eastern Front and leaving half at the
Western Front
The Battle of the Marne
• On September 6 the Allies struck at a gap in
the German lines near the Marne River
– This stopped the German advance and
forced the German armies to retreat about 40
miles to the north
• This defeat destroyed any remaining hope for
a quick victory in the west and Germany soon
learned that Russia was too big for a quick
victory there either
– The war looked a LOT longer by December
1914
1914-1916
Paris: The First Day of Mobilization, Sunday August 2 1914
An outpouring of patriotism greeted the proclamation of war. Huge crowds
thronged the avenues & squares of capital cities to express their devotion to
their nations and their willingness to bear arms. Many Europeans regarded it
as a sacred moment that held the promise of adventure and an escape from a
humdrum existence
Rotten Royalty – In the First World War, the leaders of Britain, Germany and
Russia were all related to one another through Britain’s Queen Victoria! The war
was the world’s worst family feud!!
King George V (right) with
his first cousin Tsar Nicholas
II (their mothers - Queen
Alexandra of the United
Kingdom and Empress Maria
Feodorovna of Russia - were
sisters). Berlin, 1913
King George V – Queen
Victoria’s grandson and
King of England and ruler
of the British Empire. He
won his troops affection by
visiting his troops in
France. On one visit he
broke his pelvis when a
horse rolled on him.
George was actually
descended from German
royalty and Changed his
name from Saxe-CoburgGotha to the more British
Windsor.
Tsar Nicholas – Queen Victoria’s
grandson and married to a German
Princess who was also Victoria’s
granddaughter. Tsar of Russia and ruler
of 166 million people . He was a bit
useless and by 1914 – after 20 years of
his rule – Russia was a mess. The
Russian army was huge but badly
organised, and many soldiers had no
boots to march in or rifles to fight with!
But he dragged Russia into the war
anyway. Nicholas decided to command
his army personally. This was a bad
move. Firstly, he was no good at running
an army. And secondly, while he was
away, revolutionaries moved in and took
over.
The other cousin, Kaiser
Wilhelm II. His mother was
Queen Victoria’s eldest
daughter and George and
Nicholas’ aunt.
Kaiser Wilhelm – So unpopular that
even his grandmother, Queen Victoria
couldn’t stand him. His father didn’t
trust him and thought he’d be a
dangerous leader – Which was spot on!
The Kaiser was always talking about
giving Germany a ‘place in the sun’ –
presumably by pushing someone else
into the shade! For all his fighting talk
and hanging around with military
commanders, the Kaiser wasn’t soldier
material because he had a withered left
arm. He was very sensitive about it and
wouldn’t let anyone photograph him
from that side.
Stalemate on the Western Front
• After the Battle of the Marne the
Western Front settled into stalemate
– Trench warfare from the English
Channel to the Swiss Border
– Between the two lines of trenches
was an area known as No Man’s
Land because most who entered it
were killed by enemy fire
Trenches stretched for 475
miles, from the North Sea
in No. France to the Mts.. of
the Swiss Border.
View of ‘no man’s land’
•Strip of territory between trench lines, laden with barbed wire
and landmines.
•Average width--250 yards
Few soldiers ever made it to the other side’s trenches.
WWI As An Industrialized War
• The machine gun was invented by Hiram
Maxim who believed that it would be so
horrible that it would eliminate war
–It didn’t
–It also didn’t serve as a deterrent for
aggression
–And, as it turns out, it was a better
defensive weapon than an offensive one
=> stalemate
The Machine Gun: replaced the single-fire, short range rifle.
The British Vickers fired 8 rounds per second, at a distance of
2,900 yards.
Super Killing Machines:
•They drove men out of their orderly rows & into trenches and foxholes.
•The war, instead of being a battle of miles, became one of inches with each
side entrenched in underground shelters.
Wee for Victory
Machine-guns may have been the deadliest
weapon ever invented, but they could be
horrible to use. One of the problems was that
they overheated quickly when fired. The British
machine-guns had water-cooled gun barrels, but
the water needed to be replaced – and
sometimes the supply ran out. When this
happened, the gun crew had to make do with the
only liquid they had left – their pee!
Artillery: Modern industry and the arms race created artillery
that fired with greater power and carried much farther than before.
Battle of Verdun:
•24 million shells used, which
equated to 1,000 shells per
square meter of the
Battlefield.
• In 1915 the Germans started using poison gas against their enemies
• Burned body, lungs, caused blindness, asphyxiation, and death
– The first use was at Ypres II on a group of Canadian soldiers
– Chlorine gas kills because it displaces oxygen in the lungs
– Mustard gas kills by burning holes in the lungs (more effective)
– Both were unpredictable (wind) and led to the invention of the gas mask
Drifted in the wind--often affected their own troops
Survivors of a Gas Attack
Wee for Victory
Soldiers really hated poisonous gas. Throughout the war
scientists on both sides were trying to develop gasses that
could kill the enemy in ever-more-horrible ways.
If a soldier got caught in a gas attack without a mask, there
was still something he could use for protection. You
guessed it . . . his pee! The trick was to piddle on his hanky
and then wrap it around his mouth and nose. Doing this
gave some protection from particular gasses.
• In 1916 the tank was invented to smash through
enemy lines and run over the barbed wire protecting
the trenches
• Once they got passed the initial engineering problems,
the tank became an extremely effective weapon
– Really came into its own in WWII
• Airplanes will initially be
used in WWI for scouting
and taking photographs of
enemy lines
• They were later used for
bombing military and
civilian targets and, even
later, for actual fighting in
the air
• EXTREMELY effective
weapons especially when
used as bombers
Flashy Flyers
Dogfights
"Dogfight" means an aerial battle between two or more planes. Dogfights were a big part of
WW1. Since the war broke out soon after planes were invented, there had not been time to create
guns that could be built to the body of the plane. Early planes had guns connected to the top wing.
Also, they had two seats. There was a pilot in the front and a gunner/bomber in the back. The
pilot had to listen to the gunner while dodging enemy fire, making early dogfights difficult. A
British pilot, Louis Strange, developed a safety strap to allow the gunner to stand and be able to
fire all around the top of the plane. With deflector plates added to planes, machine guns could be
used, and a single seat fighter was possible. With so many new developments for fighter planes,
tactics were changed. Originally fighters had the 'lone wolf' tactic, now they traveled in groups.
When attacking, most pilots dove towards the target from the sun. This reduced the time the pilot
being attacked had to react and avoid being hit. Later pilots placed mirrors in line with their gun,
so rays were reflected into the eyes of pilots using this tactic against them. Many pilots also used
clouds for cover when attacking. (The average age of a pilot or aircrew for most of the war was
20. The average age for a dead one was 21).
• On the seas we see blockades of the
German coast by British battleships
– Trying to cut the Germans off from
food and raw materials
• The Germans respond by inventing the
submarine (U-boat) which can attack
British battleships as well as supply
convoys and civilian ships
Total War
• World War I was a total war…countries dedicated themselves
completely to the war efforts
• The soldiers were drafted civilians rather than professionals
• Women replaced men in factories, farms, etc.
– Everything that men did before the war, women did during it
• Governments are going to take more control of their economies
than ever before
– Workers were assigned to specific factories that were
ordered to produce specific things in specific quantities
– Luxury industries were converted to war production
– Goods that were needed for the war effort were rationed
Wild Women
WWI affected women and children more than any war had done. Before 1914 wars had been
about men fighting men; women and children had been simply victims – they got themselves
massacred if they were unlucky enough to be in a battle zone. They were starved, lost
husbands and children, but they didn’t give a lot to war efforts. That was about to change.
In July 1915, 30,000 women paraded in London under the banner, ‘We demand the right to
serve’. Women slowly began to take up jobs in war-work, especially making weapons and
ammunition. The miserable men didn’t want women in the factories. They thought it would
give them a taste of freedom and change them. They were right! By the end of the war British
women could:
- Smoke cigarettes openly
- Drink in pubs
- Openly use cosmetics
- Wear short hair (helped control the nits)
- Go to the cinemas without a man
- Play football (most factories started a girls team)
- Then, Land Girls, who had taken the jobs of farm labourers, began to wear their trousers off
duty!
In short, they started doing all the things men had been doing for years.
• Governments are going to control the news and disseminate propaganda
regarding the war effort
– Leaders were afraid that honest reports would turn people against the
war so they used propaganda (one-sided information designed to
convince people of a certain point of view) to unite their people against
a common, demonized enemy
Propaganda - A message designed to promote a
product, service, or an idea through the use of
influence or persuasion.
Know Your enemy
During the war, newspapers printed lies about the enemy, how else
could they get you to hate and want to kill total strangers.
These are artists impressions of the German enemy. Take a closer look:
-See the spike on his helmet for spearing innocent victims! He’s been
marching into Belgium on his way to France – and killing innocent
victims on the way!
-The crazy Kraut is frothing at the mouth – a sure sign of madness.
-Reports suggest that smelly sausages are not a German’s favourite
food – he’d rather chomp on a roasted baby!
-Check out those evil eyes – he’s thinking about melting the bodies of
his dead comrades and using the fat to make explosives!
-Incredible tales of German barbarism in Belgium and France gave
rise to a myth of unique German savagery that continues to colour the
thinking of many persons to this day. German soldiers, the world was
gravely informed, amused themselves by cutting off the hands of
Belgian babies. Another oft-repeated tale related how German
soldiers amputated the breasts of Belgian women out of sheer
viciousness."
The Death Toll Mounted
• Even the government control of the media couldn’t hide that the war
was going badly
– Casualty lists grew longer
– Wounded soldiers came home with stories of horror
– Letters from soldiers told of horrific battles and even worse
conditions in the trenches
Trench warfare
consisted of mass
charges of infantry
preceded by
long artillery
bombardments.
• People lived in waist-deep mud
• Insects and rats filled the trenches
• Soldiers got very little sleep, no fresh
food, and minimal clean water
• Men lived in fear of artillery
bombardments, sniper attacks, and
poisonous gas
• When officers ordered an attack, men
came out of their trenches usually to be
plowed down by machine gun fire
Life in the Trenches
•Dangerous, boring, and terrifying
•Subjected to constant artillery bombardment
•Sell shock and disease--typhus & trench foot
The Battles of Verdun & The Somme
• The stalemate in the west broke in February 1916 with an attack upon Verdun
•German general staff believed they could win a war of attrition with the Allies.
•Verdun, a series of fortifications in rolling hills.
•Almost 1,000,000 killed or wounded.
•French lost 325,000 (90,000 killed), in one assault at “Dead Man’s Hill.”
• In July 1816 the British tried to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun by
launching an offensive against the Somme River
• In the first day of the Battle of the Somme the British lost 20,000 troops
• When the Battles of Verdun and the Somme were over about 2 million
soldiers were dead
– The armies had advanced less than five miles before the stalemate
returned
– The war was full of needless death
5000 Australian Casualties and 400 taken prisoner
Cruel Punishments
If a soldier was accused of a serious crime – like dropping his weapon and running away, or
shooting himself in the foot to avoid going into battle – he’d be given a trial, known as a ‘court
martial’. Could you be a judge? Try these cases . . .
The Case of Bellwarde Ridge
Private Allen and Private Burden were in the same regiment. In June 1915 their regiment was
ordered to move forward to the Bellwarde Ridge, France, which the Germans were defending
furiously. Private Peter Allen didn’t fancy walking towards the machine-guns, so he took out his
rifle and shot himself in the leg. He was sent to hospital to recover and then ordered to serve two
years in prison with hard labour. Private Herbert Burden had joined up the year before. He told
the recruiting officer he was 18 but lied. He was just 16. When he was ordered to attack
Bellwarde Ridge he was just 17. The attack was a disaster and Herbert’s friends died all around
him. He had done his best, but in the end he turned and ran from the battlefield.
He was court-martialled and found guilty. What would you do with Herbert? Remember what
happened to Peter Allen – who didn’t even get to fight. Remember that Herbert was only a boy.
And remember that he’d been under heavy fire.
a)Give him a short rest then send him back into battle.
b)Send him home because, he had been too young when he joined the army.
c)Give him two years’ hard labour, the same as soldiers who wounded themselves
d)Shoot him.
The Case of King’s Crater
Sergeant Joe Tose and his officer, Lieutenant Mundy, left the safety of their trench to patrol a
huge crater in no man’s land known as king’s crater. As they reached the crater they were
attacked by a larger patrol of German soldiers. Lieutenant Mundy was shot and killed. Sergeant
Tose ran back to the trench and decided to warn the rest of his battalion. To slow down the
German attackers he jammed his rifle across the trench and set off for the rear trenches. As he had
no weapon he was charged with ‘casting away his weapon in the face of the enemy’.
Everyone said that he was a good soldier. What would you do with Joseph Tose?
a)Give him a medal for his quick thinking in saving his patrol?
b)Take his sergeant's position from him and send him back to fight as a private?
c)Strap him to a gun carriage for two hours a day for 21 days? (This was a common punishment
for minor offences)
d)Shoot him.
In both cases the men were shot. Men who avoided battle by shooting themselves were not
executed. Herbert Burden was one of over 100 15 to 17 year olds executed by their own British
Army in the First World War.
Sergeant Tose was disgraced and forgotten. He did not even get his name on his village war
memorial until his case was looked at and he was pardoned 80 years later. His name was added
in1997.
In the First World War the British shot hundreds of men for deserting their posts. (These are just
two examples). The Russians were forced to give up shooting their own soldiers when whole
regiments started deserting (they were also short of bullets!). No Astralians were shot for
desertion.
Few soldiers wanted to be in a firing squad. Many were soldiers at a base camp recovering from
wounds that still stopped them from fighting at the front but did not preclude them from firing
a Lee Enfield rifle. Some of those in firing squads were under the age of sixteen, as were some
of those who were shot for ‘cowardice’. James Crozier from Belfast was shot at dawn for
desertion – he was just sixteen. Before his execution, Crozier was given so much rum that he
passed out. He had to be carried, semi-conscious, to the place of execution. Officers at the
execution later claimed that there was a very real fear that the men in the firing squad would
disobey the order to shoot. Private Abe Bevistein, aged sixteen, was also shot by firing squad at
Labourse, near Calais. As with so many others cases, he had been found guilty of deserting his
post. Just before his court martial, Bevistein wrote home to his mother:"We were in the trenches.
I was so cold I went out (and took shelter in a farm house). They took me to prison so I will have
to go in front of the court. I will try my best to get out of it, so don't worry."
Between 1914 and 1918, the British Army identified 80,000 men with what would now be
defined as the symptoms of shellshock. There were those who suffered from severe shell shock.
They could not stand the thought of being on the front line any longer and deserted. Once caught,
they received a court martial and, if sentenced to death, shot by a twelve man firing squad. The
horrors that men from all sides endured while on the front line can only be imagined.
“We went up into the front line near Arras, through sodden and devastated countryside. As we
were moving up to our sector along the communication trenches, a shell burst ahead of me and
one of my platoon dropped. He was the first man I ever saw killed. Both his legs were blown off
and the whole of his body and face was peppered with shrapnel. The sight turned my stomach. I
was sick and terrified but even more frightened of showing it.”
Victor Silvester.
With no obvious end to such experiences and with the whole issue of trench life being such a
drain on morale, it is no wonder that some men cracked under the strain of constant artillery fire,
never knowing when you would go over the top, the general conditions etc.
Senior military commanders would not accept a soldier’s failure to return to the front line as
anything other than desertion. They also believed that if such behaviour was not harshly punished,
others might be encouraged to do the same and the whole discipline of the British Army would
collapse. Some men faced a court martial for other offences but the majority stood trial for
desertion from their post, “fleeing in the face of the enemy”. A court martial itself was usually
carried out with some speed and the execution followed shortly after.
The Eastern Front
• In the Eastern Front, Serbs and Russians battled the Germans, Turks, and Austrians
• After a crushing defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg, the Russians retreated back into
Russian territory, drawing the German armies in after them
• The Russians were out of food, weapons, blankets, etc. and were on the
verge of a political revolution
• Their ONLY asset lay in numbers…the Russians could keep throwing
soldiers into battle
• They did manage to hold half of the German army in the east thus
preventing a consolidated German attack on the Western Front
The Ottoman Front
• In February 1915 the British (and their colonial armies) and French are going to
strike at the straits connecting the Black and Mediterranean Seas
– This campaign, known as the Gallipoli Campaign, was a failure and the Allies
gave up in 1916
Allied troops, many ANZAC (Australian & NZ), lost
between 200-400,000 before retreating.
• The Allies then struck at the Ottomans through the Arabs
• They urged the Arabs to rise against their Turkish leaders
• By encouraging Arab nationalism, the Allies won a huge
victory over the Ottomans BUT with severe consequences for
the modern world
• Gradually the Allies took control of Baghdad, Jerusalem, and
Damascus…key Ottoman cities
An Australian Supply Column
nearing Mersa Matruh after a four
day trek across the desert during
the Senussi Campaign. The
Mediterranean Sea is in the
background.
The War In Asia and Africa
• Japan declared war against German overrunning German possessions in China and
the Pacific
• The French and British took control of most German possessions in Africa
– This cut the Germans off from much needed supplies
1917-1918
Russia Leaves the War
• By 1917 Europe had lost more men from WWI than from the previous
300 years of fighting combined
• Russia had sustained the most casualties
– Russian soldiers lacked weapons, ammunition, warm clothing,
food, and good military leadership
• The Russian people (especially the soldiers) felt betrayed by Czar
Nicholas II even after he came to the front to lead the Russian armies
personally
• In March 1917 Russian revolutionaries drove the Czar from power
and set up a new government
• This new government promised to continue fighting but faced many
problems
• In November 1917 a new group of revolutionaries called Bolsheviks, under the
leadership of Vladimir Lenin, took over Russia and promised to make peace
– Lenin had been in exile in Switzerland but had been smuggled back into Russia
by the Germans
• In March 1918 Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Brest Litovsk ending
Russia’s involvement in WWI
The beginning of the end
• Germany had LOTS of problems by 1917…especially in terms of resources and
manpower
– Food shortages were critical because of the British blockade AND were
exacerbated by the 1916 potato failure
• The Germans needed a new strategy…
Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
• On January 31, 1917 Germany announced that their submarines would sink any ship
in the waters around Britain without warning
– This policy of unrestricted submarine warfare had been used earlier in the war
until Germany had accidentally sunk a British passenger ship called the
Lusitania
– 139 Americans died on the Lusitania and President Woodrow Wilson and
demanded that the Germans warn neutral ships before firing
• The Germans knew that readopting this policy would lead to war with the US but
they hoped that they could knock out Britain before the US could mobilize
• The Germans sunk three American ships in early 1917
– The Americans HAD been providing food, arms, and other
resources to the Allies…they weren’t REALLY neutral
• The Americans declared war against the Germans and on April 2,
1917 the United States entered WWI on the side of the Allies
Americans burying their dead, Bois de Consenvoye, France, 8 Nov 1918
The War Ends
• World War I (1914–18; first called the Great War) came to an end when the balance
of power shifted in favor of the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, and
21 other nations) against the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria,
and the Ottoman Empire). Although the United States had not been fully prepared to
enter the war, the American government mobilized quickly to rally troops and
citizens behind the war effort. The arrival of U.S. troops in Europe gave the Allies
the manpower and fresh troops they needed to win the war. In November 1918
Germany agreed to an armistice (truce), and the Central Powers finally surrendered.
In January 1919, Allied representatives gathered in Paris, France, to draft the peace
settlement.
• Germany HAD to push their numerical advantage before the Americans arrived
• The Germans launched an initiative with crack troops, artillery bombardment, and
dense fog allowing the Germans to push all the way to the Marne, 50 miles from
Paris
• There the German drive stalled
• The effort of reaching the Marne had exhausted food and supplies AND men
– They had only children to replace the injured and dead
– They had to stop their advance to search for food
• The American troops arrived… 250,000 a month to support the French lines
• In August 1918 the decisive battle of the war occurred at Amiens
– 300 Allied tanks smashed through the German lines
• Thought the Germans continued to fight their resources were strained, moral was
GONE, and their soldiers were getting desperate news from home
• The other Central Power were crumbling as well
– The Belgians, the Ottomans, and the Austro-Hungarians sued for peace
• On November 9, 1918 Kaiser William II abdicated (relinquished his
throne)
– Germany became a republic and a new government of intellectual
elites (liberal democrats) from Weimar sent representatives to the
head of the Allied forces, General Marshal Foch
• They signed an armistice (cease fire) in a railroad car near Paris
The Cost of the War
• On November 11, 1918 at 11:00 am WWI ended
• European economies and social structures were shattered
• The population, industries, and countryside had been decimated
• An entire generation became disillusioned and disheartened (the Lost Generation)
Military Casualties in World War I 1914-1918
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Belgium
45,550
British Empire 942,135
France
1,368,000
Greece
23,098
Italy
680,000
Japan
1,344
Montenegro
3,000
Portugal
8,145
Romania
300,000
Russia
1,700,000
Serbia
45,000
United States 116,516
Austria-Hungary 1,200,000
Bulgaria
87,495
Germany
1,935,000
Ottoman Empire 725,000
Germany
Russia
France
Aus-Hun
Britain
U.S.
2,000,000
1,800,000
1,600,000
1,400,000
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
600,000
400,000
200,000
0
Deaths
Australia – From a population of about 4.5
million, over 400,000 enlisted. Of these nearly
60,000 were killed and over 150,000 were
wounded. 64.8% of those who took the field
were killed or injured!
•Armistice signed on November 11, 1918 @ 11 am
•10 million soldiers killed, 20 million wounded
•Homelessness, food shortages & high prices
•13 million civilians killed: disease, famine & injuries
•Industry & manufacturing dropped 25% below 1914 levels
•Cities lay in ruins, transportation in some areas was impossible
•Estimated total cost: $350 billion
Ideals were destroyed & most Europeans were ashamed
as they looked at their huge cemeteries.
Reshaped the map of Europe
•8 new nations in Europe: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia, Finland, & the Baltic States (Latvia, Estonia, & Lithuania
•4 new mandates in the Middle East (from Ottoman Empire):
Syria, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, Palestine
•League of Nations--attempt to create an international organization
to settle disputes before they escalated to war
“Victory has been bought so dear as to be indistinguishable
from defeat.”
Sir Winston Churchill
British Undersecretary of the Navy
Before
After