History 4422: World War I in
Europe
INTRODUCTION
Introduction
Questions to Think about:
1.
What will the course cover?
1.
1.
1.
How do we study war?
As a military enterprise:
1.
2.
Military history: strategy and tactics; football
As a social, political, and cultural experience
How will we cover it?
2.
1.
2.
3.
Lectures
Readings: the textbook; assigned articles and book chapters
Discussions
Why bother?
3.
1.
Why will we devote a semester to studying the First World War?
Pre-War Europe
1. Why did Europe go to war in 1914?
2. Why did the war assume the character – long, brutal, industrial, global –
that it did?
3. The “World We Have Lost”
 A continent at peace: 1814 – 1914
 Significance of the Franco-Prussian War, 1870 – 1871
 Creation of a unified German Empire
 Franco-German antagonism: Alsace-Lorraine
4. Sources of Transformation and Disequilibrium
 Economic Transformation
 Decline of Agriculture: the ‘Great Depression’ of 1875 – 1890s
 Urbanization
 “Second Industrial Revolution”: transformation of military technology
 Emergence of Working Class Politics
 Nationalism
 Nationalism as force of political unification: Italy and Germany
 Nationalism as force of political fragmentation: Austro-Hungarian
Empire
 Empire and European Imperialism
British and German Industrial Production
1875 - 1913
1875 - 1879
1910 - 13
British Coal
Production
135 million metric
tons
292 million metric
tons
German Coal
Production
50 million metric tons 251 million metric
tons
British Steel
Production
1.8 million metric
tons
6.9 million metric
tons
German Steel
Production
.97 million metric
tons
15.3 million metric
tons
Pre-War Europe, pt. 2
Diplomatic Alliances in pre-war Europe
1.
Bismarck’s grand scheme: diplomatic isolation of France
1.
The Three Emperors’ League (Dreikaiserbund): 1873-78; 1881 - 87
The Reinsurance Treaty, 1887
Defensive character of the alliance system
1.
2.
3.
Bismarck’s grand scheme dismantled
2.
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
Wilhelm II’s accession to the throne, 1890
Failure to renew the Reinsurance Treaty
Origins of the “Triple Entente”
Franco-Russian Alliance (1892, 1894)
Settling Colonial/Imperial Disputes
1.
2.
Entente Cordiale: Great Britain and France, 1904
Anglo-Russian Entente, 1907
The July Crisis, 1914
I.
A.
B.
C.
The July Crisis, 1914
Assassination of Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand, 28 June 1914
What is at stake?
i.
Territorial Integrity of Austro-Hungarian Empire
ii.
Slavic interests of Russian Empire
iii.
Strength of German military alliance with Austria-Hungary
Chronology
A.
Austria-Hungary’s Negotiations with Germany:
A.
The ‘blank check’ (5 July 1914)
B.
Austrian Ultimatum to Serbia, July 23, 1914
A.
A challenge to the independence of Serbia
C.
Austrian Declaration of War against Serbia, July 28, 1914
D.
German Declaration of War against Russia, August 1, 1914
E.
German Declaration of War against France, August 3, 1914
F.
British Declaration of War against Germany, August 4, 1914
Europe at War:
from Mobilization to the Marne
Thinking about the Great War
1.
What do we think we know?
1.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Who was responsible for the outbreak of war?
How did Europeans respond to the declaration of war?
How were civilians affected by the war?
Were ‘atrocity tales’ simply propaganda?
What did soldiers fight for?
Mobilization: August 1914
2.
European responses to the outbreak of war
1.
1.
2.
3.
Enthusiasm
Anxiety
Ambivalence
The War of Movement, August – Sept. 1914
3.
1.
2.
The Schlieffen Plan and what went wrong
Civilians in the path of war
1st Discussion
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Why did the Germans, on the one hand, and the Allied powers, on the other, interpret
the same acts – burning of villages, killing of civilians, taking civilian hostages, etc. –
so very differently? In the opinion of Allied observers and commentators why were
these acts deemed ‘atrocities’? How did the Germans interpret the same actions?
What was the significance of the ‘franc-tireur’ legend in how German soldiers acted in
1914 and how German writers subsequently interpreted their actions?
How did British and French writers use the ‘atrocity tales’ to affirm the justice of the
Allied cause? How did German writers respond to the charges that German troops
committed ‘atrocities’?
What role did rumor play in the early weeks of the war, both at the front and far from
the front lines? Why was rumor so prevalent at this point in the war?
How did French and Belgian civilians in the war zone experience the first weeks of
war? How did civilians far removed from the fighting (for example in the countryside
of south-west France) experience it?
What hardships did French and Belgian civilians suffer, especially in the first six weeks
or so of war?
The Great War:
From the War of Movement to the Stalemate War
The War of Movement, August – Sept. 1914
1.
The Schlieffen Plan and the two-front war:
1.
In the West: the First Battle of the Marne, Sept. 1914
In the East: Tannenberg and Battle of Masurian Lakes, Aug. and Sept. 1914
1.
2.
Aftermath: the “Race to the Sea” in the West
2.
The Stalemate War: November 1914 – March 1918
2.
1.
1.
Part I: Nov. 1914 – June 1916: General Considerations
1.
Germany and the challenge of a two-front war
2.
France and Britain: breakthrough on the Western Front vs.
indirect assault on ‘weak’ links
1915
1.
On the Western Front:
1.
2.
2.
Spring 1915: Ypres; Artois: Neuve Chapelle, Arras/Vimy/Notre Dame
de Lorette; Festubert
Fall 1915: Champagne, Loos
In the Mediterranean: Gallipoli (Feb. – Dec. 1915)
The Great Battles of 1916:
From Breakthrough to Attrition
The Great Battles of 1916
1.
Verdun, February – Dec. 1916; The Somme, July – Nov. 1916
1.
Verdun
2.
German calculations: “bleed France white”
The French defense: “They will not pass” (General Robert Nivelle)
1.
2.
1.
2.
The Sacred Way (la voie sacrée)
Noria: rotation of French troops through Verdun
The balance sheet:
3.
1.
162,000 French dead; 142,000 German dead; total casualties: 300,000 dead;
400,000 wounded
The Somme
3.
1.
2.
3.
British and French strategic planning; Impact of Verdun on strategic plans
July 1, 1916: Kitchener’s New Armies’ ‘baptism of fire’
The balance sheet: 419,000 British, 200,000 – 340,000 French, 400,000 600,000 German total casualties (killed, wounded, missing-in-action)
1917: Mutiny, Mud, and other Miseries
1917: The Most Important Year of the War?
1.
Revolution in Russia
US Entry into the War
Fatigue, Mutiny, and the Italian Campaign
1.
2.
3.
The “Winter of our discontent”: 1916-17 in the trenches
“One last push”: the Nivelle Offensive, April 1917
2.
3.
Sentiment in the French ranks, prior to April 1917
Great Expectations/Lost Illusions:
1.
2.
1.
2.
1.
The Failure of the Nivelle Offensive
Mutiny in the French Ranks
How extensive? What did they signify?
British Campaigns of 1917:
4.
1.
2.
Vimy Ridge, April 1917
Passchendaele, July – November, 1917
Living and Dying in the Trenches
Reflections on the stalemate war:
1.
Walking from Arras to Vimy, 1992
1.
The “Poor, bloody infantryman”
2.
Rotation in and out of the trenches
The miseries of everyday life:
1.
2.
1.
3.
4.
Daily routine: stand-to; fatigues; sentry duty
Night-time in the trenches: patrols; trench raids
Confronting the enemy
3.
1.
4.
Vermin; the weather; food
Fraternity of the trenches?
Confronting death
2nd Discussion
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What is meant by ‘high diction’? What role, if any, did it play in encouraging
men to enlist and then, once in uniform, in maintaining their commitment to
the war effort?
What evidence exists to suggest that front-line soldiers believed they were
sacrificing themselves for a worthy cause? If they did believe that they were
doing so, for what (or whom) were they sacrificing themselves?
What motivated British and German front-line soldiers to fight?
What was ‘reprisal’ violence against POWs? How was it different from the
regular treatment of POWs?
Were soldiers and civilians aware of the conditions under which ‘reprisal’
POWs were held? How do we know this?
How did ‘reprisal violence’ affect the way front-line soldiers thought about
the enemy? Did it directly or indirectly affect their willingness to fight?
Was the treatment of prisoners-of-war, as described in the article, justified?
Why or why not?
1918: Ending the War
The Military Balance Sheet, December 1917
I.
Revolution in Russia; Armistice with Germany
Collapse of the Italian Front: Caporetto, October 1917
The Western Front:
A.
B.
C.
A.
B.
France: Slow Recovery of the French Army
Britain: Passchendaele, July - November 1917
U.S. Entry into the War
D.
Germany’s Last Offensive
II.
Planning the Spring Campaign (Ludendorff Offensives)
Germany’s Spring Offensives:
A.
B.
A.
B.
C.
March, 1917: On the Somme
April, 1917: the Ypres salient
June, 1917: the Champagne
Turning the Tide: June – November 1918
C.
A.
B.
“Retreat? Hell, we just got here.” The American presence on the
Western Front
The One Hundred Days: From the Battle of Amiens (August 1918) to
the Armistice
The Home Fronts: Britain
The Challenges of Waging Total War
Britain, 1914: Social, Economic, Political Characteristics
1.
2.
Social: the Predominance of Hierarchy and Class Distinctions
Economic: Industrial and Urban; Dependence on Imported Food
1.
2.
Free Trade as Foundation of British prosperity
1.
Political: Liberalism
3.
1.
2.
1.
Voluntarism vs. State compulsion
Responding to the challenges of an organized working class
National Insurance Act, 1911
“Business as Usual”? Liberalism and its Limits in Wartime Britain
3.
Raising a Mass Army
1.
1.
2.
Voluntary Recruitment, August 1914 – December 1915
Introduction of Mandatory Military Service, January 1916
Equipping a Mass Army
2.
1.
2.
3.
Battle of Neuve Chapelle (March 1915) and the “Shell Scandal”
Creation of Ministry of Munitions, June 1915
Women and Work in Wartime Britain
Expansion of the British Expeditionary Force:
August 1914 – November 1918
August 1914
November 1918
Troops
120,000
2,360,400
Animals
40,000
404,000
Trucks
334
31,770
Cars
133
7,694
Motorcycles
166
14,464
Artillery Guns
300
6,437
Aircraft
63
1,782
J. M. Bourne, Britain and the Great War 1914-1918, p. 177
The Home Fronts: France
1.
1.
2.
3.
2.
1.
2.
France on the eve of the Great War
Political Culture: the principles of the Third Republic
1.
Secularism and Public Education
2.
A nation-in-arms: the Revolutionary heritage
A nation divided: the Dreyfus Affair and its aftermath
1.
Political suspicion of the professional army
2.
Clericalism vs. secularism
Rural France: the backbone of the nation?
1.
Rural vs. urban society
2.
Industrialization and the militant working class
France at War: a Nation united
The “Union sacrée” of 1914
Mobilization and its consequences
The Home Fronts: France, pt. 2
France at War: a Nation united
1.
1.
1.
2.
2.
The “Union sacrée” of 1914:
Patriotism, nationalism and the French left
Patriotism, nationalism and the French right
Mobilization and its consequences
Rural vs. Urban France, 1914 - 1916
2.
Impact of war on Rural France:
1.
The ‘miracle harvest’ of 1914
Adapting to war: Labor shortages; affluence; anxiety and mourning
1.
2.
Urban Society: the dominance of Paris
2.
The demands of an industrial, wartime economy
Skilled labor and “manning” the munitions industries
1.
2.
1.
Women and wartime work
1917: The Union sacrée under pressure
3.
Strikes and industrial unrest: Pacifism? Revolution? or Economic Hardship?
1.
1.
697 Strikes; 294,000 strikers
The Home Fronts: France, pt. 3:
The Challenges of Total War: Mobilization on many ‘fronts’
Economic Mobilization and its Limits
1.
1.
2.
1.
3.
1.
2.
Cultural Mobilization: Defining what the nation was fighting for
2.
1.
1.
2.
3.
Rural/Agricultural Production
Industrial Production
Women, Work, and Industrial Production
Strains in the ‘union sacrée’:
Strikes and economic misery, 1917:
1.
697 Strikes; 294,000 strikers
Rural/Urban divisions
Intellectual ‘mobilization’
Defining the enemy: Kultur and German militarism
Defining France: the two ‘spiritual families’ of France
1.
The Republican vision of France
2.
The Catholic vision of France: sacrificial ideology and religion
What united France by 1917?
The Home Fronts: Imperial Germany
Imperial (Wilhelmine) Germany on the eve of war
1.
Political Structure: authoritarian ‘democracy’
Regionalism and Religious Division
1.
2.
1.
The Kulturkampf and anti-Catholicism
Socio-Economic Character:
3.
1.
2.
3.
Urban/rural divide
Industrialization and the transformation of late 19th century Germany
The German working-class and the Social Democratic Party (SPD)
Comparisons with pre-war France and Britain
2.
Points of similarity?
Critical differences:
1.
2.
1.
Empire; Access to international trade
The ‘civic peace’ (Burgfrieden) of 1914
3.
1.
2.
Why did the German working class support the war?
What challenges confronted wartime Germany?
British and German Industrial Production
1875 - 1913
1875 - 1879
1910 - 13
British Coal
Production
135 million metric
tons
292 million metric
tons
German Coal
Production
50 million metric tons 251 million metric
tons
British Steel
Production
1.8 million metric
tons
6.9 million metric
tons
German Steel
Production
.97 million metric
tons
15.3 million metric
tons
The Home Fronts: Germany, pt. 2
The Challenges of Waging Total War
1.
Comparisons with Britain and France
Importance of the Blockade
1.
2.
Reduction in food supplies and raw materials for industrial production
1.
Economic Mobilization
2.
Munitions Production, 1914 - 1916:
1.
Walter Rathenau and the “War Materials Section” (KRO), 1914
Public and private sector ‘corporatism’
1.
2.
1.
2.
Guaranteeing raw materials to munitions production
War production and profiteering
Munitions Production, 1916 – 1918: the Hindenburg Program
2.
1.
2.
3.
Impact of military developments, 1916
Concentration on war-related production
A ‘civilian draft’ for war production (Auxiliary Service Law), Nov. 1916
Social Consequences of Economic Mobilization
3.
1.
Women and Work
The Home Fronts: Germany, pt. 3
The Food Crisis
Overview: 3 Problems related to food
1.
What type of food was available?
How much food was available?
How was the available food distributed?
1.
2.
3.
We are what we eat: diet and social class
2.
Scarcity of essential commodities:
1.
1.
2.
Social and cultural significance of food
Scarcity and Social Class
3.
1.
2.
Rationing, food canteens, and the problems of the lower middle class
The “Turnip Winter” of 1916-17
Distribution and Social Fairness
4.
1.
2.
3.
5.
Bread (1914); Pork and Butter (1915)
How should scarce resources be distributed?
The Hindenburg Program and feeding industrial workers
The Black market and the erosion of respect for the law
Political Consequences
Discussion Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What role did schooling play, before and during the war, in how
German children thought about war?
What role did schooling play, before and during the war, in how
French children thought about war?
What did adult civilians in France and Germany know about the real
conditions at the front? What did teenagers and children know about
the war?
How effective was censorship during the war?
Did soldiers tell their families about the nature of the war as they
experienced it? If they did, why do you think they did so? If they
didn’t, why not?
What cultural influences, beyond schooling, shaped the way young
boys in Germany thought about war?
Why were middle-class boys in Germany likely to glorify war between
1914 and 1918 and then embrace fascist movements after the war?
Empire and the Great War:
The British Empire
Overview: European Empires on the eve of war
II. The “Infinite Variety” of the British Empire
III. Imperial contributions to the British war effort
I.
Ireland
The “White Dominions”
I.
II.
I.
II.
Canada
Australia
India and Africa
III.
IV. Race and War
Social Darwinism and racial stereotypes:
I.
I.
II.
III.
The “rugged frontiersman” of Canada and Australia
The “martial” races of India
South Africa and the challenges of military mobilization
Empire and War: France
Race and Empire in Britain and France
1.
The unusual case of South Africa
1.
1.
2.
White settlers and their anxieties
The role of Africans in theaters of war: Africa and Europe
The French Empire on the Eve of War
2.
Comparison with the British Empire: Similarities and differences
1.
1.
Algeria as a ‘settler colony’
Republicanism and the Ideology of Empire
2.
1.
2.
Citizenship and military service
“The Civilizing mission” and assimilationism
Mobilizing the Empire for War
3.
“Martial Races” and non-martial races
1.
1.
2.
Combatants, non-combatants, and opportunities for advancement
Challenges of a multi-ethnic army: language and religion
5th Discussion: Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What roles did colonial troops (troupes indigènes) play in helping the
British and French wage war?
What attitudes to European society did the colonial troops
demonstrate? If their attitudes were positive, what did they admire
about Europe? If they were negative, what did they dislike?
What racial stereotypes and prejudices shaped how the British and
French used troops in combat? What accounts for any differences
you observe between British and French use of colonial troops?
Were French officers and soldiers grateful for the contributions
colonial troops and workers made to the war effort? Uncomfortable
with the presence of colonial troops in France? What explains their
attitudes towards the presence of colonial troops?
How did the presence of colonial troops in Europe threaten the
ability of either France or Britain to maintain its imperial authority?
1917: Revolution in Russia, pt. 1
Big Questions:
I.
I.
II.
III.
Why was there a revolution in Russia in 1917?
Why were there two revolutions in Russia in 1917?
What role did the war play in precipitating revolution?
Long-term Causes of Revolutionary Sentiment in Russia
II.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Rural misery in post-Emancipation Russia
Middle class political discontent with autocracy
Industrialization and urban misery
Emergence of revolutionary ideology: Marxism
Failed Revolution of 1905
III.
I.
II.
III.
Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5
Urban unrest, 1905: Bloody Sunday
Tsarist concessions: October Manifesto, 1905
Impact of World War I
IV.
I.
II.
Economic impact of war
Tsarism discredited
The Russian Revolution, pt. 2
The February Revolution
I.
Revolution in the Streets, Feb. 23 – Feb. 28, 1917
A.
Urban misery leads to political revolution
A.
Overthrowing the Tsar: the Provisional Government and its goals
B.
Middle class aspirations: Constitutionalism; Keep Russia in the war
A.
Dual Power: the Provisional Government vs. the Petrograd Soviet
C.
What was the Soviet? What were its goals?
A.
Lenin’s Return to Russia, April 1917
D.
‘April Theses’: Peace, Land, Bread
A.
Summer of 1917:
E.
Discontentment with the war
Economic misery and dissatisfaction with the Provisional Government
Growth in urban Support for Bolshevism: “all power to the soviets”
A.
B.
C.
Lenin’s Revolution, October 1917
II.
Accomplishments
A.
i.
ii.
iii.
Peace: Treaty of Brest Litovsk, March 1918
Land: Land Decree, November 1917
Bread?
6th Discussion: The Russian Revolution
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
How did World War I contribute to economic hardship for women in Russia? What
kinds of goods became increasingly difficult to obtain? Why did scarcity of these goods
undermine support for the existing political order?
Who were the ‘soldatki’ and why were they particularly influential in challenging
Tsarism between 1915 and 1917?
In 1917 the great majority of the Russian people were peasants and many factory
workers had only recently moved away from peasant villages. What values and forms
of social organization did factory workers transfer from rural society to life in towns
and cities and their work in factories?
Steve Smith identifies three different ways in which factory workers in 1917 Russia
grounded their identity: (a) ‘factory patriotism’; (b) shop orientation: and (c) craft
consciousness. What are the key characteristics of each of these?
Karl Marx argued that before revolution could happen industrial workers had to
develop a sense of ‘working class consciousness’ – of their common identity as workers,
regardless of the particular kind of work they performed. Did ‘working class
consciousness’ exist among factory-workers in 1917 Petrograd? Were the three kinds of
worker identity (given in question 4) obstacles to the emergence of working class
consciousness?
Which political parties did factory workers support in 1917? What links, if any existed
between ‘working class consciousness’ and support for the Bolsheviks?
From the Winter Palace to the Chateau of Versailles:
Making Peace in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution
Lenin vs. Wilson: Two Images of Internationalism
I.
Significance of the Russian Revolution
A.
Civil War in Russia
Allied Intervention against Bolshevism, 1918 – 1920
“The Red Scare” of 1919
Negotiating the Peace Settlement
II.
A.
B.
C.
D.
Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points, Jan. 1918
The Armistice, November 1918
The Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Treaty of Versailles
A.
Disarmament
B.
Monetary Reparations
C.
War Guilt: Article 231