Listening to University of Tennessee Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius’ lecture series on World War I was highly entertaining and educational.
This war lead to the collapse of two global empires. The Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman empire. These fragile empires were struggling to maintain their authority over a collection of varied ethnic and religious factions. WWI would put an end to these empires.
World War I was a coming out party for Germany. Germany had recently defeated France in the Franco-Prussian war of the late 1800s. Their economy was booming. Germany was building a powerful navy to rival that of the mighty British Empire. The rise of Germany made for a tense European situation. France was looking to regain lands ceded to Germany after the Franco-Prussian treaty. Great Britain viewed a rising Germany as a larger threat than their long-time enemy, France.
WWI facts:
- Japan joined the conflict in 1914. In this global war, they were allied with Great Britain. Why? They saw an opportunity to capture the Imperial Germany-occupied holding of the Kiautschou Bay, located on the Shandong peninsula in China. Imperial Japan aspired to increase their influence in Asia. They viewed WWI as an opportunity to accelerate their Chinese incursion.
- Women gained suffrage. The war industry and home economies counted on the labor effort of women. Women joined the workforce en masse to support the war effort. Their contribution provided a strong argument for their right to vote, which they were finally granted in many nations (Denmark 1915, Canada 1917, Austria 1918, Poland 1918, Germany 1918, Russia 1918, Netherlands 1919, US 1920).
- Daylight savings started. In order to maximize worker productivity, daylight savings was introduced in many warring nations (Germany 1916, United Kingdom 1916, France 1916). The US first introduced daylight savings in 1918, and then repealed the act seven months later. It was reintroduced in 1942 during World War II.
- Tanks replaced cavalry. WWI was known for its massive trench warfare. Years of battle would move lines a handful of miles forward and backward. Essentially a bloody stalemate. Artillery fire could not displace entrenched enemy forces. Professor Liulevicius explains that the war was one in which defense, supported with machine gun fire, held massive superiority to offensive tactics. Calvary attacks were ineffective when attempting to cross the artillery-damaged no-man’s land between the trenches as they encountered defensive artillery and especially machine-gun barrages. The first tanks were not the answer. These tanks could travel a sluggish 2–4 miles per hour. However, the British would invest in improving their tank technology to a point where they would eventually help to breakthrough previously impervious trench lines towards the end of the war.
- The British blockade was effective at isolating the Central Powers. The British Navy began a massive blockade to prevent supplies from reaching the Central Powers. This blockade was extremely effective and forced Germany to come up with substitute materials for bomb making and for food supplies.
- Germans ate weird and unsavory bread. Germany was starved of grain imports. They had to eventually turn to making bread with potatoes. When they experienced a potato crop failure due to blight in 1916, they had to resort to substituting turnips for food which were traditionally made from potatoes. 1916 was called the “Turnip Winter” and lead to mass starvation in Germany. It is estimated that 700,000 Germans died of starvation throughout the war.
- Submarines became offensive weapons. Germany put a huge emphasis on its navy. They were rightly concerned that unless they could break the British blockade, their ability to feed their citizens and armies, and support the war effort would cost them the war. They bet that a strong submarine fleet could wreak havoc on the Allies and break the crippling blockade. Their calculations backfired. The indiscriminate sub attacks of merchant vessels lead to the sinking of many Allied ships, including neutral supply ships from the US. These attacks outraged the US and helped bring the US into the conflict on the British side. After initially sinking many Allied ships, the Allied ships began travelling in convoys escorted by British war vessels. The convoys greatly reduced the effectiveness of the German submarines.
- British women shamed war-aged male civilians not in uniform. There was intense social pressure for British men of fighting age to join in the war. A campaign to shame men of combat age who were dressed in civilian clothing was launched. Women would humiliate these men by pinning a white feather in their buttonholes to identify them as non-participants. Unfortunately, some of these buttonhole targets were wounded veterans of the war returned home to recuperate. This demeaning public shamming effort was condemned by many British, especially when such cases of mistaken targeting were reported.
- Russian Czar Nicholas II meant well, but made a tactical error. After the massive losses in the Battle of Tannenberg, distraught Russian general General Samsonov committed suicide on August 30, 1914. Other Russian losses would follow. Russia had a deep military leadership vacuum. Despite a lack of military experience, Czar Nicholas II would take command of the Russian army in September 1915. This fateful decision would be costly. Nicholas’ inability to improve the Russian war effort would lead to much criticism, and ultimately his abdication of the throne in February 1917 after the “February Revolution”. In the chaos, the Bolshevik party lead by Vladimir Lenin would gain command of the Russian nation. Lenin believed that the global socialist movement would best be served with a neutral position for the ongoing conflict. To that end, he agreed to harsh surrender terms in order that Russian could end their participation in the conflict.
- Nations emerge from empire’s shadows. As to be expected, the losers in WWI ceded large amounts of occupied territories. Nations like Czechoslovakia and Poland emerged as independent nations as the war concluded. Independence was not limited to nations emerging from the defeated Central Powers. Ireland nationalists capitalized on the chaos of the Great War to fight for their independence from Great Britain. Specifically, home rule proponents attempted to overthrow British rule in a failed Easter 1916 revolt in Dublin. The execution of 14 of the Irish revolutionaries shortly after the coup made martyrs of these freedom fighters. Following the executions, British public sentiment turned sympathetic to the Irish home rule cause, and the Irish were outraged. Ireland would gain its independence in 1921.
- A socialist becomes a fascist. Italian soldier and former socialist Benito Mussolini participated in the war as Italy fought on the Allied side. He split with the anti-war socialists and was expelled from the party due to his pro-war sentiments. A vengeful and radicalized Mussoli would found the Italian fascist movement in 1919.
- First known modern genocide. The Christian Armenians were often targets of their Muslim rulers throughout their long history under Ottoman rule. During WWI, the Ottoman leaders were concerned that the Armenian faction would ally with the Christian Russian enemy. They separated Armenian-born soldiers from the ranks of the military and summarily executed these troops. Following this massacre, the Ottomans forced millions of Armenians to migrate on a westward death march away from their homes near the Caucus Mountains and towards the Syrian dessert. Over the course of this march, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians would die. Through the chaos of war, genocide would become an all too common occurrence throughout the 20th century.
- Wilson had 14 Points. Woodrow Wilson was our first president to hold a PhD. This scholarly president worked judiciously to keep America out of the war. When war was unavoidable, Wilson put forth his 14 Points to encourage establishment of free, democratic states. His 14 Points plan was to serve as an alternative to Lenin and Trotsky’s Socialist movement. Young nations would be torn between these competing ideologies, which would culminate in the Cold War following WWII.
- Gas warfare was introduced. German Nobel prize winner Fritz Haber was a fierce German nationalist. He helped develop chemical warfare with the hopes of ending the stalemate in the trenches in favor of the Central Powers. Sadly, the use of chemical warfare did little to change the position of the trench lines. Gas warfare turned a nightmarish trench existence into an ever more hellish experience. One German soldier was hospitalized due to a gas attack. His name was Adolf Hitler.
The Great War involved intriguing figures including Wilson, Lenin, Czar Nicholas II, and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau. Yet, the war was a muddled affair. The 1st World War lacked the clear “good versus evil” urgency of the Second World War. The action was stifled due to the technology limitations of offensive weapons that were perfected in the Second World War. What the Great War did signal was the movement away from empires, and towards self-governed nations. The defeat of Hitler in WWII and the collapse of the USSR would reinforce the trend away from foreign-controlled federations and towards national sovereignty.
