THE FIRST WORLD WAR:

What’s Come Before• War had been brewing in Europe for many years

– Rivalries between the Great Powers, the glorification of the military and the building up of armed forces.(Militarism)

– The delicate Alliance system and the ‘balance of power’ had prevented war before 1914

– Competition for colonies (imperialism) – Nationalism within great empires - War seemed

to be the greatest form of patriotism

• (Remember – M-A-I-N)

–New technologies (railroads, machine guns, etc.) led military leaders to believe that the war would end quickly

• With everyone pushing for war, it was bound to come

The Problem…• The problem was that European military leaders’

great theories were all based upon the last Great War, the Napoleonic Wars. When the Generals last went to war, battles were fought with swords and charging horses. Guns fired a single shot and then had to be reloaded by hand.

• Technologies and strategies had changed but these generals were SO SURE that they could predict their opponents’ movements that the order went out and couldn’t be taken back.

The Great War • World War I claimed 20 million lives

–Nearly 10 million of those were civilians

• It was a war of new weapons: battleships, poison gas, air raids, submarines, barbed wire, machine guns, trenches, etc.

• It was a war that could have been prevented and that most soldiers couldn’t explain

Europe Plunges Into War

• Millions of Europeans marched out to war believing that the war would be over in no more than six months

–“They’ll be home for Christmas”

• Few saw the horror and stalemate that was to come

1914 - Germany Invaded France • Throughout August 1.5 million Germans

invaded France • The Germans pushed the western forces

all the way to Paris which was about to fall when the Germans made a critical mistake

• German General Moltke split the German army sending half to fight the Russians in the Eastern Front and leaving half at the Western Front

The Battle of the Marne • On September 6 the Allies struck at a gap in

the German lines near the Marne River – This stopped the German advance and

forced the German armies to retreat about 40 miles to the north

• This defeat destroyed any remaining hope for a quick victory in the west and Germany soon learned that Russia was too big for a quick victory there either– The war looked a LOT longer by December

1914

1914-1916

Paris: The First Day of Mobilization, Sunday August 2 1914

An outpouring of patriotism greeted the proclamation of war. Huge crowdsthronged the avenues & squares of capital cities to express their devotion totheir nations and their willingness to bear arms. Many Europeans regarded it as a sacred moment that held the promise of adventure and an escape from ahumdrum existence

Rotten Royalty – In the First World War, the leaders of Britain, Germany and Russia were all related to one another through Britain’s Queen Victoria! The war was the world’s worst family feud!!

King George V – Queen Victoria’s grandson and King of England and ruler of the British Empire. He won his troops affection by visiting his troops in France. On one visit he broke his pelvis when a horse rolled on him. George was actually descended from German royalty and Changed his name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the more British Windsor.

King George V (right) with his first cousin Tsar Nicholas II (their mothers - Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom and Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia - were sisters). Berlin, 1913

The other cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II. His mother was Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter and George and Nicholas’ aunt.

Kaiser Wilhelm – So unpopular that even his grandmother, Queen Victoria couldn’t stand him. His father didn’t trust him and thought he’d be a dangerous leader – Which was spot on! The Kaiser was always talking about giving Germany a ‘place in the sun’ – presumably by pushing someone else into the shade! For all his fighting talk and hanging around with military commanders, the Kaiser wasn’t soldier material because he had a withered left arm. He was very sensitive about it and wouldn’t let anyone photograph him from that side.

Tsar Nicholas – Queen Victoria’s grandson and married to a German Princess who was also Victoria’s granddaughter. Tsar of Russia and ruler of 166 million people . He was a bit useless and by 1914 – after 20 years of his rule – Russia was a mess. The Russian army was huge but badly organised, and many soldiers had no boots to march in or rifles to fight with! But he dragged Russia into the war anyway. Nicholas decided to command his army personally. This was a bad move. Firstly, he was no good at running an army. And secondly, while he was away, revolutionaries moved in and took over.

Stalemate on the Western Front• After the Battle of the Marne the

Western Front settled into stalemate – Trench warfare from the English

Channel to the Swiss Border – Between the two lines of trenches

was an area known as No Man’s Land because most who entered it were killed by enemy fire

Trenches stretched for 475miles, from the North Seain No. France to the Mts.. ofthe Swiss Border.

•Strip of territory between trench lines, laden with barbed wireand landmines.•Average width--250 yards

View of ‘no man’s land’

Few soldiers ever made it to the other side’s trenches.

WWI As An Industrialized War• The machine gun was invented by Hiram

Maxim who believed that it would be so horrible that it would eliminate war –It didn’t –It also didn’t serve as a deterrent for

aggression –And, as it turns out, it was a better

defensive weapon than an offensive one => stalemate

The Machine Gun: replaced the single-fire, short range rifle.The British Vickers fired 8 rounds per second, at a distance of 2,900 yards.

Super Killing Machines: •They drove men out of their orderly rows & into trenches and foxholes.•The war, instead of being a battle of miles, became one of inches with eachside entrenched in underground shelters.

Wee for Victory

Machine-guns may have been the deadliest weapon ever invented, but they could be horrible to use. One of the problems was that they overheated quickly when fired. The British machine-guns had water-cooled gun barrels, but the water needed to be replaced – and sometimes the supply ran out. When this happened, the gun crew had to make do with the only liquid they had left – their pee!

Artillery: Modern industry and the arms race created artillerythat fired with greater power and carried much farther than before.

Battle of Verdun:

•24 million shells used, whichequated to 1,000 shells persquare meter of the Battlefield.

• In 1915 the Germans started using poison gas against their enemies

• Burned body, lungs, caused blindness, asphyxiation, and death

– The first use was at Ypres II on a group of Canadian soldiers

– Chlorine gas kills because it displaces oxygen in the lungs

– Mustard gas kills by burning holes in the lungs (more effective)

– Both were unpredictable (wind) and led to the invention of the gas mask Drifted in the wind--often affected their own troops

Survivors of a Gas Attack

Wee for Victory

Soldiers really hated poisonous gas. Throughout the war scientists on both sides were trying to develop gasses that could kill the enemy in ever-more-horrible ways.

If a soldier got caught in a gas attack without a mask, there was still something he could use for protection. You guessed it . . . his pee! The trick was to piddle on his hanky and then wrap it around his mouth and nose. Doing this gave some protection from particular gasses.

• In 1916 the tank was invented to smash through enemy lines and run over the barbed wire protecting the trenches

• Once they got passed the initial engineering problems, the tank became an extremely effective weapon – Really came into its own in WWII

• Airplanes will initially be used in WWI for scouting and taking photographs of enemy lines

• They were later used for bombing military and civilian targets and, even later, for actual fighting in the air

• EXTREMELY effective weapons especially when used as bombers

Flashy FlyersDogfights"Dogfight" means an aerial battle between two or more planes. Dogfights were a big part of WW1. Since the war broke out soon after planes were invented, there had not been time to create guns that could be built to the body of the plane. Early planes had guns connected to the top wing. Also, they had two seats. There was a pilot in the front and a gunner/bomber in the back. The pilot had to listen to the gunner while dodging enemy fire, making early dogfights difficult. A British pilot, Louis Strange, developed a safety strap to allow the gunner to stand and be able to fire all around the top of the plane. With deflector plates added to planes, machine guns could be used, and a single seat fighter was possible. With so many new developments for fighter planes, tactics were changed. Originally fighters had the 'lone wolf' tactic, now they traveled in groups. When attacking, most pilots dove towards the target from the sun. This reduced the time the pilot being attacked had to react and avoid being hit. Later pilots placed mirrors in line with their gun, so rays were reflected into the eyes of pilots using this tactic against them. Many pilots also used clouds for cover when attacking. (The average age of a pilot or aircrew for most of the war was 20. The average age for a dead one was 21).

• On the seas we see blockades of the German coast by British battleships – Trying to cut the Germans off from

food and raw materials • The Germans respond by inventing the

submarine (U-boat) which can attack British battleships as well as supply convoys and civilian ships

Total War• World War I was a total war…countries dedicated themselves

completely to the war efforts • The soldiers were drafted civilians rather than professionals • Women replaced men in factories, farms, etc.

– Everything that men did before the war, women did during it

• Governments are going to take more control of their economies than ever before – Workers were assigned to specific factories that were

ordered to produce specific things in specific quantities – Luxury industries were converted to war production – Goods that were needed for the war effort were rationed

Wild WomenWWI affected women and children more than any war had done. Before 1914 wars had been

about men fighting men; women and children had been simply victims – they got themselves massacred if they were unlucky enough to be in a battle zone. They were starved, lost husbands and children, but they didn’t give a lot to war efforts. That was about to change.

In July 1915, 30,000 women paraded in London under the banner, ‘We demand the right to serve’. Women slowly began to take up jobs in war-work, especially making weapons and ammunition. The miserable men didn’t want women in the factories. They thought it would give them a taste of freedom and change them. They were right! By the end of the war British women could:

- Smoke cigarettes openly

- Drink in pubs

- Openly use cosmetics

- Wear short hair (helped control the nits)

- Go to the cinemas without a man

- Play football (most factories started a girls team)

- Then, Land Girls, who had taken the jobs of farm labourers, began to wear their trousers off duty!

In short, they started doing all the things men had been doing for years.

• Governments are going to control the news and disseminate propaganda regarding the war effort – Leaders were afraid that honest reports would turn people against the

war so they used propaganda (one-sided information designed to convince people of a certain point of view) to unite their people against a common, demonized enemy

Propaganda - A message designed to promote a Propaganda - A message designed to promote a product, service, or an idea through the use of product, service, or an idea through the use of influence or persuasion.influence or persuasion.

Know Your enemy

During the war, newspapers printed lies about the enemy, how else could they get you to hate and want to kill total strangers.

These are artists impressions of the German enemy. Take a closer look:-See the spike on his helmet for spearing innocent victims! He’s been marching into Belgium on his way to France – and killing innocent victims on the way!-The crazy Kraut is frothing at the mouth – a sure sign of madness.-Reports suggest that smelly sausages are not a German’s favourite food – he’d rather chomp on a roasted baby!-Check out those evil eyes – he’s thinking about melting the bodies of his dead comrades and using the fat to make explosives!

-Incredible tales of German barbarism in Belgium and France gave rise to a myth of unique German savagery that continues to colour the thinking of many persons to this day. German soldiers, the world was gravely informed, amused themselves by cutting off the hands of Belgian babies. Another oft-repeated tale related how German soldiers amputated the breasts of Belgian women out of sheer viciousness."

The Death Toll Mounted • Even the government control of the media couldn’t hide that the war

was going badly – Casualty lists grew longer – Wounded soldiers came home with stories of horror – Letters from soldiers told of horrific battles and even worse

conditions in the trenches

Trench warfare consisted of mass charges of infantry preceded bylong artillery bombardments.

• People lived in waist-deep mud• Insects and rats filled the trenches• Soldiers got very little sleep, no fresh

food, and minimal clean water • Men lived in fear of artillery

bombardments, sniper attacks, and poisonous gas

• When officers ordered an attack, men came out of their trenches usually to be plowed down by machine gun fire

•Dangerous, boring, and terrifying•Subjected to constant artillery bombardment•Sell shock and disease--typhus & trench foot

Life in the Trenches

The Battles of Verdun & The Somme • The stalemate in the west broke in February 1916 with an attack upon Verdun

•German general staff believed they could win a war of attrition with the Allies.•Verdun, a series of fortifications in rolling hills. •Almost 1,000,000 killed or wounded.•French lost 325,000 (90,000 killed), in one assault at “Dead Man’s Hill.”

• In July 1816 the British tried to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun by launching an offensive against the Somme River

• In the first day of the Battle of the Somme the British lost 20,000 troops

• When the Battles of Verdun and the Somme were over about 2 million soldiers were dead

– The armies had advanced less than five miles before the stalemate returned

– The war was full of needless death

5000 Australian Casualties and 400 taken prisoner

Cruel PunishmentsIf a soldier was accused of a serious crime – like dropping his weapon and running away, or shooting himself in the foot to avoid going into battle – he’d be given a trial, known as a ‘court martial’. Could you be a judge? Try these cases . . .

The Case of Bellwarde Ridge

Private Allen and Private Burden were in the same regiment. In June 1915 their regiment was ordered to move forward to the Bellwarde Ridge, France, which the Germans were defending furiously. Private Peter Allen didn’t fancy walking towards the machine-guns, so he took out his rifle and shot himself in the leg. He was sent to hospital to recover and then ordered to serve two years in prison with hard labour. Private Herbert Burden had joined up the year before. He told the recruiting officer he was 18 but lied. He was just 16. When he was ordered to attack Bellwarde Ridge he was just 17. The attack was a disaster and Herbert’s friends died all around him. He had done his best, but in the end he turned and ran from the battlefield.He was court-martialled and found guilty. What would you do with Herbert? Remember what happened to Peter Allen – who didn’t even get to fight. Remember that Herbert was only a boy. And remember that he’d been under heavy fire.a)Give him a short rest then send him back into battle.b)Send him home because, he had been too young when he joined the army.c)Give him two years’ hard labour, the same as soldiers who wounded themselvesd)Shoot him.

The Case of King’s Crater

Sergeant Joe Tose and his officer, Lieutenant Mundy, left the safety of their trench to patrol a huge crater in no man’s land known as king’s crater. As they reached the crater they were attacked by a larger patrol of German soldiers. Lieutenant Mundy was shot and killed. Sergeant Tose ran back to the trench and decided to warn the rest of his battalion. To slow down the German attackers he jammed his rifle across the trench and set off for the rear trenches. As he had no weapon he was charged with ‘casting away his weapon in the face of the enemy’.Everyone said that he was a good soldier. What would you do with Joseph Tose?

a)Give him a medal for his quick thinking in saving his patrol?b)Take his sergeant's position from him and send him back to fight as a private?c)Strap him to a gun carriage for two hours a day for 21 days? (This was a common punishment for minor offences)d)Shoot him.

In both cases the men were shot. Men who avoided battle by shooting themselves were not executed. Herbert Burden was one of over 100 15 to 17 year olds executed by their own British Army in the First World War.

Sergeant Tose was disgraced and forgotten. He did not even get his name on his village war memorial until his case was looked at and he was pardoned 80 years later. His name was added in1997.

In the First World War the British shot hundreds of men for deserting their posts. (These are just two examples). The Russians were forced to give up shooting their own soldiers when whole regiments started deserting (they were also short of bullets!). No Astralians were shot for desertion.

Few soldiers wanted to be in a firing squad. Many were soldiers at a base camp recovering from wounds that still stopped them from fighting at the front but did not preclude them from firing a  Lee Enfield rifle. Some of those in firing squads were under the age of sixteen, as were some of those who were shot for ‘cowardice’. James Crozier from Belfast was shot at dawn for desertion – he was just sixteen. Before his execution, Crozier was given so much rum that he passed out. He had to be carried, semi-conscious, to the place of execution. Officers at the execution later claimed that there was a very real fear that the men in the firing squad would disobey the order to shoot. Private Abe Bevistein, aged sixteen, was also shot by firing squad at Labourse, near Calais. As with so many others cases, he had been found guilty of deserting his post. Just before his court martial, Bevistein wrote home to his mother:"We were in the trenches. I was so cold I went out (and took shelter in a farm house). They took me to prison so I will have to go in front of the court. I will try my best to get out of it, so don't worry."

Between 1914 and 1918, the British Army identified 80,000 men with what would now be defined as the symptoms of shellshock. There were those who suffered from severe shell shock. They could not stand the thought of being on the front line any longer and deserted. Once caught, they received a court martial and, if sentenced to death, shot by a twelve man firing squad. The horrors that men from all sides endured while on the front line can only be imagined. “We went up into the front line near Arras, through sodden and devastated countryside. As we were moving up to our sector along the communication trenches, a shell burst ahead of me and one of my platoon dropped. He was the first man I ever saw killed. Both his legs were blown off and the whole of his body and face was peppered with shrapnel. The sight turned my stomach. I was sick and terrified but even more frightened of showing it.”  Victor Silvester.  With no obvious end to such experiences and with the whole issue of trench life being such a drain on morale, it is no wonder that some men cracked under the strain of constant artillery fire, never knowing when you would go over the top, the general conditions etc.  Senior military commanders would not accept a soldier’s failure to return to the front line as anything other than desertion. They also believed that if such behaviour was not harshly punished, others might be encouraged to do the same and the whole discipline of the British Army would collapse. Some men faced a court martial for other offences but the majority stood trial for desertion from their post, “fleeing in the face of the enemy”. A court martial itself was usually carried out with some speed and the execution followed shortly after.

The Eastern Front • In the Eastern Front, Serbs and Russians battled the Germans, Turks, and Austrians

• After a crushing defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg, the Russians retreated back into Russian territory, drawing the German armies in after them

• The Russians were out of food, weapons, blankets, etc. and were on the verge of a political revolution

• Their ONLY asset lay in numbers…the Russians could keep throwing soldiers into battle

• They did manage to hold half of the German army in the east thus preventing a consolidated German attack on the Western Front

The Ottoman Front• In February 1915 the British (and their colonial armies) and French are going to

strike at the straits connecting the Black and Mediterranean Seas

– This campaign, known as the Gallipoli Campaign, was a failure and the Allies gave up in 1916

Allied troops, many ANZAC (Australian & NZ), lostbetween 200-400,000 before retreating.

• The Allies then struck at the Ottomans through the Arabs • They urged the Arabs to rise against their Turkish leaders • By encouraging Arab nationalism, the Allies won a huge victory over the

Ottomans BUT with severe consequences for the modern world • Gradually the Allies took control of Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Damascus…

key Ottoman cities

An Australian Supply Column nearing Mersa Matruh after a four day trek across the desert during the Senussi Campaign. The Mediterranean Sea is in the background.

The War In Asia and Africa • Japan declared war against German overrunning German possessions in China and

the Pacific

• The French and British took control of most German possessions in Africa

– This cut the Germans off from much needed supplies

1917-1918

Russia Leaves the War• By 1917 Europe had lost more men from WWI than from the previous

300 years of fighting combined

• Russia had sustained the most casualties

– Russian soldiers lacked weapons, ammunition, warm clothing,

food, and good military leadership

• The Russian people (especially the soldiers) felt betrayed by Czar Nicholas II even after he came to the front to lead the Russian armies personally

• In March 1917 Russian revolutionaries drove the Czar from power and set up a new government

• This new government promised to continue fighting but faced many problems

• In November 1917 a new group of revolutionaries called Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, took over Russia and promised to make peace – Lenin had been in exile in Switzerland but had been smuggled back into Russia

by the Germans

• In March 1918 Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Brest Litovsk ending

Russia’s involvement in WWI

The beginning of the end • Germany had LOTS of problems by 1917…especially in terms of resources and

manpower

– Food shortages were critical because of the British blockade AND were exacerbated by the 1916 potato failure

• The Germans needed a new strategy…

Unrestricted Submarine Warfare• On January 31, 1917 Germany announced that their submarines would sink any

ship in the waters around Britain without warning

– This policy of unrestricted submarine warfare had been used earlier in the war until Germany had accidentally sunk a British passenger ship called the Lusitania

– 139 Americans died on the Lusitania and President Woodrow Wilson and demanded that the Germans warn neutral ships before firing

• The Germans knew that readopting this policy would lead to war with the US but they hoped that they could knock out Britain before the US could mobilize

• The Germans sunk three American ships in early 1917

– The Americans HAD been providing food, arms, and other resources to the Allies…they weren’t REALLY neutral

• The Americans declared war against the Germans and on April 2, 1917 the United States entered WWI on the side of the Allies

Americans burying their dead, Bois de Consenvoye, France, 8 Nov 1918

The War Ends• World War I (1914–18; first called the Great War) came to an end when the balance

of power shifted in favor of the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, and 21 other nations) against the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire). Although the United States had not been fully prepared to enter the war, the American government mobilized quickly to rally troops and citizens behind the war effort. The arrival of U.S. troops in Europe gave the Allies the manpower and fresh troops they needed to win the war. In November 1918 Germany agreed to an armistice (truce), and the Central Powers finally surrendered. In January 1919, Allied representatives gathered in Paris, France, to draft the peace settlement.

• Germany HAD to push their numerical advantage before the Americans arrived

• The Germans launched an initiative with crack troops, artillery bombardment, and dense fog allowing the Germans to push all the way to the Marne, 50 miles from Paris

• There the German drive stalled

• The effort of reaching the Marne had exhausted food and supplies AND men

– They had only children to replace the injured and dead

– They had to stop their advance to search for food

• The American troops arrived… 250,000 a month to support the French lines

• In August 1918 the decisive battle of the war occurred at Amiens – 300 Allied tanks smashed through the German lines

• Thought the Germans continued to fight their resources were strained, moral was GONE, and their soldiers were getting desperate news from home

• The other Central Power were crumbling as well – The Belgians, the Ottomans, and the Austro-Hungarians sued for peace

• On November 9, 1918 Kaiser William II abdicated (relinquished his throne)

– Germany became a republic and a new government of intellectual elites (liberal democrats) from Weimar sent representatives to the head of the Allied forces, General Marshal Foch

• They signed an armistice (cease fire) in a railroad car near Paris

The Cost of the War • On November 11, 1918 at 11:00 am WWI ended

• European economies and social structures were shattered

• The population, industries, and countryside had been decimated

• An entire generation became disillusioned and disheartened (the Lost Generation)

Military Casualties in World War I 1914-1918• Belgium 45,550• British Empire 942,135 • France 1,368,000• Greece 23,098• Italy 680,000• Japan 1,344• Montenegro 3,000• Portugal 8,145• Romania 300,000• Russia 1,700,000• Serbia 45,000• United States 116,516• Austria-Hungary 1,200,000• Bulgaria 87,495• Germany 1,935,000• Ottoman Empire 725,000

0200,000400,000600,000800,000

1,000,0001,200,0001,400,0001,600,0001,800,0002,000,000

Deaths

GermanyRussiaFranceAus-HunBritainU.S.

Australia – From a population of about 4.5 million, over 400,000 enlisted. Of these nearly 60,000 were killed and over 150,000 were wounded. 64.8% of those who took the field were killed or injured!

•Armistice signed on November 11, 1918 @ 11 am•10 million soldiers killed, 20 million wounded

•Homelessness, food shortages & high prices•13 million civilians killed: disease, famine & injuries

•Industry & manufacturing dropped 25% below 1914 levels•Cities lay in ruins, transportation in some areas was impossible•Estimated total cost: $350 billion

Ideals were destroyed & most Europeans were ashamedas they looked at their huge cemeteries.

Reshaped the map of Europe

•8 new nations in Europe: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,Yugoslavia, Finland, & the Baltic States (Latvia, Estonia, & Lithuania

•4 new mandates in the Middle East (from Ottoman Empire):Syria, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, Palestine

•League of Nations--attempt to create an international organizationto settle disputes before they escalated to war

“Victory has been bought so dear as to be indistinguishable from defeat.”

Sir Winston Churchill

British Undersecretary of the Navy

Before After