wwi lecture #2- total war stalemate/war of attrition attempts to break the stalemate- military...
TRANSCRIPT
WWI Lecture #2- Total War
• Stalemate/War of Attrition
• Attempts to Break the Stalemate- Military Technologies
• Total War • Key Turning Points
Stalemate/War of Attrition
• Review– The Schlieffen Plan almost worked, but the British
and French held out in a desperate battle at the Marne River
• Trench building– The ‘race to the sea’ – Eventually, realizing they couldn’t defeat the
French quickly, the Germans built trenches too, to make sure they weren’t counterattacked
Paris
Marne
• Barbed wire. No Man’s Land. Over the top. • Defenses were simply too strong• Verdun and Somme were battles that became
symbolic of hopeless slaughter– Over half a million killed in each
– Neither gained more than 5 miles of territory
– 20,000 killed in the Battle of the Somme on the first day
– Traditional goals of battle are abandoned in favor of slaughter• Goal at Verdun was to ‘bleed the French army white’
Trench Warfare
Attempts to Break the Stalemate ***New Military Technologies***
• Since ‘Over the Top’ Isn’t Working, You Need Something Else
• Doesn’t it make sense that the tank was invented in WWI?
U.S.
French Tank
Irony of British Development of the Tank
• British ended up thinking the tank was a failure– Too expensive– Often broke down – After WWI, did not focus much on tank
development
• Germans think tank is an awesome weapon– Why would they have a unique perspective?– They do focus on the tank after WWI– In WWII…
New Air Technology
• First War fought from the air!!! Remember, the Wright Brothers flew for the 1st time in 1903
Germans used Zeppelins
-Both Zeppelins and Airplanes were useful for spying and dogfighting, but air power didn’t have that big an impact on World War I- Occasionally small bombs were dropped -Will be hugely important in World War II, so worth noting now
Submarines had a bigger impact.
• Germans especially used submarines to attack enemy ships.
• Does it make sense that Germany relied on subs (aka U-Boats)?
Poison Gas!!!
A.
Total War
• “when a nation focuses its complete energies on victory in a war”
• Are we in a total war with Iraq/Afghanistan now?
Gov’t Control of the Economy
• Rationing
• Vital industries taken over by the gov’t and turned towards war production
Propaganda
• ‘messages created for a mass audience and meant to influence their thinking in a desired way’
Censorship• “A reduction in the
freedoms of speech and the press to prevent unwanted messages from reaching an audience”
• Important tidbit- German civilians aren’t aware they are about to lose until it happens… will be important later
The British Gazette
“It seems as if Britain is about to lose this war”
Everyone is Encouraged/Ordered to Help
• For able bodied men- the German Auxiliary Service Law
• School children hunt for metals to recycle • Old women knit socks for the troops • Young women go to work in factories to replace
men taken to ‘the front’ – Helps explain the success of women’s suffrage
movements after the war
• If everyone is helping, are there civilians? – Bombing of civilians is widely accepted
Roots of ‘Totalitarian’ Government
• Censorship, propaganda, gov’t control of economy
• After World War I, we will discuss the rise of Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini
• People had already been conditioned to follow governments during WWI
Each Side Sought to Weaken the Other’s Total War Efforts
• Naval Blockades – Germany develops a way to ‘fix’ nitrogen out
of the air, which helps it withstand the British blockade
• Germany Uses the U-Boat to ‘siege’ England
Attempts to Force Nations to the Breaking Point Led To the Major Turning Points of the War
• First nation to break under the strain?– Russia– Least industrialized nation – Why is this so huge for Germany?
• However, Germany is on the brink too, and they place a U-Boat siege on Britain in a desperate attempt to force the British to give up– Unrestricted submarine warfare– U.S. was already leaning towards Britain– When a British ship (the Lusitania) was sunk with
Americans on board, the U.S. entered the war and onto the Western Front • 2 million fresh soldiers
Germany Quickly Collapsed
• Kaiser stepped down and fled to Holland
• Moderate socialists in Germany, who had been hoping for peace for a while, negotiated surrender terms
• Germany itself was never invaded
