The Great War Fortnightly Focus 9
LIVES CHANGED FOREVER
Germany broke the Western Front stalemate!
Erich Ludendorff had been appointed Chief of Staff of the German Army
in late August 1916. Ludendorff was a supporter of unrestricted
submarine warfare, an especially controversial policy with the USA and
one of the main reasons the US entered the war on the side of the Allies
in 1917.
When Russia withdrew from the war in 1917, Ludendorff planned a huge
offensive for the spring of 1918 to break the 3+ years of stalemate on
the Western Front. Ignoring President Wilson’ of the USA’s 14 points plan
for peace, the Ludendorff Offensive (as it became known) was at first
hugely successful. The western Allies fell back and the Germans shelled
the outskirts of Paris.
However, the German Army could not sustain the offensive as the
German war machine was starved of supplies because of the successful
sea blockade of Germany’s ports. Also, by this time the British army was
battle-hardened and developing techniques that would later be refined
as ‘Blitzkrieg’. With the addition of fresh US troops, Ludendorff realised
that the war was lost once the offensive failed.
The Allies won the War!
In September 1918, American troops led the allied offensive to the
north west of Verdun. Early in October the British broke through the
German front line. Meanwhile the Austrians collapsed on the Italian
and Slovene Fronts and the Ottoman Empire collapsed. By
November an armistice brought fighting to an end. Kaiser Wilhelm
II abdicated on 9th November, Germany had a revolution, and at 5
am on 11th November Germany signed the terms of surrender. Six
hours later, at 11 am, the terms came into effect.
“No more slaughter, no
more mud and blood”
“An unreal thought was
running through my
mind. I had a future!”
Lieutenant RG Dixon, British soldier,
11.11.1918
The Great War, or the First World War as it had become by then,
THE COST OF PEACE
There was great rejoicing, but also immense sadness for
the thousands of families who had lost loved ones. The
human cost of the war was immense: a total of around 65
million men fought during the war, of whom 8.5 million
died and 21.2 million were seriously injured. An estimated
6.6 million citizens also died from the fighting, famine or
disease. Many survivors had permanent mental and
physical disabilities; over 240,000 British soldiers had lost
limbs. Many suffered for years from the effects of gas.
ENTER A NEW ENEMY…
After four years of war, which saw massive movements of
people between and across continents, the world was ripe
for a pandemic. It took the form of a virulent strain of
influenza known as “Spanish flu”. The virus didn’t care
if the country affected had been combatant or noncombatant; what was at first a mild form, appearing in
US army camps in France, became highly infectious turning rapidly to pneumonia, against which no
medicines worked. It spread like wildfire, moving across
war-torn Europe with its malnourished people. By the
time it ran its course, between 21 and 25 million people
had died from the virus.
Temporary hospital for US flu victims.
Diltha Jackson was a Mount School girl who went on to become Head
Girl. She wrote to her parents about the 11th November 1918, and she
mentions the impact of the flu:
“Now I must try to give you an account of Monday. The Dean of York
said that the Minster Bells would ring out immediately the Armistice
was signed and whatever hour he wished all the people who could to
come to a service. …we were not even allowed to go at all because of
“flu” and Bootham were!”
OTHER WAR DAMAGE…
…included shell-shock
The sustained psychological and physical stress of
the trenches led to a new kind of war damage which
came to be known as shell -shock. Victims were
often dealt with in a very unsympathetic fashion by
the commanders and medical officers, partly
because it could range from frayed nerves to
complete mental collapse. Shell-shock victims
eventually came to be recognised as genuine
casualties of warfare. At the time, a report made it
clear that shell-shock would not be accepted as a
way out of fighting for soldiers; eventually,
however, shorter tours of duty and psychotherapy
were recommended.
Pat Barker has written a trilogy – Regeneration, The
Ghost Road and The Eye in the Door - which, though
fictional, portrays the lives and treatment of some
shell-shocked soldiers as they receive treatment in
the latter years of World War 1. You’ll find her books
in the library. Why not check out the many books on
the special World War 1 display that you will find
there?
Vera Brittain lost her brother, her fiancé and two
closest friends. She described her feelings at the
Armistice in her autobiography ‘Testament of
Youth’.
“Already this was a different world from the one that I
had known during four life-long years, a world in which
people would be light-hearted and forgetful, in which
themselves and their careers and their amusements
would blot out political ideals and great national
issues. And in that brightly lit, alien world I should have
no part.”
In Europe, only the governments of Britain and France
survived from the countries that fought in World War 1.
Elsewhere, revolution and civil war transformed the
map of Europe. How would the victors make peace?
What would be the legacy of ‘the War to end all wars’?