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siegfried sassoon/memoirs of an infantry officer (1886-1967)
- British poet, provided a powerful sense of the disillusionment that the war produced and of what it meant to be a soldier during the war.
- He did this through a series of autobiographical writings.
- In his writing Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930), the reality of the war did not fully comprehend to him until he saw "an English soldier lying by the road with a horribly smashed head." One of the first people to be deemed "shell-shocked"
general joseph joffree (1852-1931)
- General in the Battle of Marne, the most decisive battle of the month-old war.
- French forces under Joffre counterattacked and opened a gap, pushing German armies back.
- The Germans, now exhausted from more than a month of ceaseless advance, decided to retreat
aleksei brusilov/brusolov offensive (1853-1926)
- Russian general who launched a massive offensive against Austria in what is now Western Ukraine.
- Brusilov took over 200,000 prisoners and forced the Germans to divert troops away from their offensive at Verdun.
- After two months of fighting, more than 600,000 were killed, missing, or wounded
vladimir lenin (1870-1924)
- In 1917, the Berlin government arranged for Lenin, who was the Bolshevik leader at the time and was exiled in Switzerland, to slip into Russia where he led a successful revolution a couple of months later (more on the revolution later)
the batle of marne (sep 5 1914)
The most decisive battle of the month-old war. French forces under Joffre counterattacked and opened a gap, pushing German armies back. The Germans, now exhausted from more than a month of ceaseless advance, decided to retreat
the battle of ypres (oct 19, 1914)
Proved to be a gruesome taste of what the war on the Western Front was to become: fighting of unprecedented brutality with hundreds of thousands of casualties and no vital territory gained or lost
the western front
After Ypres, the battle on the Western Front started to turn into a stalemate. The opposing forces dug themselves into trenches parallel to each other. Between the forces stood the no man's land, which was the terrain on which offensives took place and for which was studded with defenses like barbed wire
the battle of verdun and somme (1916)
Representative of each year of WW1; every year saw a new "push," and made the war go on for so long - "this is it" ahh
the eastern front
- Ever since the German failure in the Battle of Marne, their generals now had to face what they wanted to avoid: A two-front war.
- Because a major part of the German army remained entrenched on the Western Front, only a relatively small force could be dispatched to the east, where it had to face a numerically superior Russian army
british blockade of german ports
- The Allies indirectly victimized civilians through the economic stranglehold that they imposed on the Reich.
- An estimated 1 million Germans died as a result of the British blockade of German ports, which the British cruelly maintained for a year after the German surrender in 1918
unrestricted submarine warfare
- Eventually crossovers into sinking passenger vessels.
- The American government, non aligned at the time, vehemently protested the violations of Germans undertaking boats who were involved in the blockade.
- This all changed after Germany sunk the U-boat Lusitania, which led to the death of 124 American citizens
- If Germany kept up their strategy of unrestricted submarine warfare, they risked bringing the Americans, with all of their fresh resources and troops, into the war against them
- In the end, the kaiser elected to take such a risk. In January 1917, he approved a new underwater campaign against all ships, which ultimately brought the United States to the brink of war
zimmerman telegram
Germany tries to get Mexico to mobilize against America. Following this, Wilson gets the US involved in April 1917
allied victory
- American soldiers were pouring in every month, which led to the German forces growing exhausted, depleted and demoralized.
- Without the American intervention, the Germans might have been able to hold out, but the bottomless reservoir of US troops definitively turned the tide against them.
- In mid-July, the Allies, who now included a million American soldiers, regrouped for an all-out counterattack, which for the first time used tanks to excellent effect as well as aircrafts.
- Germany's allies collapsed in defeat
the treaty of versailles january 1919
- The world's leaders and diplomats converged on Versailles to put a formal end to the war and establish a lasting peace.
- Had to come together to address 2 main problems: the collapse of 3 major empires and what to do with Germany
fourteen points
- included the principle of national self determination as proposed by Woodrow Wilson
- "Ethnic groups ought to have their own countries." Sounded good to many at first, but worked imperfectly at best.
- hindered by geopolitical realities, competing national interests, and the challenges of implementing such an ideal in a post-war world.
"shell shock"
battle fatigue, ptsd
central powers
germany, austria-hungary, ottoman empire
trench warfare
dugouts forming a de fecto line of fortresses that made it extremely difficult to penetrate the opposing side, giving the defending side an enormous advantage
total war
war involving the totality of a societies effort
womens contribution to war
Most women took the jobs because they needed money - it was not a feminist statement, although they viewed working during the war as their patriotic contribution. Men feared that women's newfound economic independence would strip men of their traditional power and respect
causes/motivations for war
- German domestic policy and foreign ambition leads to war
- Nationalism provided the motivation for war, industrialization provided the mean
- Nationalism sustained the war; no one expected a long war, and Germany used all of the artillery that it produced
changing gender roles during/after the war
- open jobs left from men going to war meant that women would take over the jobs
- Men grow unfaithful, exchange sex for food, don't believe faith and religion applies in lieu of war
barbarianism
- There were some atrocities committed by soldiers against civilians in the name of "self-defense"
- News of these unjust atrocities helped to propel Britain into the war, and French propagandists soon embellished and exaggerated them as evidence of a German "barbarism"
- Torture and imprisonment of non-combatants even became a large part of the war on the German end, as in the first couple weeks of the war, able-bodied men, women, and teenagers were forced into labor battalions who were used to aid the war in Germany
