1. 2. 3.

Is winning in war technologically determined? Does possessing the technology give us the right to use it? What is Canadas WWI legacy? Should we be proud of it?

Air Power

 The

early stages of the First World War saw both sides trying to use cavalry

With

what weve learned in the last few days, whats the problem with this?

 Airplanes

gradually took the role of cavalry as scouts. They had minimal impact on the war and mostly fought each other. Control of the skies dictated who had the most information, but communication technologies were so poor that this wasnt of significant military value.

 The

Battle of the Marne saw the Allies attain air superiority and use their intel to stop the Germans from flanking their forces. A similar thing happened at Tannenburg where the Germans stopped a Russian attack by getting intel from their pilots and then shoring up their defenses.
This battle culminated in the largest victory for the

Germans in the whole war

Many Canadians flew in the RFC (Royal Flying Corps) Initially the Germans held the upper hand in the air because they had more planes and better pilots (including the Red Baron) Towards the end of the war, as German resources depleted, the Allies asserted their own air superiority A Canadian, Billy Bishop, was the most successful dogfighter on the Allied side having shot down 72 planes through the course of the war and being awarded the Victoria Cross

Chemical Weapons

 The

first attempt at using gas as a weapon was tear gas that the French used to try to cause disruption to the German lines in 1914. This proved fairly ineffective. The first lethal chemical attacks in the war occurred at Ypres in spring 1915. The Germans launched shells which were filled with Chlorine behind the Allied lines and the gas floated into the trenches.

 The

initial gas attack killed roughly 150 soldiers either in the trenches or before they could get back to the medic stations The Allies knew that chlorine was water soluble so they issued orders to carry a damp cloth to breathe through.
Some soldiers found that urine was more effective

than water and behaved accordingly.

 Though

they condemned the gas attacks, the British did begin to try to use gas of their own late in 1915. This was all in spite of the fact that gas had been outlawed by an international agreement in 1907.

 The

Second Battle of Ypres (in Belgium in the Flanders district) was the first action for Canadian troops
Around 6000 were killed, wounded or captured in

the action
It

was a German offensive action The battle resulted in a stalemate

Tanks

 July

1916, the British and French launched a joint attack along the Somme River in northern France The commanding general, Douglas Haig, insisted on using strategies from the bygone era of cavalry warfare. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers were sent over the top to attack the German positions only to be mowed down by the machine gun nests

 By

November, when the offensive was finally halted, there were over 1 million casualties between the two sides (the numbers were close to equal) This included close to 24000 Canadians In one particularly horrible episode, 85% of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment (700 men including all the officers) were killed or wounded within an hr.

 The

Somme was a stalemate in spite of Haigs claim that it was a victory

The British introduced 50 or so tanks to the

battlefield in the September of the Somme battle and had enough success to warrant Haig ordering for the production of a thousand more

 Strengths Mobile Provide a bit of cover for infantry, take fire away

from infantry
Weaknesses Needed relatively clean ground to be operable No mufflers Require fuel You still need traditional foot soldiers to hold

ground

Submarines

 In

spite of efforts to create a navy to rival the British, the Germans just couldnt compete
The Battle of Jutland in May 1916 effectively

nullified the German surface fleet

They

turned to building submarines which proved more deadly than a conventional navy

Of 2,000 crew, 20 survived the sinking of the Queen Mary

 "Will

the flag-waving German people get any more of the copper, rubber and cotton their government so sorely needs? Not by a pound. Will meat and butter be cheaper in Berlin? Not by a pfennig (German penny). There is one test, and only one, of victory. Who held the field of battle at the end of the fight?" -'The Globe', a British newspaper Four days after the Battle of Jutland-

 U-boats

equipped with torpedoes successfully disrupted British shipping for a time and managed a couple of high profile sinkings
The Lusitania was a British passenger liner which was

sunk in 1915 killing ~1200 passengers including Canadians and Americans

The

Americans hated the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare enacted in 1917 and this was one of the causes for them to enter the war

 The

British developed the convoy system and an underwater listening device to help them locate and destroy U-boats
This foreshadows an epic technology battle that

occurred in WWII
All

in all, the U-boat is far more important to the story of the Second World War

Canada comes of age

 The

Germans had held Vimy Ridge, a strategic piece of high ground, since the beginning of the War The British and French had both made attempts at taking it Late in 1916, the Canadians were told they would be attacking it with the popular British General Julian Byng commanding

 The

real key to the success of this offensive was the preparation of the Canadian troops
The troops practiced taking their objectives on a

constructed model of the battlefield for months before the attack troops had objectives down to the platoon level The troops received specific training on clearing out bunkers, covering fire, and leapfrogging

 The

Canadians also prepared the battlefield

Miners and sappers dug tunnels which were used

to destroy German entrenchments and to deliver the troops into advanced positions The German lines were bombarded almost continuously for a month before the assault A new type of fuse was used in certain shells which made the artillery more effective at cutting barbed wire

 Losses

were high for the Canadians (3500 killed, 7000 wounded), but they succeeded in taking the position which was thought impregnable The action started on April 9, the Canadians had secured the high point on the ridge by the next day and they had secured all their positions by the 12th. The Germans counterattacked, but it stalled on the 14th and the Canadians held the field

 The

Canadians had taken more prisoners, captured more artillery, and gained more ground than any of the previous British offensives Beyond that, the Canadians gained a huge morale boost and took great pride in the victory. They said it couldnt be done and we did it. Pierre Burton

 The

other effect was that Canadians had proven their worth and won the right to have their own commander. General Arthur Currie from Victoria was appointed the new commander of the Canadian troops.

In any national story there are moments and places, sometimes far from home, which in retrospect can be seen as fixed points about which the course of history turns, moments which distinguish that nation for ever. Those who seek the foundations of Canadas distinction would do well to begin here at Vimy. Until this day ninety years ago, Vimy Ridge had been impregnable, a lesson learned at terrible cost to the armies of France and Britain. For the Allies, this ridge had become a symbol of futility and despair. It was against this forbidding challenge that the four Divisions of the Canadian Corps were brought together as a single army for the first time. Queen Elizabeth II, Vimy Ridge Day, 2010

 Vimy

was a decisive victory for the Allies, but it was retaken by the Germans before long. Critical Thinking Question:
Why do Canadians revere the memory of Vimy

Ridge?

The War wasnt won at Vimy

 Unlike

Vimy, Passchendaele was of very little military value Currie protested the order to attack, but the Canadians were forced to go anyway The battlefield was a muddy mess and 16000 Canadians died (4 in 5!) They took 7 km of mud and the Germans quickly took it back

The End of the War

 By

early 1918 Russia had made peace leaving Germany with just the Western Front to worry about. The US had entered the war in 1917 but still needed time to train and get soldiers to the field.

 The

Germans tried one last massive offensive and by summer of 1918 had made it to within 75 km of Paris
The German success was based on a new type of

infantry technique they called shock troopers or storm troopers This technique had the best infantry units press as far as they could against weak points and allow for the regular infantry to mop up in the second or third wave The technique also greatly increased the decision making power of the junior officers and allowed them to make tactical decisions on the fly

 However,

they had overextended themselves militarily, but more importantly, they were overextended domestically and economically The Allied pushback occurred over a 100 day period, with the Canadians proving to be some of the most effective assault troops, in which they pushed the Germans back behind the Hindenburg Line

 The

Kaiser abdicated in the face of massive unrest due to war weariness and the new military government sued for peace

 The

armistice was officially signed and on November 11, 1918 at 11 am, the war officially ended.

1. 2. 3.

Is winning in war technologically determined? Does possessing the technology give us the right to use it? What is Canadas WWI legacy? Should we be proud of it?