War in the West & the East
Lecture 3
Outline
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Schlieffen Plan vs. Plan XVII—plans / realities/ and unintended consequences
– Helmuth von Moltke the Younger (Ger. military)
– Joseph Joffre (Fr. military) and Ferdinand Foch (Fr. military)
– Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (Chancellor of Germany)
1st Battle of the Marne (September, 1914)
– Stalemate and Trench Warfare
1st Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November 1914)
– Race to the Sea
– Erich von Falkenhayn (Ger. military) vs. Conrad von Hötzendorf ( A-H. military)
Christmas Truce of 1914
2nd Battle of Ypres (21 April – 25 May 1915 )
Battle of Verdun (21 February – 18 December 1916 )
Battle of the Somme (1 July and 18 November 1916)
– Douglas Haig (Br. military)
– Ferdinand Foch (Fr. military)
– Erich Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg (Germ. military until October 1918)
Schlieffen Plan vs. Plan XVII
Personalities of War (1)
Helmuth von
Moltke the
Younger
(1848-1916)
Ferdinand Foch
(1851-1929)
Joseph Joffre
(1852-1931)
Theobald von
BethmannHollweg
(1856-1921)
1st Battle of the Marne (September,
1914)
Stalemate and Trench Warfare
1st Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November 1914)
Erich von
Falkenhayn
(1861-1922)
Franz Conrad
von Hötzendorf
(1852-1925)
Christmas Truce of 1914
2nd Battle of Ypres (21 April – 25 May 1915 )
Otto Dix, Stormtroopers Advance under Cover of Gas (1924)
Battle of Verdun (21 February – 18 December 1916 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fucpsNS-xBQ
Battle of the Somme (1 July and 18 November 1916)
Personalities of War (2)
Erich Ludendorff
(1865-1937)
Paul von Hindenburg
(1847-1934)
Douglas Haig
(1861-1928)
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
"In Flanders Fields" by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (1915)
The Eastern Front
Battle of Tannenberg (August 1914) and Battle of Masurian Lakes (September 1914)
Paul von Hindenburg & Erich Ludendorff (German)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JidDI60nBqw
• Pavel Rennenkampf (or Paul von Rennenkampf)
and Alexander Samsonov (Russian)
Battle for Galicia (August / September 1914)
From Brusilov Offensive to the Kerensky Offensive
June 1916
July 1917
Italian Front: From the Battles of Isonzo to the Piave
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/jan/30/frozen-corpses-wwi-soldiers-glaciers-melt-italy/
Hidden Legacy of the Eastern Front?
---an historiographical argument by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
• From Land & People to Space & Race
• German occupation of the Ober-Ost (Kurland and
Lithuania)
• Germans at first were overwhelmed by the ethnic and
geographical complicity of the region, but soon
enough started the view the region as a place that
was ripe for manipulation and reorganization and
eventually led to the transformation of German view
of the East—a place need to be civilized by German
Work
• At the end, Liulevicius claims, the Germans developed
repulsion and loathing toward the East, a mentality
that aided Nazi efforts when they sought to realize
their racial utopia during WW II