Mr. Wilson English Language Arts LMAC 2011

Why do we observe Veterans Day on November 11 th ?

by John McRae House, Guelph,Ontario

WWI memorial outside Ypres, France

The British “Dreadnought”

War should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing, that the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin, and that the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. - General Horace Smith-Dorian

Did you get all that...?

 Arms Race - between England/Germany ▪ the British Dreadnought  New weaponry – old tactics ▪ The U-Boat; the machine gun; the grenade; the airplane; chemical warfare; tanks; etc.  “Mobilization” = preparing for war  Communication = old and slow  The Alliance system = very messy  Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand = the last straw.

by Christopher Williams ( )

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... J. McRae

 Recruitment – Mostly volunteers.  Rations & Military Bonds  The Schlieffen Plan  Trench warfare  No man’s land  Machine guns; Artillery; Barbed wire; Mustard gas; horses; etc.  The result? Old tactics vs. new weaponry = lots of dead people.

“You are all a lost generation," Gertrude Stein said to Hemingway. We weren't lost. We knew where we were, all right, but we wouldn't go home. James Thurber

  The guns stopped on November 11 th 1918  70 million personnel were involved  40 million were killed, wounded or missing  An entire generation “LOST”  France and Germany were devastated  Germany forced to pay damages

This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all and adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped the shells, were destroyed by the war. E. M. Remarque

McRae, John. In Flanders Fields. Sassoon, Siegfried. Aftermath. Owen, Wilfred. Dulce et Decorum Est. Remarque, Enrich M. All Quiet on the Western Front. New York: Fawcett Books, Print.