The Great War, Total War and the Twilight of Old Europe

Total War

Government directs economy, enforces draft & rationing, and controls the media (to motivate people & dehumanize the enemy).

The Western Front of WWI

• 400 mile long stretch of trenches from Belgium through France and to Switzerland
• trench warfare: staggering costs & small gains, created because of machine guns (dig trenches to shoot into No Mans Land from), cold, muddy, full of vermin, bad food, lots of diseases & illnesses
• soldiers spent most of their time repairing the trenches
• 1915: France & Great Britain never got more than 3 mi
• 1916: Germany lost 700K and 0 gain at Verdun
• Battle of Marne: France attacks for 3 days while more troops come on taxicabs, Germany fell back & Paris was saved, Schlieffen Plan failed because France was not defeated quickly
• Battle of Somme: Great Britain shot at German trenches for 7 days & nights (Germans hid in dugouts); when artillery stopped, Germans left dugouts and decimated approaching British soldiers with machine guns, 20K killed & 40K wounded on FIRST day, ended when Great Britain pushed Germany back 7 mi, 420K British & 200K French & 600K Germans dead/wounded

The Russian (Eastern) Front of WWI

• by 1915, Russian soldiers being sent without rifles to front & told to find them among dead
• Russia was 1st to mobilize but also the slowest
• Germany won major victories here & by 1915 German power stabilized
• Russia put pressure on Austria-Hungary force
• 2.5 million Russian soldiers dead/wounded/captured
• Germany occupied parts of Russia in Central Europe where militant bureaucracy enforced with rampant Anti-Slavic sentiment
• Russia leaves WWI in 1917 (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk)

The Ottoman (Eastern) Front of WWI

• used the rallying cry of "Jihad" to rouse Muslim hatred of Western Europeans & join Central Powers in WWI
• Battle of Gallipoli: Great Britain tried to take Dardanelles & Constantinople, lasted 10 months, 300K Ottomans & 265K British killed/wounded/missing

The Armenian Genocide

• Ottoman extremists though that for Ottoman Empire to be saved, it needed to be purged of all non-Muslim parts → spring 1915 became government policy & Armenians targeted because largest Christian population
• Armenia divided between Turks (1.5 mil) and Russia (1 mil) → Russia claimed to be Armenians' liberator
• Turks raised taxes & encouraged Kurds to enrich themselves at Armenians' expense → Armenian radical groups demanded autonomy
• Armenians in Constantinople raised a disturbance → Ottoman Turks slaughtered 10Ks, drove people from homes & leveled towns
• 1908 Young Turks had people who wanted Ottoman Empire to be multicultural empire BUT came to be dominated by fanatical nationalists
• 1909: counterrevolution against Young Turks failed → Armenians used as scapegoats; 15K killed alongside rape, mutilation & destruction of property
• Balkan Wars sent Muslims to Turkey who sent them to Armenia with permission to take what wanted from Armenians & kill them if intervened
• Armenians who joined Tsar's army encouraged others to join & fight against Ottomans (100K still joined Ottoman army)
• December 1914: Russian Armenian division killed 120K non-Armenians → Turks used to justify their horrendous actions
• Armenian soldiers stripped of rifles & sent to labor battalions where worked & starved to death (people most able to defend themselves gone)
• army sent to where most Turkey's Armenians lived & gathered males over 12 to shot/hack to death; women raped, mutilated & sent to slavery
• 100K marched off to Syrian & Mesopotamia desert, some murdered on the way
• in Constantinople, criminal death squads created & sent to kill any Armenian
• 1915: more than 1.5 mil Armenians killed
• Russia withdrew from Caucasus → Armenian's shield there fell
• 1922: new government set Smyrna aflame, killing 10K Armenians & Greeks

The "Water" Front of WWI

• Great Britain had ILLEGAL North Sea Blockade on Germany because they prevented food & supplies from reaching Germany (not just munitions)
• Germany attacked Entente supply ships with submarines
• Germany used unrestricted submarine warfare: submarines sink merchant and civilian ships without warning, targets all ships—including those from neutral countries—to sever supply lines
• May 1915: German U-boats shot down Lusitania (Great Britain passenger liner) suspecting it was carrying weapons & warned people before hand. 128 US citizens dead → President Wilson attempts peace talk & neutrality (although 99% of US trade with Allies). Germany stops unrestricted submarine warfare for 2 years to avoid war with US.
• early 1917: Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare to starve Great Britain before US could help

What prompted the United States to join WWI?

Great Britain intercepted a secret telegram (Zimmermann Telegram) from Germany to Mexico. It stated if US entered WWI, Mexico would attack the US to distract them. In return, Germany would give Mexico financial support and the return of lost territories in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. It was published on newspapers & enraged the American public who began to demand war. US declared war on Germany in April 1917 and the first US troops reached France in June 1917.

The Home Fronts in WWI

• State lead mobilization (soldiers & weapons), built rations, and increased control over citizens & production of goods
• mass conscription
• rationing
• increased censorship: controlled news about the course of the war
• abandoned capitalism: set mandatory production goals & limits on wages
• men all drafted for war → women began to take jobs reserved for men to solve labor shortage
• French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (Le Tigre) also took on role of War Minister, jailed dissenters & refocused France vs. Germany
• British Prime Minister David Lloyd George declared Germany was out to "destroy Christianity" & won elections based on promises of harsh war reparations
• lipstick factory in Ohio told by government to make munitions → refused, but government said they had to or government would take it over anyways

Women during WWI

• worked as nurses: 23K in Great Britain, 63K in France, 91K in Germany
• Canary Girls: female munitions workers in WWI who handled TNT, causing their skin and hair to turn yellow. Faced extreme dangers, including toxic jaundice, and were crucial to producing shell ammunition.
• Hello Girls: female switchboard operators, worked with radio, answered artillery support orders, delivered orders for soldiers to advance or retreat and informed pilots of when they were supposed to take off to support the battle.
• men left to fight, women took up their jobs in factories & farm work
• jobs in textile/garment factories destroyed by war → worked in war industry (munitions) factories
• upper & middle class women (previously had little access to jobs) headed volunteer organizations
• women still paid less than men
• WSPU & socialists at first anti-war BUT converted to pro-war to keep support
• Women's suffrage movement halted by war → post war many countries gave women right to vote (Great Britain gave only women with property the vote but all women could hold elective office)
• politics vs culture: Russian women had right to abortion BUT did not do it
• Great Britain had women branches of army BUT not seen as real soldiers
• Russia gave women equal pay & rights BUT proceeded to take everyone's rights away
• Ottoman Empire opened women to jobs as office workers, charity organizers, teachers, nurses and transporting ammunition; veil abolished & schools for girls popped up

WWI was the first war in which…

• civilians were purposefully targeted
• a fight between government media and independent artists & authors occurred

How did WWI impact Victorian-era "Old Europe"?

The Victorian-era values (social norms, glorification of war, materialism) were challenged by disillusioned poets/writers of the "Lost Generation." For example, after WWI, there was no more hat doffing at people of a higher social class.

Dada Art

• an abstract art which rejected the "bourgeois society" that brought on the "insane spectacle of collective homicide"
• anti-war art
• important artist: Dix