WW1 Flashcards
Modernism
- mass production, consumerism, rural > urban, technology
- When WW1 started there was some modern tech
- during hundred year war, pace of change was much slower than WW1
- WW1 changes very fast, incredibly rapid tech change
- during WW1 there was more dramatic and profound change than the world had ever seen, hugley signifcant tech developed, people had to cope w modernism all in a rush
- WW1 was a modern war w modern tech, but it was foght by 19th century ppl
- challange: tradtional ways of thinking w modern tech
Popular culture
- 1st WW was the first war in pop culture
- lots of cliches
- cliches infulence how people viewed the war (e.g soilder in trench for 4 yrs, stupid genral innocent soilder, infantry dangerous)
- shaped they way people saw it - and trench warfare didnt start till middle of war + fisherman more likely to die in britan than infantry
Nationalism
- begginings of nationalism coming out of 100yrs war
- bridge to modren nationalism came from being exposed to bigger community (understand what nation is)
3 Factors that emerged in France bringing nationalism
1.) creation of fredral education system - school teach how to be french
2.) Development of national infastructure - means to travel, less isolation of communties, more sense of larger community
3.) devleopment of national systems of communication (newspapers + mail) - people can remain in contact w each other + see what nation is doing
- At this time nationalism was good, pure, postive, clean > meant cooperation help, community (initally profoundly benficial)
What perverted nationalism
Imperalism and Jingoism
Imperalism
- seen everywhere, not just europe
- in the 19th centurary it picksup steam in european powers
- mindset: “if we dont start getting places someone else will first”
- dont want to see someone elses falg flying over places, you want to see ur flag everywhere
Jingosim
- natioalism + imperalism in a negative bullish way
- “by jingo” - By jesus
- emerges out of a sense of imperalism and nationalism
-to be jingo = to be waiting for a war - extreme and destructive form of nationalsim, goes beyound pride and identity etc..turns into racial superiority
- produces ideolgies that call for redrawing of the map (german race nazis)
Arms races
- size of armies - trends (all the armies start increasing in size except britan)
- spending - how countries gearing up for war (esp russia and germany)
- Britans expansion made sense due to colonies - germany didnt - germany preparing to invade england
Britan wants its navy to be larger than the next 2 biggest combined (all increasing size relative to each otehr) - germany starts to take lead in arms races and it concerns other powers
HMS Dreadnought
- 1906 Britan decides to change game
- revolution in naval weaponry, biggest + newest
tech warship in the world - every other power builds same kind of ship
- push to design and build sophisticated modern battleship
The generation of 1914
- term used to refer to young adults in 1914
- age of miltary service 18-45 , partcularly mid 20s
- avg soilder war 24-26 and born in 1880s
years of WW1
1914-1918
What was it like for someone born 1880s in Canada
- no evidence of gov - gov had little to do w reg life (only parts are post office was fedral and rds + education were provncial)
- fighting for nation was a confusing issue
- no ID kept in pockets (drivers licinse, healthcard etc)
- people may not even know exactly how old they are (abilty to do things was not governed by age)
- people didnt care abt time, just sun up and down (most people didnt have clocks and watches, no standard time noon = when sun is directly overhead of u), standard time was brought in for railways
- population of country was around 4.3 mil - 70% was in rural areas (acc greater tha that bc census defention, was prolly acc closer to 90%)
- all sorts of ways to divide socitey but rural abd urban most common
Filling the ranks/ replacing the death
- dead has to be reaplced if armies are going to continue to function
- recruitment on home front
- most armies had a reg army (professional soilders) + reserve army (part time soilders trained on own time and called upon if country goes to war)
- filling ranks could be done with conscription (common in europe b4 WW1) or volunteers
- at beggining more volunteers, later had to advertise, convince or even conscript
Strong arm of the state and censorship
- have to get as much of a country on baord + constrain those who dont support the war
- extrodinary powers to allow countries to do that (e.g war measures act), empowers gov to censorship, monitor trade, currency control + so much more ( sounds big now but many gov already had this power)
- most ppl accept desprate measures in a time of war
- anything that went to public was censored + monitored
- in U.S was illgal to critsize army, gov or scale of war bombs (strict penalties up to 20yrs) - doesnt sq very well but people accept short term pain 4 long term gain
- govs censor anything coming by telegram, cut off at source never gets to papers (most news papers would self censor > dont want to take chance)
- this was new for some countries (CAN AUS) old for others
Gov changes for war
- censorship (new for some)
- people started carrying ID - deminstrate they had contact w gov
- income tax started (this was more contrvesial)
- day light saving - to reduce energy consumption
- alc restrictions (full or partial ban of alc in most places)
- votes for women (war provided ammunition for womens votes, foreign men can vote but not white women?)
- working women
These Changes were supposed to be temporary but hard to take back acc became forever for most part
Flora Sandes
British women served as a member of the Royal Serbian Army in World War I. She was the only British woman officially to serve as a soldier in that war
maria bochkareva
- a Russian soldier who fought in World War I and formed the 1st Russian Women’s Battalion of Death. She was the first Russian woman to command a military unit
Riddle of trenches
- how to attack heavily defended area w out sacrficing too many lives
The zimmerman telegram
- Germany asked mexico onside > germany win war, mexico will get territory lost to US back
- wilson got congress to declare war on geramny - assosiated power (not allied)
- US in the war on the side of the entante
- critical because russia was falling apart (problems w/food supply and destroyed faith in gov)
Revolution
- Russian soilders loosing faith
- Czor supposed to be running country - now miltary
- Riots in capital - army took side of gov
- czor gave up throne- provsional gov
- russia stayed in war
- secound revolution- bushwicks to power and they aimed to get russia out of war
????
Douglas Haig
controls west - weasterner bc he controls west so he wants to be win war, also belived as long as germany occupied parts of france and belgium they would win war
- Lacks creativity
- thinks soultion is not to attack somewhere else but make it bigger (more men, more weapons)
- always thinks scale is the problem
William Robertson
agrees with Haig, highest ranking soldier, first person in history of British army to rise from lowest rank to highest rank. Not particularly creative, good at certain things but not creativity cant inteleutlize things outside of western front