The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century

Images and Reflections

Other Wars Compared

• 58,000 in Vietnam• 9.2 M in WWI• 4.5 M in all wars from

1800-1914• Shells dropped at Verdun

exceeded all missiles in warfare throughout history

• 6500 killed per day• ½ of French males aged

18-32 were casualties

“Jimmy and I were so excited to stand up in front of God, our family and friends and declare our love for each other. Only God knows why we were deprived of that opportunity, but it doesn’t change the sentiments I have. Jimmy, we never got to wake up next to each other every morning….[but I] thank God for the opportunity to love and be loved by you.” --Mary McHugh

Sgt. James John Regan, killed by IED Feb. 2007 in Iraq

“War to end all wars…”

• No war with a greater sense of enthusiasm

• Proximate v. structural causes

• WWII is more well-known

• Symbol of WWI—trench

• New technologies

“Make the world safe for democracy…”

The Moral Center of AP Euro

End of Empires

The Modern World

“The Lost Generation”

Memory

Demonizing & Propaganda

Sources• http://www.firstworldwar.com/index.htm• Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory• John Mosier, The Myth of the Great War• Modris Eksteins, The Rites of Spring• Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War• John Keegan, The First World War• Jay Winter, The Experience of the First World War• Robert Cowley, ed., The Great War• Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory• David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World

War as Political Tragedy• Christopher Clark, Sleepwalkers: How Europe

Went to War in 1914

Key Questions

• Why did the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand set off the greatest conflict in European history (to that point)?

• Is the First World War more accurately described as an inevitable build-up of tensions over decades or the result of miscalculation and chance?

Causes of WWI

• Militarism and Military Plans

• Alliance System

• Imperialism

• Mass Politics

• Intellectual—emphasis on war and struggle

• Nationalism

Ingredients of pre-WWI diplomacy1. Rigidification of alliance system—

two separate alliances

2. Internal nationalist situation in A-H

3. Increasing conflict between Russia and A-H in Balkans

4. Antagonism between France and Germany from Franco-Prussian War

5. Growing fear leads to dependence on weaker members of alliances

6. Fear of isolation in G.B. leads to approach with France and Russia

7. Russian preoccupation with image and power in the Balkans

Bismarck’s Alliance System, 1871-901. Keep France isolated2. Germany’s goal to “remain among three

in a world of five”3. Divert attention to imperial conquests4. Maintain the status quo—war is bad for

Germany5. No great power can count on the support

of another for aggressive war6. A complexity of interlocking alliances

—”five glass balls in the air”7. Avoid a two-front war at all costs

Wilhelm’s “undoing of Bismarck,” 1890-1907

1. Germany needs to find “its place in the sun” at “full speed ahead”

2. Aggressive pursuit of colonies3. Naval arms race with England that

promotes tension (dreadnoughts)4. Neglect of alliance with Russia

(personal ties)5. Erratic and bombastic personality

– “you must shoot your mothers & fathers”

– 200 uniforms– visit to Palestine as

medieval crusader– almost to Italy as Julius

Caesar