Experience of Soldiers

Extreme brutalityCoping with never before seen violenceExhaustionPoisonous gasTrenchesAerial bombardments

Soldier’s Journals“I dove down beside that road…and recognized those

Boche helmets! In a twinkling I was passed them…and came diving down upon them from the rear. I just held both triggers down hard while the fiery bullets flew streaming out of the two guns…I had a vague confused picture of…rearing horses, falling men, running men, general mess…I found myself trembling with excitement and overawed at being a cold-blooded murderer, but a sense of keen satisfaction came too. It was only the sort of thing our own poor doughboys have suffered so often.”

(Hamilton Coolidge)

Coping Mechanisms• Camaraderie• British Pals’ battalions

‘Those who joined together should serve together’ = very popular

– Companies, businesses, towns & cities formed their own battalions

– They trained & served together– Over 300 battalions were formed in this

way & 250,000 men joined up• Entertainment on the Front• Writing Journals or Poetry

Soldier’s Journals“I got within fifty feet of the German machine-gun nests when a bullet plowed through the top of my skull…As I lay there I could plainly see the German gunners and hear them talking…They reloaded their gun and turned it on me. The first three bullets went through my legs and hip and the rest splashed up dust and dirt…That night…one of my comrades…who later in the battle as himself killed, crawled out and started to carry me back to the lines…The Germans…turned their guns our way…Thinking it impossible for him to get me to the lines alone, he piled up a half-dozen bodies of my poor dead “buddies” and barricaded my position. There I remained for several hours longer…the boys piled up around me were my own camp-mates whom I knew…Back of the lines the surgeons came out…and exclaimed, “What, ain’t you dead yet?” (Joyce Lewis)

Wilfred Owens, English PoetANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?  Only the monstrous anger of the guns.  Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle  Can patter out their hasty orisons*.No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, – The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;  And bugles calling for them from sad shires.What candles may be held to speed them all?  Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes  Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.  The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;  Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,  And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

* Prayers September - October, 1917

African-American and French Comradeship

“We were fully equipped with French rifles and French helmets. Our wagons, our rations, our machine guns and everything pertaining to the equipment of the regiment for trench warfare was supplied by the French Army.

It was considered that it would take us at least six weeks before we would be able to march into line and take our position on the front. Sergeants and non-commissioned officers and different members of the machine gun companies, Stokes mortars, were sent to the French schools for an intensive training in the handling of these implements of warfare. Daily, the other members of the troop were taken out by the French interpreters and instructed on trench warfare and formations for the approach and advance in military maneuvers.

So rapidly did our boys learn the formations that in less than three weeks the time the General in command of the 61st Division recommended that a battalion of our boys be moved and put in the trenches alongside French soldiers for first hand instructions. This move was hailed with great joy by our boys.

There had sprung up between them and their French buddies a great comradeship. The French officers had taken our officers and made pals out of them. The non-commissioned officers in the French army who held a little more elevated position than the non-commissioned officers in our army by virtue of their long military campaign, treated our boys with all the courtesy and comradeship that could be expected.

Cheeriest of all was the good comradeship that existed between our enlisted men and the faithful old French poilu. You could see them strolling down the road arm in arm, each hardly able to understand the other, as our boys’ French was as bad as their English. In their souls and in their breasts there seemed to beat the same emotion. They were for one cause – liberty and freedom.

Source: Noble Lee Sissle, Memoirs of Jim Europe, 1942

“A Street in Arras”, John Singer Sergent 1918

“Oppy Wood”, John Nash, 1917

“Those that have lost their names”

Albin Eggar-Linz, 1914

Turkish Genocide against Armenians 1915-1923

Turkish Genocide Against Armenians

“We had already been deported once, in 1915, sent towards Der-Zor. But, my uncle’s friend had connections in the government and he had us ordered back to Izmir. Orders came again that everyone must gather in front of the Armenian church to be deported. My father refused to go and told us not to worry. He didn’t think the Turkish government would do anything to him, since he was a government employee himself.”

A narrative by a witness and a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, Kristine

Hagopian, born 1906, Smyrna

“Twelve Turkish soldiers and an official came very early the next morning. We were still asleep. They dragged (= trainer) us out in our nightgowns and lined us up against the living room wall. Then the official ordered my father to lie down on the ground… they are dirty the Turks… very dirty… I can’t say what they did to him. They raped him! Raped! Just like that. Right in front of us. And that official made us watch. He whipped us if we turned away. My mother lost consciousness and fell to the floor.”

“Afterwards, we couldn’t find our father. My mother looked for him frantically. He was in the attic, trying to hang himself. Fortunately, my mother found him before it was too late. My father did eventually kill himself—later, after we escaped.”

• Video: Armenian Genocide

After winning the war, the Allies dictated a harsh peace settlement that left many nations feeling betrayed.

Hard feelings left by the peace settlement helped cause World War II.

Making PeaceThe Treaty of Versailles

Video: The Treaty of Versailles

Do you think the peace settlements at Versailles were fair? Why or why not? Consider the warring and nonwarring nations affected. THINK ABOUT

•Germany’s punishment • the creation of new nations

Making Peace

• the mandate system Fair: Germany was punished for its aggression, and numerous independence claims were addressed through the creation of new nations. Unfair: Germany was too harshly punished, and colonial peoples did not get their independence.

Effects of WWI

Millions of lives lost

$338 billion cost

Land, towns, and villages destroyed

Widespread disillusionme

nt

Effects of the War on Civilians• 5 million civilians perished from

disease and starvation (especially in Russia and the Ottoman Empire)

• Submarines, naval blockades & warplanes extended suffering of the war beyond the front lines

• Aerial bombardments killed many civilians (British and German cities bombed by air raids)

Market in Lens, August 1919

Country Population

Military Deaths

Civilian Deaths

% Populatio

n

Military Wounded

France 39.6 M 1.4 M 300,000 4.29% 4.3 M

Russia 175.1 M 2 M 1.5 M 2% 4 M

United Kingdom

45.4 M 887,000 109,000 2.19% 1.7 M

U.S. 92 M 117,000 757 0.13% 206,000

Italy 35.6 M 651,000 589,000 3.48% 954,000

Austria-Hungary

51.4 M 1.1 M 467,000 3.05% 3.6 M

Germany 64.9 M 2 M 426,000 3.82% 4.2 M

Ottoman Empire

21.3 M 772,000 2.2M 13.7% 400,000

TOTAL 525.3 M 8.93 M 5.6 M 19.36 M

WAR CASUALTIES FOR ALLIED AND CENTRAL POWERS

1. What major changes do you see?2. Which countries are created as a result of

the war?3. Which countries’ borders are affected by

the outcome of the war?

Effects of the War in the U.S.• US reverts to isolationism

– Harding (1920) campaigned on a return to “normalcy”

• Red Summer– Race riots in Northern Cities – Great Migration

• Fear of Communism– 1st Red Scare

• Increase of Nativism– 2 acts passed which severely reduced

immigration– Desire to go back to the way things were

before

Reading Material World War IMastering Modern World History by Norman Lowe•The First World War and its aftermath, pp. 19-40

+Questions, p. 41•The League of Nations, pp. 43-49

+Questions, p. 49

•Article on blog: “The Armenian Genocide”