Topic Essay 6: World War I Here is a symbolic image of the consequences of World War I. Destruction of the old that forced the western societies to build something new in its place. In any event, our textbook writes that World War I, which was called the Great War by its participants, “dealt a lethal blow to many nineteenth century ideals and institutions.” In what ways this “Great War” transformed the western world? World War I Now, we have arrived at the first global-scale warfare in human history, World War I, which is known as, simply, the Great War to many who experienced it. Let us start with casualty numbers. I am going to start from Russia that suffered the largest casualties: 9.15 million dead and wounded. Germany and Austria suffered 7 million each. France 6 million. Great Britain 3 million. The U.S. suffered 360,000 casualties -- dead and wounded. Overall 8.5 million combatants died, not counting indirect deaths from diseases and other war-related causes. After the war, additional 30 million Europeans would die. They were the victims of diseases that ravaged the Europeans weakened by malnutrition. What were all these killing and destruction for? What good came out of this? In your high school history classes, you might have heard something like, “on the fateful day of June 28, 1914, the future emperor of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by a young Bosnian assassin….” Indeed, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand did take place, and the subsequent Balkan Crisis led to the outbreak of the war. But an assassination cannot fully explain why this hugely destructive war had to be fought. We have to dig deeper into Western economy, society, and the mindset of the people of the time to get a fuller picture. Let us begin by looking into economic background. Since your textbook has a good narrative on the Balkan crisis, I am going to focus on the backgrounds of the war. (Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie at Sarajevo on 28th June, 1914, before their assassination.) Friends, you want to know why the war came? Listen to me now and believe me later. If you understand five Is, (I, I, I, I, I) you have World War I at your command. Our first I is IDENTITY -- to be more specific, the national IDENTITY. As we have discussed in the lecture on nationalism, the nineteenth century was time of emergence of different national identities. European countries began to develop this sense that uniqueness in terms of their history, language, character, culture, geography, and future aspirations. The outcome of such strong national identities was rivalry and competition between countries. A good example of this nationalistic competition would be German v. French, two neighbors who felt that they could not be neighbors just because they are so different. Are they? Second I is INDUSTRIALIZATION: In the last lecture, we discussed how industrialized economies of European powers caused overproduction and falling rate of profit, which forced European industrial powers to seek colonies to alleviate these problems. So came our third I: IMPERIALISM. European powers engaged in the scramble for colonies, throughout the world. (Go to the maps 858 and 867 in the textbook.) What had the Balkans got to do with imperialism, which is usually associated with Africa or Asia? The Balkans was the region where three powers competed for their imperialistic influence, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Ottoman Empire. These countries considered the Balkans, rich in mineral resources and verdant agricultural fields, vital to their economic development and national greatness. In any event, imperialism engendered our fourth I: INSECURITIES. Because of their vast colonial holdings, and competition that stemmed from them, European powers sought to make sure that they have enough friends help them in times of trouble. Therefore, entangling alliances among European industrial powers were established. The following two alliances more or less divided European powers into two camps.   Triple Alliances – Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy (later Turkey instead of Italy) Triple Entente – Grea Britain, France, and Russia Some of these European countries also had treaty relations with smaller countries and people, making the alliance system even more entangled. Of the major European powers, one country that felt rather insecure was Germany. The Germans first had three potential enemies, Great Britain, France, and Russia. Second, Germany was insecure towards, British naval might that could pose major hindrance to Germany’s movement in the seas. This insecurity on the part of Germany will play a major role in the outbreak of the war. (The poster to the right reflects, Germany’s view of its military might.) We have come to our last I: INCREASES. First, population increases. The following table, which is in million, shows how populations of European countries increased rapidly at the turn of the twentieth century. Country 1870 1900 1910 Britain 22.7 32.5 36 France 36.1 38.5 39 Germany 41 56.3 65 Hungary 15.5 19.2 20 U.S. 39.8 76 92 What did this population explosion mean for the upcoming war? More people meant INCREASE in the number of potential conscripts. Before the outbreak of World War I, European armies were not so great in number. But once mobilization was announced these numbers multiplied practically overnight. Before:     Russia: 1.3 million Great Britain: 1 million Germany and France: 900,000 each Italy and Austria: 500,000 each After:     Russia – 12 million Germany – 11 million France – 8 million Great Britain – 9.5 million Also, industrialized economies now had more resource to invest in military buildup. For example, Germany’s 1914 per capita military expenditure was six times that of 1871. Here is another important INCREASE. Let us take a look at the increase in steel production in thousands of tons: 1870 1890 1913 Britain 240 3,636 8,500 Germany 126 2,135 20,500 U.S.A 69 4,277 31,300 France 84 683 5,100 Production of high quality steel enabled European powers to manufacture new types of weapons. To name just a few, there were now machine guns, dreadnaughts, U-boats (Unterseeboote), tanks. Chemical engineering, another product of industrial revolution, introduced high-powered explosives into weapon manufacturing. Also, mustard gas became a major weapon of mass destruction. Then, there was the transportation revolution. Europeans built extensive railroad network that allowed combatants to move soldiers and materiel. What did it all mean to have command of these weapons and equipment? Massive and quick mobilization and movement of troops became possible. Oh, one more revolution; the communication revolution. Telegraph, telephone, and better printing press contributed to the rise of the mass media that fed nationalistic propaganda and hysteria into the minds of the Europeans. Now, with these five Is (I, I, I, I, I) we can understand what mindset the Europeans were in, and what they were capable of doing at the beginning of the 20th century. Now, let me add one more I: INTERNATIONAL CRISIS. When the people of Austria Hungary heard the news that their next emperor, Archduke Ferdinand, was assassinated by a Bosnian, nationalistic hysteria descended upon them. (The Bosnians were a Slavic people who were ruled by Austria-Hungary that took the land from the Ottoman Empire. To the right is probably the most famous Bosnian in history, and assassin in history too, Gavrilo Princip. He died in prison due to tuberculosis.) I have put together a sequence of events that took place immediately before and after June 28, 1914. (Read the textbook carefully for more detail on each event.) The Outbreak of the War           The Ottoman Empire, the “Sick Man of Europe” loses control of the Balkans. Rivalry between Austria-Hungary and Russia over the Balkans intensifies. Austria annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina (1908), an old Ottoman territories, hinting coming crisis. Serbia, an independent Slavic country in the Balkans, had a dream of Slavic empire in the Balkans, free of Ottoman or Austrian influence, and protected by Russia. Serbia instigates nationalists in Bosnia, southern part of Austria-Hungary, to start independence movement. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on June 28, 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian nationalist activist trained and assisted by the Black Hand -- a Serbian Nationalist Group. German issued carte blanche to Austria-Hungary (July 5) in the event of war with Russia. Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia (July 28) Russian government orders full mobilization (July 29) Germany declares war on Russia (August 1) Germany declares war on France (August 3) Europe, and soon the world, was at war. And it would be looking like this, above, after the war. Yes, the Balkan Crisis pulled the trigger of the war. However, it was crisis that had deeper roots: IDENTITY, INDUSTRIALIZATION, IMPERIAISM, INSECURITIES, and INCREASES (in destructive capabilities.) World War I – Battles The picture above says a lot about World War I. First, we are looking at one of the most brilliant inventions of industrialized Europe, the machine-gun. Also, the reason why these two soldiers are wearing gas masks is because they were protecting themselves from another deadly weapon of the era of industrialization, the gas. Let us address the following question: why was the war so deadly? There were almost 8 million soldiers who died in this war. France and German, for example, each lost 16 percent of the forces sent into the battlefields. What was responsible for these ghastly death tolls? Part of the answer is the trench warfare. By the winter of 1914, the combatants dug in and faced each other in a network of trenches. For example, in the western front, Germany had 466 mile-long fortifications. British and French had equally long trench where they were bogged down. (Altogether, some 25,000 miles of trenches were dug.) The combatants attempted to attack each other cross the no-man’s land that separated them and capture the enemy trench and advance forward. However, that was not exactly how it happened. Most of the times the charges were repelled and the attacking armies were driven back to their trenches where they were stuck in and with mud, excrement, rats, lice, and dead bodies. The indecisive and exhaustive trench warfare lasted until 1918 with no decisive victory for any of the combatants, but mounting casualties. Here is one good example of the horror of the trench warfare. On July 1, 1916, on the first day of battle of the Somme in France, the British forces charged against German trenches and advanced 200 yards. The cost of this victory to the British forces? One thousand deaths. That is 5 dead bodies for each yard. By the end of the Somme offensive, the British and French forces suffered 620,000 casualties to Germany’s 650,000. Who won the battle? It is difficult to say who won with these staggering casualties. Here is one historian's description of the German attack on Verdun, a French fortress. “In February 1916, the Germans struck mightily at the border fortress of Verdun, killing so many French soldiers that their proclaimed goal to ‘bleed France white” seemed fulfilled. Yet in this protracted battle that engaged 2 million men, the ‘victors’ suffered casualties nearly as high (350,000) as the French ‘losers’ (400,000).” In other words, the both sides had the ability to inflict damages to each other. The horror of the trench warfare is well captured in the following letter sent home by a German soldier from the trenches: “Everybody must now be prepared for death in some form or other….The newspapers have probably given you a different impression. They tell only of our gains and say nothing of the blood that has been shed, of the cries of agony that never cease. The newspaper doesn’t give any description either of how the ‘heroes’ are laid to rest…. Up here…one throw the bodies out of the trench and lets them lie there, or scatters dirt over the remains of those which have been torn to pieces by shells.” And top of this, there was the gas attack. The combatants for the first time in the history of warfare used chemical weapons that turned the battlefields into killing fields. The picture to the left shows soldiers who were exposed to gas attacks. On the eastern front, the killing fields were more littered with dead bodies. Here, German and Austro-Hungarian armies faced Russian forces, which were first believed to be an enormous military steamroller. “In reality, the Russian soldiers, mostly peasants, sent out to war with too little food, and too few boots and bullets.” Russian soldiers were so ill prepared that as King writes, they were sent to the front to “freeze, starve, and bleed.” (One of the problems was Russia’s inability to supply the soldiers adequately, exacerbated by its rail lines that were constructed to a different gauge than those of Western Europe.) In the first two months of the war, Russia lost 2 million soldiers. So many Russians were dying in the battlefields because of inadequate supply, as well as incompetence of the Russian leadership. In 1917, the Czar of Russia, Nicholas II, would be overthrown by a revolution. Here in the picture Nicholas II attempts to project the image of the supreme commander of the Russian forces. He probably did not succeed doing that with his soldiers, many of whom were without rifles. We will talk about him and the Russian Revolution in the next lecture. Another killing field of World War I was the Atlantic Ocean. When the British navy blockaded and choked Germany and Australia, whose citizens were near starvation by 1917, Germany launched submarine attacks against the allied shipping transporting goods across the Atlantic Ocean. One of them was Lusitania that sank with 1,200 passengers, including 128 American citizens. Another wellpublicized U-boat (below) attack was against the French ship Sussex that went down with American passengers. The German submarine attack was so successful that up until the summer of 1917, one-fourth of all British ships that left port were sunk. So, how did the allies end up winning the war? The most determining factor was the American intervention. For the first three years of the war, the U.S. remained neutral and did a hefty business selling Americans goods to the belligerents. When German began to attack America’s cross-Atlantic shipping, the U.S. could no longer remain neutral. On April 6, 1917, the U.S. Congress declared war against the Central Powers. President Woodrow Wilson in his speech calling for war declared that the U.S. must intervene to “make the world safe for democracy.” He insisted that World War I was the “war to end all wars.” With American soldiers -eventually 4 million Americans were mobilized -- and bountiful supply of materiel, the scale was tipped in favor of the allies. In the summer of 1919, World War I came to an end. Below, you will find the magnitude of the human cost of the war.| Allies Central Powers Total: 22,064,427 Total: 15,404,477 Belgium 93,061 France 6,160,800 Great Britain 3,190,235 Greece 27,000 Italy 2,197,000 Japan 1,210 Montenegro 20,000 Portugal 33,291 Romania 535,706 Russia 9,150,000 Serbia 331,106 United States 325,018 Austria-Hungary 7,020,000 Bulgaria 266,919 Germany 7,142,558 Ottoman 975,000 Again, all these deaths -- for what? One this was certain. According to our textbook, the World War I “dealt a lethal blow to many nineteenth century ideals and institutions.” In other words, the world (especially the world the combatant lived in) was no longer the same after the war. Our topic essay for World War I deals with this question: “How was the Western world transformed by World War I?” I look forward to your answers to this question. The Versailles Treaty Question: who was responsible for the outbreak and destruction of WWI? Germany? Austria-Hungary? The Ottoman Empire? Bosnia? Gavrilo Princip? What do you think? (The above German cartoon shows whom the victorious Allies thought was guilty and how they wanted to deal with the culprit of World War I.) I don’t think one single nation or event was responsible for creating this massive killing field. The war was fought among the industrialized nations in the world. Their rivalries stemming from industrial and nationalistic competitions drove them to that horrible experience. Therefore, if the culprit had to be named, it would be, you guessed it, industrialization, or the bourgeois mode of production. That, however, was not how the Allies (above left) felt coming to the Paris peace treaty. To be fair, America’s Woodrow Wilson did advocate a nonpunitive peace treaty. He understood why the war began. He knew better than anyone else that industrial and nationalistic competition among the European powers was at fault. So, Wilson came to Paris with a blueprint for “pace without victory” known as the Fourteen Points. (To the right is President Wilson arriving in Paris with high idealism and enthusiasm. He would soon be bitterly disappointed.) That was not how the Wilson’s European allies felt though. These victorious Europeans wanted to punish Germany to the extent that it could never challenge them again. So came the Versailles Peace treaty that not only punished Germany but also humiliated it. Prime Minister Lloyd George, for one promised his people, “I’ll hand the Kaiser!” French Premier, Georges Clemenceau, was reported to have said vis-à-vis Wilson’s Fourteen Point that even God had issued only ten commandments – four less than Wilson’s points. Anyhow, it was not only the Germany that was punished severely. Territorially, all countries of Triple Alliance were punished severely. Part of the Ottoman Empire’s territories was ceded to Great Britain, Italy, and Greece. Out of the former AustriaHungarian territories new countries such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania were established. I am going to outline the series of punishment imposed upon Germany and its allies. First, the political punishments: The Article 231, the so-called war guilt clause, forced Germany to accept responsible for the outbreak of the war. Even Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II was charged with war crime. Second, territorial punishments:  The following countries were established: Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia out of the territories that once belonged to the losers.  The Polish Corridor was established and split Germany into two parts.  Alsace-Lorraine was lost to France  Rhineland was demilitarized and occupied  Ruhr valley was later occupied by France  France was given control of the coal-rich Saar River basin for 15 years Third, military punishment. Germany was forced to disarm with the following limitations:     100,000 volunteer Army (smaller than that of Poland) No Air Force No Submarines No officer training school Here comes the coup de grâce, the economic punishments. Reparation of $33 billion in gold was imposed on Germany. Why so much? Because the allies claimed civilian damages from Germany. This punishment was imposed on a nation that had already lost      15% of total productive capacity 36 % of coal supply 72 % of iron ore 90% of merchant shipping 100% foreign investment Throughout the 1920s, Germany borrowed from the U.S. and used the loans to pay for the reparation, most of which went to France. Well, in 1929, the Great Depression hit the U.S. and soon, the entire world, Germany could no longer pay the reparation. When payments were not made, France took away Germany’s industrial resources. What came out of this debilitating punishment is, first, collapse of the value of Deutsche Mark. In 1914, the year the war broke out, the value of Deutsche Mark in 1914 was 4.2 to 1 U.S. dollar. In November 30, 1923, 4.2 trillion DM was equal to one U.S. dollar. There are many pictures that give us glimpse into how the Germans reacted to this unimaginable lose of the values of their money. The German woman above is using the worthless German currency to light a fire in her cooking stove. This economic collapse was a perfect backdrop to rise of such a radical ideology as Nazism in Germany. Wholesale Price Index July 1914 1.0 Jan 1919 2.6 July 1919 3.4 Jan 1920 12.6 Jan 1921 14.4 July 1921 14.3 Jan 1922 36.7 July 1922 100.6 Jan 1923 2,785.0 July 1923 194,000.0 Nov 1923 726,000,000,000.0 If you were a German faced with this kind of confusing and harsh reality, would not gravitated toward someone who would promise to restore Germany’s greatness? That is how a small, radical frenzy political organization, the Nazi party, ended up taking over Germany. Friends, In this slide show, you will find a collection of painting and drawing that were selected for the exhibition titled "Art of the First World War." This exhibition was organized in order to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the First World War in 1998. Take a look at the slide show and respond to the following discussion questions: "What did World War I mean to these artists who experienced it? What do these images tell you about World War I? Why was World War I so destructive, according to these images?" The next three slides are from the forward to the "Art of the First World War." The Great War lasted for four years and caused the deaths of eight million men. It saw the collapse of three empires – Germany, Austro-Hungary and Russia. It devastated the regions on both the eastern and western fronts. It was the first industrial war, with endless technological advances, mass production and the general mobilization of all human, economic and mechanical resources. Its victims came from every nationality and from every background - from Europe and North America, from the Commonwealth nations and colonized peoples in India, Indochina and Africa. It happened everywhere, on the ground and underground, on the water and under water, and in the air. It was fought using every possible means, from cavalry charges to hand-to-hand trench warfare, from bombardments to assault tanks, using gas or phosphorus. In this war, the warrior was reduced to the dual role of servant and victim of the machine. Europe emerged from the Great War completely changed - exhausted, horrified, and forcibly modernized. The aim of this exhibition is not to review the facts of the war, but to show how they were portrayed by artists on either side of the front line, and indicating the difficulties involved. Amongst the millions of conscripts there were painters of every nationality and every school of painting. Those who were born around the year 1880 belonged to the generation that was called up immediately on the outbreak of war. The war held no secrets for men such as these – they were the ones who did the fighting. Boccioni, Macke, Marc, La Fresnaye and Gaudier-Brzeska died during, or as a consequence of, the war. Only the citizens of neutral countries (for example the Spanish nationals Picasso and Gris) were not called up. Many enlisted out of patriotism or because they could not bear to be away from the action. Until now, with very few exceptions, artists and writers had witnessed wars without actually becoming involved. In 1914, for the first time, they all had to take part: Germans, Britons, Italians, Austro-Hungarians and Frenchmen. Léger became a stretcher-bearer, Kokoschka a cavalryman, Beckmann a medic, Derain an artilleryman, Camoin a camoufleur, Dix a machine-gunner. Many of them drew and painted what they saw and lived through. From the sketchbooks of pencil drawings done at the front to the canvases painted on returning home, theirs is an intense and accurate testimony. Alfred Kubin, Die Kriegsfackel (The Torch of War), 1914 Otto Dix, Selbstbildnis als Soldat (Self-Portrait as a Soldier), 1914 Otto Dix, Selbstbildnis mit Artillerie-Helm (Self-Portrait Wearing a Gunner's Helmet), 1914 Lovis Corinth, Bildnis Hermann Struck (Portrait of Hermann Struck), 1915 Max Beckmann, Selbstbildnis als Krankenpfleger (Self-Portrait as a Nurse), 1915 Egon Schiele, Heinrich Wagner, Leutnant i. d. Reserve (Portrait of Reserve Lieutenant Heinrich Wagner), 1917 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Selbstbildnis als Soldat (Self-portrait as a soldier), 1915 L. Campbell Taylor, Herculaneum Dock, Liverpool, 1919 Gino Severini, Plastic Synthesis of the Idea of War, 1915 John D. Fergusson, Dockyard, Portsmouth, 1918 Edward Alexander Wadsworth, Dazzled-Ships in Drydock at Liverpool, 1919 John Lavery, A Convoy, North Sea, 1918 C. R. W. Nevinson, Machine-gun, 1915 Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, La mitrailleuse en action (The Machine-gun in Action), 1915 David Bomberg, Sappers at Work: A Canadian Tunelling Company, first version, 1918-1919 David Bomberg, Sappers at Work: A Canadian Tunelling Company, second, final version, 1919 André Mare, Le canon de 280 camouflé (The Camouflaged 280 Gun) Fernand Léger, La partie de cartes (Soldiers Playing at Cards), 1917 C. R. W. Nevinson, Returning to the Trenches, 1914-15 Roger de la Fresnaye, L'artillerie (Artillery), 1911 Gino Severini, Armoured Train in Action, 1915 Gino Severini, Gun in Action, 1915 C. R. W. Nevinson, A Bursting Shell, 1915 C. R. W. Nevinson, Explosion, c.1916, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Un de nos obus explose (One of Our Shells Exploding), 1915 Félix Vallotton, Verdun, tableau de guerre interprété, projections colorées noires, bleues et rouges, terrains dévastés, nuées de gaz (Verdun Interpreted War Painting, Coloured Black, Red and Blue Projections, Destroyed Lands, Clouds of Gas), 1917 Edouard Vuillard, Usine de fabrication d'armement à Lyon : La Forge (A Munitions Factory in Lyons: The Forge), 1917 Charles Ginner, The Filling Factory, 1918, George Clausen, In The Gun Foundry at Woolwich Arsenal George Clausen, In The Gun Foundry at Woolwich Arsenal Félix Vallotton, Le cimetière de Châlons-sur-Marne (The Cemetery of Châlons sur Marne), 1917
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