The Great War, : Front, Home, and Total War

Schlieffen Plan, August 1914

Why did the Schlieffen Plan fail?  Belgium  Liege  Namur  British Expeditionary Force (BEF)  Advanced too quickly for soldiers and supply lines  Eastern Front drew troops  First Battle of the Marne, 6-12 September 1914  French General Joffre  German General von Moltke  “Race to the sea”

Trench Warfare  machine guns  rapid-firing artillery  Foxholes  Trenches  Muck  Rats  Poison gas

Schneider Obusiers de 520. This French 520mm howitzer was the biggest gun of the Great War. It could deliver a 3,100 pound shell (600 lbs of explosive) over 10 miles. The gun car was just under 100 feet long and weighed 290 tons.

Trench Warfare  The Offensive  ‘softening up’  artillery  ‘over the top’  “no man’s land”

Battle of Gallipoli / Çanakkale Savaşı, 25 April January 1916 British attempt to forge supply route to Russian Empire and relieve Caucasus W. Churchill, first Lord of the Admiralty ANZAC troops Ottoman forces prove very tough Battle of Chunuk Bair, Sept 1915: Mustafa Kemal leads Ottoman forces to drive Allies’ troops from heights Dec. 1915: British evacuated.

Gallipoli Casualties DeadWounded Missing & Prisoners Total Ottoman Empire56,643107,00711,178174,828 United Kingdom34,07278,5207,654120,246 France9,79817,371–27,169 Australia8,70919,441–28,150 New Zealand2,7214,752–7,473 British India1,3583,421–4,779 Newfoundland4993–142 Total Allies56,707123,5987,654187,959

Battle of Verdun February-July 1916  German General Erich von Falkenhayn  Bleed France white  French General Henri Pétain  French “won”  337,000 German soldiers lost  377,000 French soldiers lost

First Battle of the Somme July 1–November 13, 1916  60,000 casualties on the first day

Battle of the Somme  420,000 British casualties  200,000 French casualties  About 500,000 German casualties  British and French gained 12 kilometers

Total War  Lack of clear and achievable war aims  No sacrifice too great (as opposed to limited war)  Home Front completely engaged  Whole societies mobilized for war  Armaments and uniform production

Total war (cont.)  Women involved more in factory production  took over men’s jobs  Recruited men  Joined armies

Women’s battalions of Death

Total War (cont.)  Germany  Hindenburg Plan  Walter Rathenau  War Raw Materials Board  Russia  Military-Industrial Committee

Created great divisions  Home Front versus Front lines  Men versus women  Rank and File versus Command  Polarized politics, especially ethno- politics, and spread to civilians….

Civilians as targets: Mass deportations and killings German army’s brutal occupation of Belgium Russian army deportation of suspected Germans and Jews May 1915: Moscow pogrom Eastern Galicia: Russian Army tried to make it Russian Deportations of Armenians in Eastern Anatolia ( million deaths) Russian civil war, (about 5 million civilians killed)