WWI History Lecture: 1915 Campaigns and Trench Warfare

Vocabulary flashcards covering key historical figures, battles, military tactics, and political developments from WWI in 1915 based on the lecture context.

Marc Bloch

A medieval historian and authority on feudal society who served in WWI and WWII, joined the French resistance, was captured by the Nazis, and was executed in 1944.

Rupert Brooke

An educated Cambridge full-time literary figure and English poet who wrote a romantic 1914 poem reflecting an idealist view of war before dying of infection in 1915.

Polish Salient

A territory in Russian Poland that was conquered and occupied by the Central Powers by the end of 1915.

First Battle of Champagne

A French offensive from late December 1914 to March 1915 where the French advanced at most two miles and each side lost 90,000 men to death, injuries, or captivity.

Preliminary Artillery Bombardment

A tactic systematically developed by the Germans using artillery batteries to weaken defensive trenches, barbed wire, and machine gun positions before sending infantry forward.

Neufchatel Offensive

A March 1915 battle where the British used aerial reconnaissance and preliminary bombardment, which stalled after the British ran out of artillery shells.

Minister of Munitions

A British cabinet post created in 1915 following a shell shortage scandal to coordinate the national production of military supplies.

Davy Lloyd George

The Welsh liberal politician appointed as the first Minister of Munitions in 1915 who later became the British Prime Minister during the war.

Second Battle of Ip

An April to May 1915 battle in Flanders where the German army released 168 tons of chlorine gas on the Western Front for the first time.

Friess Haber

A German chemist, army captain, and 1918 Nobel Prize winner who invented the process to synthesize ammonia and led Germany's chemical warfare program.

Victor Gennard

A French chemist and 1912 Nobel Prize winner who was brought into the French chemical warfare program to assist in the development and detection of mustard gas.

Zircon B

A pesticide developed during the interwar period involving Friess Haber, which was later used by Nazis to mass murder Jews in Eastern Europe.

Dardanell Campaign

An Allied military campaign in modern Turkey aimed at opening a new front, linking up directly with Russia, and relieving pressure on the Eastern Front.

Winston Churchill

The civilian head of the Royal Navy who initiated a failed navy-only attack on the Dardanelles Strait using pre-dreadnought battleships.

ANZAC

The Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, which participated in the amphibious landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula starting April 25, 1915.

Mustafa Purnell

The Ottoman general who successfully defended Ottoman positions on the Gallipoli Peninsula against Allied forces.

Atacho

The surname given to Mustafa Purnell, meaning 'father of the Turks', who served as president of the Turkish Republic from 1923 to 1938.