HISB91 Lecture 4 - January 23

The Great War - from WW1 towards the present

- 1914 It was a European world. Ceased to be the case after WW1. WW1 wasn’t called so
until 1938. It was called The Great War
- Germans almost reached France but had to retreat. During the war people ceased to be
individuals since it was virtually impossible to count the killed ones.
- So many people were unidentified during WW1. Soldiers had dog tags with number in
order to be able to identify them.
- Spring 1918 Germans almost make it to Paris but they’re stopped. The battle of the
Marne. Germans are exhausted. They don’t run away. French never march into
Germany.
- Was Germany defeated? The army kept saying ‘no.’
- People who listened to the propaganda surrendered during the treaty of Versailles but
not true German people
- Morale would quickly become an issue
- 80% illiteracy in Russia. Russian army not literate or socialized. In order to motivate a
regular ‘muzhik’ you show him an icon of the Tsar.
- A German victory in the East and assault in the West. German hope. 6 months later – a
treaty signed. It was almost impossible for most Germans to accept an idea of a military
defeat. Baghdad – a part of the Ottoman Empire, there were battles there at that time.
- The beginning of a truly global conflict. Italy becomes neutral after it didn’t receive the
territory along the Balkan coast in spring 1915.
- What was the cause of the war? Nobody remembered who Franz Ferdinand was.
Nobody remembered where Sarajevo was. It became an overriding cause.
- But was the goal of the war? A war to end war. A war for liberty and democracy.
- The gap begins to emerge between promise, hope, expectation and reality.
- Irony emerges. A hugely ironic age. We don’t really believe our leaders and politicians.
- Authority as a whole came under attack. Authority is embodied in leadership but as well
as in music, literature and art. The pillars of Western civilization begin to tremble.
- 60,000 thousand soldiers were mutilated and 20,000 died but the newspapers reported
that “the day went well.” Black humour emerges.
- What’s the effect on social values? It’ll probably polarize them. Either an intense
commitment (do anything for the comrades, bonding becomes intense after a trauma)
or the enemy becomes an abstract entity, not a human being, something dehumanized.
- Soldiers went out into no mans land to celebrate Christmas. Soldiers buried the dead for
religious and human reasons.
- The descending of the curtain on the 19th century. The face of humanity is changing and
demonization of the enemy (an abstract figure). Was becomes increasingly abstract.
- The depersonalization, dehumanization, mechanization of war.
- Conscription is introduced, food rationing is introduced. 1918 in Britain. Shortages are
severe. Taxation increases. Both genders are involved in this war. Women are brought
into the effort (farms, factories, absolutely essential). Working people didn’t have the

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HISB91 Lecture 4 - January 23

right to vote so as women prior to 1914. Qualification attached to the vote (pay taxes,
own home).
- C. W. Nevinson – cubist artist who depicted war like Picasso
- Munich Aug 1914. Adolf Hitler among the huge crowd. War has been declared. He’s
representative of the Germans. A 19th century explanation of opportunity, asset ones
values, culture. A feeling of the vast majority of Germans.
- Hitler was an artist who came from Austria. He earned the iron cross. At the end of the
war he received a gas attack. He’d been through the whole war. He was a currier from
the front line to the barracks. He did his job heroic dutifully. He regained consciousness
and learned that the war was over.
- The impact of WW1 on Hitler was enormous.