Transcript practices-of-war-1-10

World War I
Practices of War
Royal Relations
Nicholas
NicholasIIII
George
V V
George
Queen Victoria and Family
Queen Victoria’s Descendents
Causes of WWI
• Nationalism
• Industrialization
• Imperialism
• Militarism
System of Alliances
• German and Austria-Hungary
– Triple/Dual Alliance (with Italy)
– Austria landlocked, empire on the decline
– Germany surrounded by Triple Entente
• Britain, France, and Russia
– Triple Entente
– Mistrusted German power on land and sea
Balance of Power
•Germany
•Best military and strong
navy
•Relatively new state
•History of winning every war
• Austria-Hungary
– Crumbling multi-ethnic empire
– wants Balkans
– Mistrusts Serbia and nationalism
Balance of Power
• Britain
– Strongest naval power, largest empire
– Largely neutral on continent
• Russia
– Catching up with industry, revolution in 1905
– Pledged to defend Serbia
• France
– Mad at Germany, lost Alsace-Lorraine
July Crisis, 1914
• Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand Visits
Serbia
• Austria issues ultimatum
• Serbia dithers
• Russia mobilizes
• Germany mobilizes
– shells Belgrade
German Advance
• Germany advances
through Belgium
• Britain steps in to defend
‘poor little Belgium’
• Germany invades France
• Gets stuck for 4 years
• Becomes ‘War of
Attrition’
Technology Changes Warfare
• Machine gun
• Artillery
• Battleships
• Airplane
• Poison gas
• Tank
Machine Gun
• Gatling gun invented in 1862
• Used in British War against
Zulus, 1879
• Maxim gun invented 1889
• First automatic machine gun
Gatling gun
French Infantry Uniforms
1914
1915
Artillery
• Machine guns
useless against each
other
• Strategists try artillery
bombardments before
infantry attacks
• Slow to set up, gives
enemy ample warning
Big Bertha
Trench Warfare
“He stank so badly, though we were great chums
I had to leave him; then rats ate his thumbs.”
Edgell Rickword
Battleships
• British construct the
Dreadnought between 1905-06
• Most heavily-armed ship in
history
• Germany & Britain enter arms
race before war
• Germans hold back after Battle
of Jutland
H.M.S. Dreadnought
Airplane
• 1st used in war by Italians against Turks in 1911-12
• Reconnaissance only at first
• Necessary to shoot down spy planes
• Limited use in WWI; glamorous diversion from trenches
Poison Gas
• Germans use chlorine
gas to break
stalemate
Otto Dix, German Gas Attack, 1924
• Both sides use
diphosgene,
hydrocyanic acid, and
mustard gas
• More casualties, no
breakthrough
Tank
• British Colonel Ernest
Swinton gets idea in
1914
• War office abandons
proposals
• Successful use at
Cambrai, 1917, but
little follow-up
“Little Willie,” first experimental tank
Failure of Technology
• Killing increases
• No breakthrough
• WWI becomes a war of attrition
• Ultimately a contest of production
Germany’s Masterminds
• Paul von Hindenburg,
appointed Chief of
Staff, August 1916
• Erich Ludendorff,
appointed
quartermaster general
• “Third Supreme
Command”
• Chose to feed Army
Disasters -- Verdun
• Major French fort on
frontier with Germany
• Strategically useless,
symbolically huge
• Battle lasts nine months
in 1916 (Feb.-Dec.)
• 1 million French and
Germans casualties
The Somme
• Joint British-French attack on German line, Jul.Nov.1916
• Strategically unsound point
• Another million
casualties
• Allies gain about
8 miles
Passchendaele
• British attack on German line, Jul.-Nov. 1917
• Attack becomes
bogged down as
soldiers drown in
mud, mustard gas
• Half million
more casualties
Another Way?
• Deadlocked, British look for other ways to
break through
• Middle East
• United States
Gallipoli
• Winston Churchill plans a campaign to
capture the Dardanelles
• Combination naval bombardment and
landing
• 500,000 combined casualties
• Massive failure for Allied Powers
Coded
Zimmerman
Telegram as
intercepted
by British
De-Coded
Zimmerman
Telegram:
• What is Germany
suggesting?
• How might Mexico
benefit from this
offer?
• Who else is
involved?
• How might the U.S.
react to this
proposal?
Sinking of the Lusitania
• Passenger liner New
York-Liverpool
• Sunk by German U-Boat
• 1,198 dead (128 U.S)
• German command
claimed it was carrying
arms (it was)
WWI Propaganda
Total War:
Men, Women, and Children
Propaganda Themes
• Emotional Appeal: sympathy, anger,
enthusiasm, guilt, shame
• Demonization: stories of atrocities
(German advance through Belgium)
• “War to End all Wars”: Appeal to pacifists
– fight now and never have to fight again
• Dishonesty: manufactured victories,
‘stretching’ the truth
British
Propaganda
American Propaganda
Anti-German
Hysteria?
Daschunds
=Liberty Dogs
German
Measles =
Liberty
Measles
German
immigrant
Robert
Pragter
lynched in
Illinois
German Propaganda
“Defend the
Fatherland”
Russian Propaganda
“Struggle of
the Red
Knight with
the Dark
Forces”
French
Propaganda
“The last push is
on the horizon”
Canadian
Propaganda:
A pay scale for
soldiers to enlist