WORLD WAR ONETHE TRENCH WARFARE

AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

CONTEXT AND STRATEGIES

TACTICS AND IDEOLOGIES

TRAUMAS

I. MOVEMENTS OF TROOPS AND BATTLEFRONTS :

Three fronts : Western, Russian (or Eastern), Balkanic and Turkish.

Strategic spots : the straits, the seas (the routes to the colonies, trade with the US…), the Channel ports (Dunkirk).

Psychological targets : Paris, London, Moscow and civilians everywhere.

Three main phases on the Western Front :

-Plans and races to the sea failed: 1914 ; end of the war of movement

- Trench warfare : 1915-17 ;

soldiers and armies dug themselves

- Troops moved again : 1917-18

The example of the first phase of the war :

The German Schlieffen Plan

The French Plan 17

September 1914 : Battle of the Marne.

The formation of the first trench frontline:

October-November 1914. To avoid being

skirted round / bypassed (contourné) / & cut from reinforcements.

Both armies moved northwards and met in a bloody battle at Ypres. After a month the fight ended. 20,000 of Germany’s finest troops were killed, 80,000 wounded. GB lost 8,000 men (BEF : British Expeditionary Force).

THERE WAS NO BREAKTHROUGH, THERE WAS STALEMATE. Stalemate : impasse.

Major battles :

Major battles on the Western Front:

Ypres,Oct-Nov 1914.

Verdun,Feb-June 1916

The Somme, summer to autumn 1916.

II. WHAT THE COMBATS AND THE TACTICS REVEALED ABOUT STATES AND THE

MILITARY MIND-SET

French side

German side

Never surrender

Never retreat

Never wait and see

No permanent retreat

Occupy the land, consolidate the front, adapt technologies

Liberate Germany from blockade

British side

Never lose the control of seas

Adapt technologies

The trench system :

T R E N C H

Permanent victories and withdrawals: the inefficiency of the trench tactics…

Artillery

Infantry

T R E N C H

Artillery

Infantry

Cheshire Regiment trench, Somme, 1916.

A French WWI bunker soldier.

What was this war effort made for?

To experience new economic models?

State -

controlled

economies.

« Technology experienced a great boost after the war, as the production of automobiles, airplanes, radios and even certain chemicals, skyrocketed.

The advantages of mass production and the use of machinery to perform former human labor tasks, along with the implementation of the eight hour work day, proved to stimulate the economy ».

To imply civilians at any cost?

Verdun, the Somme, Ypres… = the war of attrition (usure).

It consisted in obliging the enemy to exhaust its human supplies by defending a place it did not want to lose.

The goal was not to take the place but to bleed French army white (“saigner à blanc l’armée française” = to bleed the French dry) and to weaken the morale of troops; if France was crushed down, it would isolate Britain and force this country to seek peace.

To summon the populations in a collective destiny?

Censorship Propaganda

Enrolment

War loans

Document analyzis

US Army recruitment poster

Harry R. Hopps, 1917

Present (context, author, intentions)

Observe then describe the composition; interpret on the meaning

Document analyzis

US Army recruitment poster

Harry R. Hopps, 1917

Present (context, author, intentions)

Enlistment poster, to recruit new soldiers / fresh meat 

1917: year of US military involvement (arrive in France in April)

Tense year of the tide for the Entente members: loss of hundreds of thousands of men in the Dardanelles, larger discontent among the troops, first severe soldier disregards at the front

US army: needs to mobilize, to make US public opinion aware with the necessity of war and to warn it about the enemy’s intentions

To what extent does it talk about state war efforts? Is it about peace or propaganda?

Document analyzis

US Army recruitment poster

Harry R. Hopps, 1917

Observe – Describe - Interpret

Foreground

•giant letters giving orders

•giant terrifying ape + bloody bludgeon + ironic writing of « Kultur » + German spiked helmet with the caption « militarism »

•abducted innocent woman; clothes are taken off, ripped / torn, sliced and diced = like a rape onto a maiden

•Dark colours predominate

Background

Dark atmosphere (the sunset swallows the light) + feeling of desolation inspired by the havoc wrecked in European cities (all in ruins)

Tends to maximize the evil side of the German ambitions

Caricatures the desolation that may touch the US land (« America »)

Warns people and affects them in an emotional way to convince to go fighting

III. TRAUMAS

War veterans with severe facial injuries

Maimed people Disabled veterans Men with broken

faces and lives

Many soldiers suffered from shell shock. The intensity of the battles neurotic cracks appeared in mentally stable soldiers.

Incendiary shells on Verdun

Warfare was terrible : artillery shells, poison gas (which was used for the first time by Germans in April 1915), flame thrower, hand-to-hand fight.

Brutality was within the minds and retaliatory feelings still persisted after 1918…

Casualties From Gas - The Numbers

CountryTotal Casualties Death

Austria-Hungary 100,000 3,000

British Empire 188,706 8,109

France 190,000 8,000

Germany 200,000 9,000

Italy 60,000 4,627

Russia 419,340 56,000

USA 72,807 1,462

Others 10,000 1,000

Poisoned shells…

The living conditions on the front line were really dreadful (épouvantable), appalling (effroyable): soldiers floundered (patauger) in mud and when it rained, they could be up to their knees in water.

There was a lack of hygiene. In such unhygienic conditions, diseases were common.

The epidemics : germs in food and water led to typhus, cholera, dysentry. Everyone had lice. Rats ran everywhere.

The smell from corpses and sewage was terrible. Amputations were frequent.

The food was cold and often polluted with dust, mud or something worse sometimes. Rotting bodies, corpses, horse carcasses... direct contact with death.

Cannon fodder

Death could happen at any time and took many formsSoldiers were not anxious only, they were traumatized Here, a vision of the No-Man’s Land... What do you feel in front of it?

IV. IMPACTS OF THE WAR ON THE INTERWAR PERIOD

Increased frustrations, lost generations.

Anger and agressivity

to avenge.

The addiction to violence disturbed people and paved the

way for fascist regimes

F RANCE

GERMANY

The war to end all wars…

The undefeatedarmy

A German machine gun squad Patriotism: a culture…

Beyond pride and comic, what was the result?Brainwashed people, indoctrination of the youth…

Belief in fatality.

Otto DixDismembered veterans and people

Half-mechanic, half humanHalf-living, half-dead

The heavy-metal band Metallica released a song (« ONE ») in tribute to WW1 soldiers and a reference to 1971 Dalton Trumbo’s film « Johnny got his gun »