The Great War

Presented by Dr. Victoria Belco, Portland State University

Handouts• The Road to WWI• WWI lecture outline• Aftermath of WWI

Three men in 1914• Vladimir Lenin• Benito Mussolini• Adolf Hitler

The Great Powers, 1914• Britain• Germany• France• Russia• Austro-Hungarian Empire• Italy

The Road to WWI• Moroccan crises• Balkan crises and wars• The assassination of Archduke Franz

Ferdinand

Not that Franz Ferdinand

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

FF and wife

Sophie

With family

With elephant in Ceylon

In Sarajevo, June 28, 1914

Gavrilo Princip

The shot

Arrest of Princip

Going to court

trial

Funeral of FF

The Assassination• What did the Serbian government

know?• What did Germany know? What did

Germany want?• What would France do?• What should Britain have done

differently?

The July Crisis• The “German memo” (“blank check”)• Austrian demands (‘the ultimatum”)• The Russian assurance• Threats of mobilization and secret

mobilization

Causes: External factors• Alliance system• Arms race• War plans• Great Power competition

Causes: Internal factors• Nationalism • Austria-Hungary: nationalities

“problem”• Russia• France• England• Germany

What did “war” mean in 1914?

• “This is the hour we have yearned for” – “to Paris!”

• “A jolly little war”• “To Berlin!”• “We’ll be home by Christmas!”

What does “total war” mean?

Everyone does his/her “bit”

The Homefront

Women did their “bit” in traditional and non-

traditional ways

Women ship builders 1918

London 1918

Women’s

forestry corps, Britain 1918

Crane operators,

Britain 1918

Coal heavers

1917

Brick-making factory

Munitions workers 1917

Encouraging Enlistment in Britain

Hating the Enemy

The Battlefront

John Singer Sargent: Gassed, painted 1919

                                                                               

The Zimmerm

an telegram – January

1917

                                                                     

                   

                                                                             

US Declared War on Germany

April 6, 1917

Signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: “no war, no peace”

Italian front

Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est, (written c. October 1917-March 1918)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hootsOf disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;But someone still was yelling out and stumblingAnd floundering like a man in fire or lime.--Dim, through the misty panes and thick green lightAs under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie: Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.

London, November 11, 1918

NYC victory parade

Aftermath of WWI(“a jolly little war” / “we’ll be home by Christmas” /“to Paris!” / “to Berlin!” / “victory must be ours”)

- US Civil War: 620,000 deadBattle of Gettysburg: over 51,000 casualties

- Vietnam War: 50,000 US dead

- World War I: @ 74 million men mobilizedAllied armies: 48,000,000 mobilized; 18,000,000 casualtiesCentral Powers: 25,500,000 mobilized; 12,400,000 casualties8,500,000 men killed: about 6,000 per day for the 51 months, or the more than 1500 days, of the war (August 5, 1914 – November 11, 1918)22,000,000 wounded (@ 7,000,000 permanently disabled)12,600,000 dead from war-related causes- Battle of Verdun (February 1916-June 1916: “Bleed the French white”):

France – more that 540,000 casualties (dead and wounded)90,000 dead

Germany – 430,000 casualties- Passchendaele (July 31-1917-November 1917): 245,000 British dead- Battle of the Somme (the Somme Offensive): 1,200,000 casualties

Britain – 420,000 killed or wounded (60,000 the first day)19,000 dead

France – 200,000 killed or woundedGermany – 650,000 killed or wounded

- Gallipoli: more than ½ of British Commonwealth forces (of 400,000) killed or wounded

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night (1934)

“See that little stream,” he said. “We could walk to it in two minutes. It took the British a whole month to walk to it – a whole empire walking very slowly, dying in front and pushing forward behind. And another empire walked very slowly backward a few inches a day, leaving the dead like a million bloody rugs.”

Aftermath continued• Paris Peace Conference 1919• Treaty of Versailles (signed June 28, 1919)

– Polish Corridor– Limits to German military– Article 231: German war guilt clause– German reparations

• Creation of European “successor states” (esp. Poland, CZ, and Yugoslavia)

• League of Nations• National debts in Europe• Political, economic, and social instability in Europe• Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler