LECTURE 1: ORIGINS OF THE WARS

Academic inquiry using evidence vs popular memory, prejudice and biases.

Key Questions for History 2177B

 How did the World Wars differ from earlier conflicts?

o How were they turning points in the history of warfare?

o In the manner in which warfare affected society

 How did the two World Wars differ from each other?
 How were they similar to each other?

Key Course Themes

 Human agency in wartime

o Ability for everyone to make decisions

 Strategy
o Broadest national interest
o Policies and approaches in how a nation engages in a conflict

 Operations and tactics

o Separate from strategy because operations refer to how battles are fought
 On the ground, in the air or in the oceans
 How military forces engage one another
 Logistics
o How conflict is provisioned and supplies
o How soldiers, their supplies and weapons of war are manufactured, trained and
transported
o Everything do with making military operations possible

 Leadership (military & political)

o Leadership at all levels
 Culture and ideology

 ‘total’ war
o How a nation marshals its resources to fight a war
o How the enemy is treated and represented
 Virtually everyone in the enemy nation is considered a legitimate military
target
 Attack the enemy civilians at the home front
o No boundaries to what are considered unacceptable
  Technology
 Alliances and coalitions
o Expanding the conflict and resolving the conflict
 Imperialism/colonialism
o The two wars are products and imperial and colonial worldviews
 Geography, climate, environment
o E.g. volume of munitions manufactured, expended, had a very significant
environmental impact. Disposal of unused munitions also had impact, often
completely overlooked.
 Popular or collective memory of the wars

HUMAN AGENCY – CAUSE AND EFFECT

 All humans are decision makers - they exercise personal agency, to varying degrees, and
they make choices
 Wars are the consequences of human decisions
o Conflicts occur because individuals choose to engage in them
o Wars are products of human behavior
 Humans decide when to start them, how to fight them and when to stop
them
 The characteristics of wars are functions of an incalculable number of human actions and
a highly complex set of other variables (weather, geography, et cetera)

THE COMING OF WAR IN 1914

1. Strategic situation at 1914
 Europeans went to war in 1914 with an optimistic, naive view of war
 But alongside with naivete, there was also a somber understanding and Europeans
were not entirely unrealistic about the conflict
2. Predictions
3. Motives for war

THE STRATEGIC SITUATION IN 1914

 An age of progress and industry, technological advancement
 Europe was at its apex of imperial/colonial influence
o Britain had a vast empire
 Canada, Australia, India
o France also had extensive colonial empire
o Even smaller European powers developed own network of imperial possessions
 E.g. Belgium
 The new German nation state dominated central Europe
o Newly unified German state founded in 1871.
 Younger than the Dominion of Canada
o Agglomeration of a series of German states and principalities
 The largest of which was Prussia
 o German empire was most powerful economy in Europe
 Vibrant industrial base, increasing military capabilities
 Construction of ocean-going navy to acquire colonies
o At the expense of one of the other colonial powers because
much of Africa was already spoken for
o Likely to bring conflict with neighbors

o Germany likely to come into conflict with neighbors because it had been formed
through wars
 War against France
 Ongoing tensions between French and Germans
o Balance of power in Europe was now increasingly unstable
 Because of the ambitions of imperial Germany to expand its influence
within and outside of Europe
 Older empires were threatened by ethnic nationalism, political upheaval, and other
troubles within and beyond their borders
o Russia
o Ottoman Turkey
o Austria-Hungary
 Lots of instability within Europe
o In the Balkans around Serbia and Austria-Hungary
o France and Germany

PREDICTIONS
 How did people imagine war before 1914?
o Short?
o Costly?
o Highly technical?
 Norman Angell (The Great Illusion, 1910)
 No benefit to war
 No reasonable return on investment in human capital, material
resources
 Didn’t account for the role of human decision makers
 Jan Bloch (The Future of War, 1898)

 What role would morale play?

o Willingness of soldiers to continue fighting
o Morale in a military context is willpower
 Without an iron willpower to carry forward against the enemy, it would be
impossible to achieve an immediate, decisive victory, which would be
instrumental to military
o Contemporaries believed that willpower would be a decisive factor. Nobody
would’ve showed up
  Popular literature shows that people assumed incorrectly that the war would be short
o Why?
 Because recent wars, from 2-3 decades leading up to 1914, had witnessed
relatively short conflicts
o Basis for this assumption was founded upon a reasonable assessment of available
evidence at the time
o Contemporaries understood that modern weapons that were available, were going
to change the face of battle
 Invention of quickfire artillery
 Fires more ammunition per minute over longer ranges with greater
accuracy
 Much greater destruction. Employed with greater lethality
 Quickfire repeating small arms
 Rifles and machine guns
 Could fire dozens of rounds per minute
 Efficient logistical support network underpinning movement of armies
 Can be mobilized more quickly, moved over long distances
o Railway
 Supplied with all the ammunition they would need
 All of this suggested to well-informed observers, suggested it would be an incredibly
costly one, because of new weapons.
 Expensive financially as well because of cost of munitions
 Because of projected costs, in terms of human casualties and financial costs, it seemed
reasonable guess that participants would have to fight a short war
 The reason why the war did not end up being a short war, was because it was difficult on
the battlefield to engage in decisive victories

Significance: Predictions were much more complex and nuances then stereotypical, popular
assessments. Overly simplistic.

MOTIVES FOR WAR

 Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo?
o On a tour of Bosnia
o Bosnia under control of Austria-Hungary
o Multi-ethnic, with large Serbian population. Many Serbs wished to amalgamate
with Serbia. Ethnic nationalism was a source of tension between Austria-Hungary
and Serbia
o Ferdinand assassinated with Serbian nationalist with ties to the government itself.
Austrian-Hungarian regime used it as a pretext for war with Serbia
o Localized conflict
o Basically, eliminating Serbia
o Doesn’t tell us why a world war broke up.
 Old diplomacy?
o Secret agreement, alliances, led the major nations to war
 o Misunderstanding and miscalculations played a role. But was not ultimately the
major cause of a global conflict
 A shifting balance of power in Europe?
o New unified German nation since 1871, destabilizing European affairs
o Hard to understand how a world war may have broken out in the absence of
imperial Germany’s colonial occupations
 Powerful ocean-going navy
 Ideas in Germany about the role it ought to play in European affairs
o If Germany had not supported Austria Hungary, it’s questionable whether a world
war would have developed
o So important because any conflict was likely to bring in imperial Russia
 Russia supported Serbia
 Austria-Hungary depended on German military support
o Germany believed 1914 was an opportune moment to go to war with Russia and
France
 Had ambitions to dominate Europe and colonial territories
 One neighbor was France, and the other opponent was Russia
 France, Prussia, defeat of France, creation of German empire. Cost France
prestige and territory
 Longstanding tensions between Germany and France, which
Germans assumed would lead to conflict
 Russia
 German imperial ambitions. Expansion of German territorial
controls into Eastern Europe.
 Today-Poland. Direct land boundary between Germany and
Russia.
 Help to secure agricultural base to feed Germany.
 The longer Germany waits to go to war, the less likely it is to win that war.
 No immediate necessity for Germany to go to war in 1914. But German
decision-makers already believed that the time was right to go to war
 capitalist conspiracy
o Marxists argue that there was a competition for markets, imperial/colonial
influence
o War was not a result of diplomatic crisis, but the desire of owners of capital to
maximize their profits
o Also overly simplistic representation
o There was a capitalist desire, control for resources. but war cannot be attributed to
a wealthy conspiracy of owners of capital
 colonial/imperial rivalry?
o Britain had a choice and made a conscious decision to get involved because the
German invasion of France and Belgium could have translated into German
control of territory 20 miles away from UK.
o UK was not willing to tolerate German naval bases that close to its borders
o Threat of German to British overseas empire
  domestic consolidation?
o Use of military adventures to paper over political, social and economic
division/unrest
o Germany previous to war had been experiencing lots of tension
o Organized labor does in fact come onto the side of the war effort.
o But still a little too far to suggest that domestic political consolidation was a key
factor to go to war
 bad luck/accident?
 So who started it?
o If you take German or Austria-Hungarian motives out of the equation. You don’t
have world war in 1914.

THE COMING OF WAR

1. STRATEGIC SITUATION
2. PREDICTIONS
3. MOTIVES FOR WAR

 In Canada, we view WWII as beginning in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland

 But from a Chinese or Japanese perspective, the war began in 1937, when Japan invaded
China
 More fluid than in 1914
 Fighting starts in different times in different places

Significance: one of the differences between the war

THE STRATEGIC SITUATION IN THE 1930s

 An age of global depression
 An age of radical ideological boundaries following the Russian Revolution and civil war
o The trauma and chaos of WWI, brings ideological fault lines into clear view?
o Russian Revolution in 1917. Violent, protracted, bloody civil war
 Direct byproduct of WWI
 Thinking of Bolshevik Communists was not something new, predated
WWI. But it found its footing during and following the war
 European imperialism was in question
o No longer was it possible for white colonizers to portray themselves as infallible
o No longer able to argue that white Europeans should lead when they almost
destroyed the world order
 A German nation was consumed with losing the last war
o Difficult for Germans to reconcile with the fact that Germans had lost
accumulated territories
 Lost in prestige and in practical terms
o But authors of German defeat, high command of imperial army, were not the
ones held responsible
o Rather, scapegoats were identified and blamed
  Political left, minorities (Jews)
o Sense that war had been lost because of failure on the home front
 Work of fantasy
o German war effort collapsed because of a series of poor strategic decisions made
by high command.

PREDICTIONS
 How did people imagine war before 1939?
o Unduly expensive
o Devastating to civilians
o Highly technical
 Capacity for bombers to carry thousands of bombs
 But in WWI, it was a big deal if an airplane could carry 1 bomb
 Further reaching scope for attack
 Hysteria in newspaper over the prospect that enemy bombers could rain
down destruction and destroy everyone on the ground
 Most governments manufactured and stockpiled respirators
o Aircraft, medicine
o But in many respects, technology did not change in a very meaningful way
 Same weapons, bayonets
 Continuity
 But increased use of tanks, motorized transport
 Interwar years were not peaceful
o Civil war in Russia
o Italian incursions in Ethiopia
o Spanish civil war, modern aircraft
 Many in Western countries believed fighting another world war would be inconceivable

 Believed the second war would look much like the first
o Static, protracted conflict, deadlock, may be even worse because of further
advances in weaponry
o Incorrect because not as much deadlock

 Even more devastating to civilians

o Total character of WWI
o Civilians were increasingly seen as legitimate targets
 Deliberate efforts to target civilians for strategic purposes
 WWI, German uses submarines to attack commercial ships. Doesn’t
matter if civilians become casualties
o Allied blockade of German supplies
 Loss of life for German civilians who starved
o Use of aircraft in WWI to attack enemy cities
 Not military bases
 Began very early when Germany used Zeppelin aircraft to bomb civilian
targets in France
MOTIVES FOR WAR?
 Prevention and or pre-emption
o Wars of preemption are seen as legitimate acting in self defence
o Prevention are seen as less legitimate, no indication of immediate violence
 Imperial expansion
o Nazi Germans wished to colonize eastern Europe and Soviet Union
o Italian fascists quest to rebuild Roman empire
o Japan’s whole cause is imperial expansion in the East, against China

 Economic necessity
o Economic self sufficiency
o Autarky
o Japan, as a small island nation with limited natural resources, Japanese looked
beyond their own shores to become a leading, global power
 Most territory Japanese seeked were already under Western patronage
o The Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, preventive strategy
 No reason to believe that Western powers would attack Japan
 But there was a good chance they would come to blow in the future
 Social re-engineering
o Axis seeking to construct a new world order
 Ideology
o Nazis didn’t just intend to colonize Soviet Union
o They intended to murder, through starvation, all of the citizens of the Soviet
Union
 Depopulate

WEEK 2: SEEKING DECISIVE BATTLE, 1914 AND 1940

MIRACLES

SCHLIEFFEN-MOLTKE PLAN, AUGUST 1914

 Invade northern France by passing through Belgium & Luxembourg

 Encircle and/or destroy French field armies inside two months
 Transfer German armies east to defeat Russia

 End war quickly and decisively, as in 1870-71

 Schlieffen was the Chief of the German General Staff
GERMAN ADVANCES IN THE WEST, AUGUST 1914
 Moltke invaded Belgium and France with five armies
o First Army does not reach Paris
 German logistics and the ‘friction’ of war
o Germans found that their assumptions were not well-founded
o Belgians did not allow free passage through Belgian territory
o Small pockets of Belgian resistance had to be dealt with, slows down German
advance
 But time is of the essence so that German armies could be repositioned
against Imperial Russia
o Another assumption was that Britain would not be involved
 But British do become involved
 BEF soldiers are on the battlefield before the Germans are even aware
 British and German forces encounter each other first at Mons
o Germans were incredibly ambitious
 Armies are moving on foot
 Infantry separated from supply trains
 Lack food supplies,
o German scheme begins to come off track

THE BATTLE OF THE FRONTIERS

 British Expeditionary Force arrived quickly
 Belgian Army resisted
 German treatment of civilians
 German defeat at the River Marne
 6th and 7th armies in Alsace and Lorraine
 Between 1871, and 1914, French built modern border fortifications between Belfort
and Verdun
o Made it difficult for Germans to launch invasion through Alsace Lorraine?
 French war-plan predicated on recapturing Alsace and Lorraine
o So, not well prepared to confront the actual German invasion
o 1st and 2nd French armies launch attack against Alsace Lorraine
 Suffer extreme casualties
 Quarter of a million soldiers in August alone
 Lost in the aborted attacks against the German fortifications in Alsace
and Lorraine
 British and French recoup along the Marne river

September 1914, Battle of the Marne

o Germans could not go any further
o Had to pause
 On the German side, a series of encounters with civilians
o Committed war crimes
o Germans are in towns and villages, resisted by Allied soldiers
 o Germans blame civilians after Allied get away. And notable members of the
community, mayors, priests, rounded up, held as hostages, executed in some
instances
 Retribution for resistance activities
 Little evidence that civilians were involved in resistance
Significance: Shows that nobody is off limits.
Signs of a total war approach where, as far as the enemy is concerned, no man, woman or child
is spared

THE RACE TO THE SEA

 German withdrawal from the Marne valley to high ground on the Aisne River
 Search for local tactical advantage in terrain
 Gradual consolidation of the lines
 (First) Battle of Ypres
o Allied hold on. Prevent German breakthrough. If German succeeded would have
cut off supply
 Now what?
o Both armies tired, lacking supplies. Hold lines and regroup.
o German forces occupy about 90% of Belgian territory. 10% of French territory
o Failed to bring France to the negotiation table
 Both allied and Germans are moving back, trying to outflank each other. But neither gets
the upper hand.
 Troops left behind to defend, become the frontier of the Western stalemeate
 September – October 1914
 Reason for British involvement:
o Assumed that Britain became involved as a guarantor of Belgian neutrality
 Not true
o British went to war because the German armies invading Belgium approached the
British coast. Germany had been building up a navy to challenge. Could not
tolerate the Germans being that close to British Channel/homeland
o Threatens British shipping lanes too directly

GERMAN STRATEGY AND THE BLITZKRIEG MYTH, 1939-40

 Strategic overview
o Under Nazi control since 1933, aggressively rearming since 1935. Dominated
economic activity since 1936.
o Nazi Germany as of 1939, was not fully prepared to fight a world war.
o As at 1914, this was not the intention
 Nazis wanted a series of gradual territorial conquests, and then ultimately, in
the 1940s, to fight the Soviet Union
 German annexation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, remilitarization of the
Rhineland, and the next step is Poland
 Difference: No independent Polish nation in 1914. Meant that Poland was
made up of Germany, Imperial Russia and Austro-Hungary
  Germany and Soviet Union no longer shared common border. To be in a
favorable position to attack Soviet Union, it needed to control Poland
 Germans and Russia in 1939 draw up an agreement to jointly invade Poland.

 But German invasion into Poland drew Britain and France into war.
 Different from 1914 in the sense that Germany began with a victory in Poland
 But similar in the sense that it would be involved in a protracted war with
Britain and France
 Where did the term come from?
o Meaning lightning war
o Blitzkrieg is understood to be fast paced modern warfare. Modern tanks pla hya key
role with attacking aircraft.
o Incidental.
o Germans went to war with no operational scheme known
o Western journalists coined Blitzkrieg to describe what they thought was happening
o Germans had no plan to integrate ground and air forces.
o Only a half dozen visions were mechanized, equipped with tanks and modernized
transport. Much of the army looked similar to 1914, relied heavily on horse and
wagons for movement of supplies
o Signficance: misrepresentation

 What did/does it mean?

 How was Poland conquered in 1939?
o Terror bombing of Warsaw
o Soviets from the East and Germans from the West
o Nothing Polish could do to prevent itself from being overrun
o Had little to do with German tactics or new form of warfare
o Really about the strategic coup that the Germans scored by collaborating with the
Soviets
o But Germans played up the mythology of Blitzkrieg
 How did German commanders imagine an invasion of France?

THE PHONEY WAR, 1939-40

 Over the Winter of 1939, Germany was fortunate that not a lot happened
 The Allies were not willing to undertake aggressive action against the German frontier
 Phoney War because not much action was happening

GERMAN OFFENSIVES IN THE WEST, 1940

 Norway & Denmark, April 1940
o German strategy
 In 1914, neither Danes nor Norwegians were involved
o In order to secure raw materials and shipping lanes
o The naval blockade in 1914 made it difficult to trade with neutral countries
o By seizing Denmark and Norway, Germans made it possible to project naval
power, forestall attempt at blockade
 o By controlling Norway, the neighbor of Sweden who manufactures ballbearings
for weapons, Germans expect good trading behavior
o Abortive Allied expedition to Norway

 France and the Low Countries, 10 May

o Balance of forces
 Roughly equal number of soldiers
 Equal equipment. Germans had better aircraft

o No element of surprise
o Main thrust of German invasion comes through Southern part of Belgium and
Luxembourg
 Arden forest?
 Unexpected by the Allies
 Heavily wooded, mountainous
o Germans broke through.
 Sedan (12-14 May)
 Seemed allied were off-balanced, unable to regain their footing
 Germans went behind main allied forces
 Main part of German invasion came through Sedan, and came behind the
Allies
 Immediately secured channel ports of Calais, coastal towns
 Puts Allied armies in Belgium in a difficult spot
 Same as what Germans tried to do in 1914
 Threatening ability of British to resupply armies in Belgium
 Real risk in 1940, that the British and French armies are going to be
destroyed
 British decision to evacuate forces, May-June
o Dunkirk
Faced with what appears to be a decisive defeat
o German armistice with France, 22 June

By end of June 1940, Germans have conquered Western half of Poland, Denmark, Norway, the
Netherlands, Belgium and France. Britain is all by itself, appearing to be the next likely target of
invasion.

Was the German invasion of France more like a Blitzkrieg? Yes and no. Their tactics improved,
cooperation between ground and air improved. But it doesn’t explain what went wrong. Germans
still had to use infrantry tactics to break through Sedan. Allied loss more to do with the fact that
Allied commanders lost their grip and were not in psychological terms, did not recover.

MIRACLES
MIRACLES IN WARTIME
  Soldiers’ culture – rumours, superstition, fatalism, providence, divine intervention,
the unseen hand, etc…
o E.g. small matchbox from a German soldier’s belt buckle
o “God is with us”
o Religious rhetoric goes hand in hand with war
 What was the value of miracles in wartime propaganda and popular media?
o Miracles were an intentional component of wartime propaganda

THE ANGELS OF MONS

 The arrival of the BEF in Belgium
o British landed before German forces even knew they were there
 The Battle of Mons, 22-23 August
o David vs Goliath situation
o British mounted effective holding action
o BEF were professionally trained army
 BEF were not conscripts like other armies
 Full time, long-service soldiers. Highly trained. Excellent marksmanship

 Arthur Machen’s ‘The Bowmen’, printed 29 September 1914

o Battle of Agincourt, King Henry V, 25 October 1415
o ‘phantom’ bowmen protected the BEF?
o BEF were aided by a series of ghostly archers, or bowmen, who somehow were
resurrected from the Battle of Agincourt.
o Inspirational story. But because it was written in the first person,
 Some assumed there was some truth to this idea
 British authorities began to encourage the story as a factual account
because it served an important propaganda function. Because the British
ahd to be right, a higher power saved them at Mons
 An enduring legend
 Meaning within the context of German war atrocities in Belgium and Allied setbacks?
 Allies embellishing war atrocities
 At first believed, later on discounted
 But only exaggerated in terms of specific details, but not the
overall effect
 Ironic how
 Machen’s completely fictional story, is believed
 But the media’s reporting of essentially stories, are disbelieved.

THE MIRACLE OF THE MARNE

 6 September 1914
 German forces exhausted; logistical breakdown
 German troops diverted to East Prussia
 Personalities
o German: Moltke and French: Joffre
 Joffre was calm, even in extreme situations
  Moltke: under extreme stress. Nervous breakdown, replaced as
commander
 If Moltke had a closer personality to Joffre, they might not have lost. But
they did lose because of the dysfunction of German high command
 Friction of war
o Miscommunications in the German high command
 General Gallieni’s French reserves
o Paris is adjacent to where the fighting occurred on the Marne
o Organize a reserve army of French soldiers which he dispatched to the battlefield
using a fleet of Paris taxi cabs
 legend of the Paris taxis
 Significance: not a real miracle, but rather a product of superior military efforts

OPERATION DYNAMO, THE MIRACLE OF DUNKIRK, 1940

 Lord Gort and the BEF
o Issued the order for survivors to converge on the channel port of Dunkirk
o Dunkirk perimeter to keep Germans at bay
 Approximately 350,000 Allied soldiers evacuated
 How could this happen?
o Allied forces should have been encircled and destroyed
o But
o After only a few weeks of battle, it appears that the German invasion of
Western Europe, was a complete success. Nobody would reasonably have
expected such an outcome
o Germans were reluctant to press their luck too far and too soon
 They had the opportunity to advance against Dunkirk
 But those forces were already overstretched, and it seemed prudent to
pause, wait for fuel supplies, ammunition, to catch up
 Was a reasonable decision to take
 Hitler was swayed by the promises of Goring that even if German
ground forces didn’t immediately close in, the Luftwaffe would make
it impossible for British to evacuate
 Naval craft from across the English-channel are vulnerable to
bombing, so Goring’s argument seemed convincing
 But much of the Royal Airforce was intact, and provide just enough cover for the
evacuation to proceed
 British also organized small fleet of private fishing fleets to evacuate men
o Civilian craft, little craft
o Sign of total war, when one has to press into service every available resource
 No divine intervention
 Successful evacuation of allied soldiers was the result of particular decisions, hitler’s
lord Gort’s, German high command
o The bulk of the British army was fighting in France.
 o Without their escape, one wonders what would have happened to Britain with
virtually no trained soldiers left
 Dispel the myth that Hitler somehow allowed the British to escape as a gesture of
good faith
 British army lost virtually all of its heavy equipment, all had to be left behind in
France

LECTURE 3: THE LAST FRONTIER: THE WARS IN THE

EAST
THE EAST IN GERMAN IMAGINATION AT 1914
 “The East” = Imperial Russia
o Place of mystery
 Imperial rival
o After the ascension of Wilhelm II, relationship between imperial Germany and
Russia gradually deteriorated
o Russians were gravitating toward the French as a partner in the event of war
o Germans gravitated toward Austria-Hungary
o Unlikely for Germans to maintain both relations with Austro-Hungary and Russia
 Because of tensions surrounding Serbia and Balkans
 Cultural threat
o Racialized component
o Also, in Nazi Germany
o Saw Russia as mass of uncivilized people
o Posed danger to German civilization
 Land of opportunity
o Potentially a place to be colonized
 Because of its uncivilized people
o Needed space to grow and improve agricultural capacity
o Duty to colonize Russia to spread superior European culture

GERMANY’S EASTERN FRONT, August-September 1914

 Bulk of German army was engaged in Western front, Belgium and France
 The Moltke plan was that France would be defeated before Russia could mobilize

 Russian invasion of East Prussia

o Russian first and second armies mobilized quickly and invaded Germany (East
Prussia)
o Incited panic in local population
o Skeletal German forces available
  Withdrew away from First Russian Army

 Battle of Tannenberg
o Germans encircling 2nd army
o Germans turned northeast and faced off first Russian army
o Pushed the Russians all the way out of Germany by middle of September
o Significance: Russians were indeed capable. But Germans could also bring the
situation under control. But, Germans had to bring in reinforcements from the
West
o Significance: undermined German focus on the Western front.
o Significance: legend that built up around German victory + Hindenburg
o Significance: victories were exaggerated for the purpose of positive headlines in
Germany while things were going bad on the Western front
 Propaganda
 Only represented a small portion of resources available to Russia
 No decisive bearing on the outcome of the war
 Only locally significant
 False sense of security

 Hindenburg and Ludendorff

o Legend
o Took credit
o Although invasion of East Prussia was embarrassment, the fact that Russians were
decisively defeated indicated Germans still had upper hand
o Made the two national heros, cult of personality
 Implications for how Germans would fight the water in 1917 and 1918

 Implications for German strategy against Imperial Russia?

o Leave some German commanders to place greater emphasis on fighting on the
Eastern front, after efforts stalled in 1914 on the Western front
 Mistake
 Should have tried to bring Western allies to the negotiation table first
 Because they had greater capacity to wage total war

GERMAN WAR OBJECTIVES: 1914-15

 September Programme
o Drawn up by Chancellor: von Bethmann-Hollweg
o push back Russian frontier
 driving into Russian territory for colonization, gaining more living space,
agricultural purposes
 Like American Manifest Destiny
o destroy French military power
 give Germans effective control over central European affairs
o gain coast-to-coast colonial territory in Central Africa
 acquisition of territory would come from wartime enemies
 o seize Luxembourg, Liège, port of Antwerp (most important in Western Europe),
Briey, Vosges mountains
o Belgium to be a ‘vassal state’
 Client state of Germany
 No real political independence
o form a central European customs union
 favor German exports
o Significance: very ambitious
 Direct comparisons between imperial Germany and Nazi Germany

 Gorlice-Tarnow offensive, 1915

o Significant German gains at the expense of imperial Russia
o Occupied Warsaw

GERMAN WAR OBJECTIVES: 1917

 Impact of Russian Revolution
o Russian revolution unhinged the Russian war effort
o Meant that chances for Imperial Germany to achieve decisive outcome on Eastern
front, was within grasp
o 1917 when Russian regime was coming apart at the seams, created new set of
objectives

 Kreuznach Programme (April-August 1917)

o Drawn up by Wilhelm II (Kaiser), OHL (German high command), foreign office

o annexation of Baltic and Polish territory
o Partial Belgian annexation
o Partial French annexation

o Control of Romanian oilfields

In 1916, Romania came onto the Ally side and was promptly defeated by
Germany

o Global naval bases

To challenge Royal Navy
o Central African Empire
o Independent Ukraine to become a German ‘ally’
 Ludendorff and Hindenburg were exerting significant influence on German decision
making
o Military dictators
o Puppet masters controlling Army High Command
 Even further German ambitions on both Eastern front and other theatres

THE WAR IN 1918

  Russian revolution led to a communist/Bolshevik regime
o Wanted out of the war for popular support in Russia
 Victory on the Eastern Front
o Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, March 1918
o Far reaching concessions from the Russians
o Popular media: Nazis were nuts to invade Russia
 But Nazis were not crazy to invade Russia. Germans had in fact secured
total victory against the Russians at Brest-Litovsk
 German spring offensives
o Breathing room from the East, transfer troops to Western front
o Launch the Spring Offensives
 Last chance to win the war
 Once these were finished, they had little left in manpower
 Failed
 Allied counteroffensives (Hundred Days campaign)
o Middle of 1918, last 100 days of the war
o Led to German military collapse by November
 Armistice, November 1918

DEFINING THE EASTERN FRONTIER AFTER 1933

 Space (territory)
o Rejection of overseas colonies
o Rejection of normal trade relations (pursuit of autarky)
 Emphasis on economic self sufficiency
 Germany didn’t have enough agricultural and industrial capacity to
achieve autarky.
 Solution: steal land from neighbors

 Lebensraum (in the east) was the ‘obvious’ answer to Germany’s ‘problems’ – and not a
new answer
o Lebensraum = Living space
o Germans could farm and add to the agricultural capacities of the Reich

 Racialized logic
o Because the Germans were superior racially, they should be the ones to control
the vast territory, which was under the control of the degenerate Bolsheviks,
which the Nazis believed to be agents of destructive international ideas
o Racial degeneracy
o Nazis were in effect continuing where their imperial predecessors left off
 Distinction between Nazi and Imperial:
o Diminished interest in overseas colonies.
 Imperial Germany used to have several colonies in Africa
 Lost when Germany lost WWI
 Nazi’s didn’t see the point in regaining colonies
  And Royal Navy had supremacy in the seas
o Amplified interest in colonies in the East
 Soviet territory
o More racialized language

IDEOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF OPERATION BARBAROSSA (June 1941)

 Nazis and Soviets share common border because they jointly invaded Poland
 Lebensraum
o ‘manifest destiny’ of the Third Reich
o Like the Americans did to Natives
o Supposed inferiority

 Rassenpolitik (racial policies)

Based on fantasy-based science. Cultural invention

 Purity embodied in physical form of people

Few of the Nazi regime had the ideal physique.

 ‘Race is the decisive and molding force in the life of the nations. Language,
culture, customs, piety, traditions, lifestyle, but also laws, governmental forms
and economies, the whole variety of life is racially determined.’

Race dictated every aspect of the existence of people and the nation. Baked in
biological component that determined everything.

 USSR was seen to be full of racial ‘impurities’

 USSR was seen as the ultimate nemesis of National Socialism

o Nazis feel they have to destroy Soviet Union because it represents threat
to civilization
o But on the other hand, they need space to colonize
o So they can justify the expansion because they are degenerate people
and have to be destroyed anyhow
o Racial + colonial imperative going hand in hand

SCALE OF OPERATION BARBAROSSA

 Has not been surpassed
 1,600 km frontier at the outset June 1941
o eventually a 3,000 km front
 3 million German soldiers crossed the frontier in 1941
 3,500 tanks
 7,200 artillery pieces
  1,800 aircraft
 750,000+ horses
 logistical implications?
 So, a modern army compared to 1918, but also has a lot in common, in the sense that its
largely supported by horse drawn wagons.
 Implications: increasingly outstretch logistical capacity
 Difficult for animal drawn units to keep up with mechanized units
 The farther they go, the more they become the victims of their own success
 Difficult moving supplies over an incredibly vast space

 135 Red Army Divisions (on frontier)

 9 or 10 million soldiers under arms
 Command and control capacities in 1941 were ineffective, like they were in 1914
 Problem in 1941 was that many of the most experienced officers had been
politically purged.
 Stalin murdered or imprisoned many leaders
 Led to ineffective command. Generally not well equipped to respond to German
invasion

COLONIZATION SCHEME FOR THE USSR

 Exploitation and Depopulation through:
o The Hunger Plan (May 1941)
 Organized under Goering’s Four-Year Plan
o Goring was Chief of the air force
 4-year planning office: targets and methods for
reaching targets
 Never worked in practice
o Soviet collective farms to feed Germany and W. Europe for
short term
o Starve Soviet industrial workers to death (30 million
projected for 1941-42)
 They had no purpose to serve, when compared to
farmers
o Goal: an agrarian ex-USSR with few people and no cities

o Generalplan Ost (Master Plan for the East)

 Organized under Himmler, by SS Reich Security Main Office (RHSA)
 RHSA was also the department which was responsible for
perpetrating the Holocaust
 Long-term racial plan for conquered USSR
 Murder Soviet farmers, replace with German farmers
 Goal: Germanize the east through ethnic cleansing and genocide
 Surpasses what the Imperial Germans intended
VERNICHTUNGSKRIEG – a war of anihilation
Destroyed everything and everyone in front of them
 Hunger plans never fully realized because the Nazis didn’t have the opportunity to
implement them
 Occupation was not stable to do so
 Preoccupied with fighting against Red Army
o Underground soldiers hidden in forests. Effective guerilla fighters.
o Resisted German occupation

 Treatment of Soviet PWs

o Hundreds of thousands
o Large encampments
o Left to die of starvation, thirst, exposure
o Mass neglect
o Murder through neglect

 Commissar Order (Kommissarbefehl)

o German Army complicity
o Stipulated that any political officer that fell into German hands would be
immediately shot
o Wouldn’t even be sent back to POW cages
o Commissars were seen as the ideological puppet masters of the
degenerate Bolshevik regime, had to be destroyed outright

 Einsatzgruppen and the murder of Soviet Jews, 1941-42

o SS and police units
o Every man woman and child who the Einsatzgruppen encountered
o Included Baltic states of Latvia as well
o 6-12 months of occupation of USSR
 Murdered 1 million people
o Point blank shooting

 German Army complicity

o Brutality was not simply perpetrated by the radical members of the SS
o Also underwritten by ordinary German army
o Supported Einsatzgruppen operations
o Entire range of German forces in the Soviet Union were engaged in this war
of annihilation
 Implications for Soviet effort?
o Red Army was on its back foot in the early part of the war
o Many felt it was only a matter of time before the Soviet regime would
collapse
 The regime treated its own people poorly
 But when faced with the ceaseless brutality of the German forces,
there was little choice but to rally behind Stalin
 The least evil
o Resurgence of Russian nationalism
o Breathes new life into the morale of the Soviet war effort

MASS MURDER OF JEWS IN THE SOVIET CAMPAIGN, 1941-42

 Einsatzgruppen = ‘Special Action Units’
o Einsatzgruppe A – Army Group North
o Einsatzgruppe B – Army Group Centre
o Einsatzgruppe C – Army Group South
o Einsatzgruppe D – 11th Army
 Drawn from various police units and other elements of the SS
 With key support from non-German auxiliaries and German army troops
 500 or so men in each group
 But did so much damage because they had support from German army units, and
particularly from non-Germans who were recruited locally
 Germans were careful to exaggerate/use longstanding cultural faultlines amongst local
populations
 Effective in the Baltic states when it came to turn non-Jewish against the Jewish
 Had a role in Ukraine where Nazis drove a wedge between non-Jewish and Jewish
 Without the assistance of volunteers and auxiliaries, the Germans would have been hard
pressed to murder as many people as they did

Purpose of lecture: Shows how Germans approached their wars on the Eastern front in military
strategic terms and also strategic terms. If Germans were so determined to destroy all Jews, how
were imperial Russian Jews treated when they encountered in the First war? Answer is no.
Though imperial Germany was anti-Semitic, the regime was not founded on anti-Semitism like
Nazi Germany was in WWI. And, German Jews in the German empire more or less played a
well-integrated role, were not ostracized from German society.

How then did German soldiers interact with Jews in Imperial Russia? Relatively harmonious.
Why? Because many imperial Russian Jews spoke Yiddish, and Germans could communicate
with Russians using Russian Jews as interpreters

Significant difference in the treatment of Jews by Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany

DEFINING TOTAL WAR

 First used in the 1930s in Germany, but the concept had been around for a long time
 Also known as “absolute war”

 What makes war total?

o The degree to which a nation invests itself in a war effort
 o E.g. most participants in WWI, a good portion of national productivity was
invested into the war fighting effort. Not every single resource, electricity
needed at home, send children to school. Not every facet of life, but the major
proportion of the national energy
o Marshalling of human resources not just to fill armed forces, but to meet the
needs of industry and agriculture to support the war effort
o How does a participant view its enemies? How does it approach war fighting?
 E.g. if one nation is directly attacking the home front, aerial
bombardment. Any target on enemy’s home front, factories,
transportation network, all become fair game
o Treatment of enemy prisoners
 Especially harsh or brutal
 E.g. Soviet POWs, starving

 When did war(s) become total?

o There have been total wars throughout recorded history
o Scale and scope of two world wars differ from previous
o Industrial capacity of 20th century nations and the degree to which the modern
nation state (government) can marshal resources and concentrate them for war
fighting purposes
 Central government able to collect taxes, apply resources
o Must distinguish between modern total war and pre-industrial total war
o The quality of total war is different. Increasing centralization of authority in
modern nation states
 How total were the two world wars?
o No 100% absolute total war effort because there’s always other things to keep
a nation alive
o Degrees of totality
o E.g. how did German’s war effort in WWI compare to WWII in terms of
totality?
o Allows us to expand our study beyond the battles and commanders and look at
how they affected people in virtually every walk of life
 How total were individual national efforts in the two world wars?

MEASURES OF TOTAL WAR

 Mass mobilization/conscription
o Not just men, women and even children should be included
o Extent to which society is mobilized for warfighting purposes
 Allocation of human resources

 Economic transformation
o patterns of consumption
 do civilians have to ration? Change diet?
o change after outbreak of war in how the economy functions
 o broad transformation in the nature of industrial production? Goods for civilian
consumption or goods for military purposes?

 Application of strategic military power

 air power
 sea power
 the extent to which air and naval forces are used to target civilian and military
targets
 WWII, strategic airpower is used to attack civilians
o German, British, Japanese
o Allied Naval blockade preventing foodstuffs from outside world from
reaching Germany in WWI
o Precipitated mass starvation in Germany
 Treatment of prisoners of war and/or civilians under occupation
 Experiences of children
o If children feel like they’re part of the war experience
o E.g. WWI, Canadian children far away from fighting but experienced
the war in school, contact with relatives,

DEFINING STRATEGY
o The art and science of developing and using political, economic, psychological, and
military forces as necessary during peace and war, to afford the maximum support to
national policies, in order to increase the probabilities and favorable consequences of
victory and to lessen the chances of defeat.
o Strategy is made at the highest levels of government and military command
o E.g. Lord Kitchener British Secretary of War during WWI
o Britain is in for a long-protracted war, and would have to organize its resources
appropriately
o Canadian 2020 defense strategy is based on alliance with NATO
o Decision taken in Canada not to acquire nuclear submarines
o Economic and political decisions can also be part of strategy, have strategic impact
o E.g. import/export

DEFINING TACTICS
 Tactics concern the employment of units in combat. In particular, tactics concern the
ordered arrangement of and maneuver of units in relation to each other and/or to the
enemy in order to utilize their full potentialities.
 How forces are used to take best advantage of the situation on the battlefield
 How to make best use of tanks, with infantry (soldiers)
 Function well below strategic decision making
DEFINING LOGISTICS
 The science of planning and carrying out the movement, support, and maintenance of
forces:
 Maintaining or supporting forces in the field
o Design, use, and disposal of material
o Treatment of casualties
o Development of facilities and infrastructure
o Provision of services, (e.g. food, weapons, animals)
 The provision and movement of material where it is required

DEFINING OPERATIONS
 Military actions or the carrying out of strategic, tactical, service, training or
administrative military missions; the process of carrying on combat, including movement,
supply, attack, defense and maneuvers needed to gain the objectives of any battle or
campaign.
 Operations are events or actions
 Can function at the strategic level or the tactical levels/perspectives
o E.g. Normandy
 How were the landings carried out? Operations at a tactical level

LECTURE: COALITION WARFARE

SOME COMPLEXITIES OF ALLIANCE/WARFARE
 developing strategy
 command arrangements
 coordinating of staff work and planning
o Fundamental language barrier
o Most British involved in staff planning did not speak French

 operational allocation and control of forces

o disagreement as to where the greatest danger lies
o where the most important operational sector lies, and where the bulk of allied
forces should be engaged
o e.g. WWI, French high command believed main focus of allies should be ridding
France of Germans (which occupied 10%)
o e.g. WWII, British placed emphasis on North Africa, Americans interested in
invasion of Northwestern Europe

 sharing of intelligence
o Lingering mistrust
o Much of their history, Britain and France were enemies
 Imperial rivals in WWI

 coordinating/sharing supplies and equipment

 o WWII, after Americans entered the war, provided agricultural goods to British
 But the sticking point was how much scarce shipping capacity should be
transported, vs transporting military equipment and American soldiers
 cultural differences
o Eisenhower and Montgomery
 If Montgomery had been less abrasive, the fundamental disagreements
between British and American disagreements, might have been minimized
 Tended to aggravate an already tense situation
o Cultural difference between how Americans and British do business
 personalities

 Alliances have to develop a joint strategy in war

o But nations have different strategic priorities
 How do they wish to see the world carry forward?
 E.g. Americans and British, had fundamental disagreement in how post
war world might look. British fought in the war and hoped to preserve
empire. Not a view the Americans shared
o Decision making is difficult in an alliance structure
 First World War, allies have no structure
o French and British fighting in parallel
o Not until 1918, that a supreme allied commander is chosen to have operational
control over all allied forces
 Ferdinand Foche chosen
o Second World War, knew they needed to have clear, delineated command, came
to decide that supreme commander would be Eisenhower
 Supreme Headquarters of Allied Expeditionary Forces
 SHAEF
 Bernard Montgomery (British)
 Trouble getting along with Americans
 Strained relationship, couldn’t stand to be in the same room
Possible exam question:
 Alliance in the two world wars

COALITION DYNAMICS: CENTRAL POWERS, 1914-18

 Imperial Germany, Austria-Hungary
o Shared common cultural background, spoke the same language
o Significant sources of friction
 Fundamental disconnect in terms of military power
 Austro-Hungarian regime well in decline before the war
 Germans had more combat power
 And because of that, it was not an alliance between two equal powers
 Superior and inferior
 Austro-Hungarians governing multi-ethnic empire
 Difficult to unite its armies in common purpose
 Multiple languages spoke
  Some were more closely linked to the enemy than their own army
o Divided loyalties
o Ethnic Serbs serving in Austro Hungarian army
 They’ve gone to war for different reasons
 Different priorities
 Germany concerned with Western front and against Russia
 But Austro Hungarians have gone to war to destroy Serbia
o Relationships becomes increasingly strained, especially as Germans have had to
bring their troops from key theaters to where the Austro Hungarians have needed
support
 Ottoman Turkey (November 1914)
o Not a foregone conclusion
o After September, both sides are looking to bring in more alliance partners
o Allies wanted Ottoman Turkey for geographical reasons
 Turks have control over access to the water parts in the Russian empire
 Allows Allies to reach Russians with supplies and support on
merchant vessels
o But Ottoman Turks and Russia were at odds with each other
o But same could be said for Turks and Austria-Hungarian
 Bosnia Herzegovina
 Not at natural allies
o But Germans had been cultivating relationship with Turks even before the war
 Helping to modernize their army
 Bulgaria (October 1915)
o Relatively young nation
o Position in Balkan affairs is ambiguous
o Don’t get along with Russians
o But also, not friendly to Turks, who were there formal imperial masters
o Useful for central powers to have Bulgaria because the Austrians could benefit
from Bulgarian cooperation in joint invasion of Serbia
o At the outbreak of war, the Austro-Hungarian armies invaded Serbia and were
thrown back
 Embarrassed because it was a David and Goliath situation
 So, if Bulgarians could be brought in, they could neutralize Serbia
 And this is what happened
o Delayed entry for a year until they had an idea of who would come out at the end
 Calculated incorrectly
 Believed because of Gorlice Tarnow

COALITION DYNAMICS: ALLIED POWERS, 1914-18

 France, Britain, Belgium, Imperial Russia, Serbia, Japan
o Japanese joined because they hoped that while Germans were distracted, it would
be possible for Japan to overrun Germany’s colonies in the far east
 Which they did
  Italy (May 1915)
o Italians, Romanians, were not immediately concerned with the causes of the war,
but felt there was an opportunity to profit
 Only once it was clear which side would win
 And who would offer the greatest benefits
o Italians had pre-war alliance with the Germans and Austro Hungarians
o Interested in making territorial gains at the expense of Austria Hungary
 Romania, Portugal (1916)
o Portuguese had long tradition of alliances with the British
o Portuguese had extensive colonial empire in Africa
 Felt it would be threatened by German ambitions
o Romanians decided to cooperate with Russians because they were
 Russians eliminated 50% of Austro-Hungarian troops in the Galicia area
 Make territorial gains at the expense of Austria-Hungary
 But in 1916, central powers invaded and destroyed Romania
 Greece (1917)
 United States (April 1917)
o Surprised that Americans came in 1917
 Woodrow Wilson won on the promise that he would keep America out of
the war
o But fact was that America was underwriting the Allied war effort
 In forms of loans and resources
o And although American relations with the Allies, ultimately the Americans came
to the conclusion that Germans would lose the war, and they would be better off
supporting the allies and had already made investments
o But because the Germans were pursuing a naval strategy involving unrestricted
attacks on shipping, Americans were pushed into the war
o An associated power with the allies

COALITION DYNAMICS: AXIS POWERS, 1939-45

 Axis comes from 1936 military pact between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy
o Claimed the world was going to spin on an axis between Rome and Berlin
 Expression
 Difficulty between Japanese and Germans
o Because of the temporary cooperation between Soviet Union and Germans to
invade Poland

 Japanese war in China, 1937-45

o Principal Japanese effort was in China
o Heavily involved, aiming to become the imperial master of East Asia and Pacific
Rim
 Japanese war with United States and Britain, 1941-45
o Attacked the Americans at Pearl Harbor
o From December of 1941 on, the Japanese, Germans and Italians are involved in a
“true” global alliance
  Germany’s war against Poland, Britain, and France, 1939-40
o Germany went unilaterally to war
o Important for Germans to have cooperation from Russians in 1939 to invade
Poland
 Italy’s war with France and Britain, June 1940
o Italians participate in the invasion of France

 Germany and Italy’s war with the USSR, June 1941

o Hungary, November 1940
o Romania, November 1940
o Bulgaria, March 1941
o Although each of the smaller participants (e.g. Romania), they’re effectively
compelled to cooperate with Germans
 Satellite partners, client states
 Not independent members of the Axis partnership
o 1941 is the key turning point
 Japanese now realize they really do have something to benefit from
relationship with Germans and Italians
 Germans fighting Soviets take pressure off of Japanese who
consider the Soviet Union a threat over the long term
 Finland (not truly an Axis partner), two wars with the USSR
o Fought USSR within umbrella of WWII
o 1939,40 when Soviets invaded Finland with intention of rearranging border to the
security of Leningrad
 Soviets won. Referred to as the Winter War
o Then in 1941, Fins went to war, hoping to win back what they lost
 Referred to the Continuation war
 Had to negotiate in 1944 when it became obvious Soviets would win
Significance: complexities of Axis alliance. Composition varies according to what is going on in
the larger conflict. What we find before and after 1941, is two different situations, hinges on
Germany’s relationship with the Soviet Union

COALITION DYNAMICS: ALLIED POWERS, 1939-45

 China
o Sort of like the founding member of Allied relationship because they are the first
at war with Japanese in 1937. Not really an ally, no alliance partners, fighting
alone
o But once Japanese, then effectively China and other countries become alliance
partners by definition
 Poland, Britain, France (1939)
o Original allies from an European perspectives
o Poland and France are defeated, but continues to fight
 Polish and Free French under Charles de Gaulle
  Norway, Belgium, Netherlands
o Were neutral
o But by virtue of the fact that Germany invades in 1940, they become members of
the Allies
o And in all 3 instances, defeat is swift, but again, exiled members continued to
fight alongside allied powers
 USSR (June 1941)
o In 1939, Soviets cooperated with Nazis in the invasion of Poland
o But Nazis had no intention of collaborating with Soviets over the longer term
 Because Soviet Union was ideologically and practically the enemy
 Saw USSR as a natural place to carry out its manifest destiny
o Destroyed and colonized by Germans
 United States (December 1941)
o When Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
o Americans declare war on Japan, Germans and Italians declare on US
o Americans again already underwriting Allied cause before 1941
 And Roosevelt had every intention of supporting the Allies
 US navy forces were already engaged in 1940 because they were helping
allied convoys
 Complexities of two major theatres of war
o In the Far east, northwest Europe, Mediterranean, keep shipping lanes open
throughout Atlantic Ocean
o More allied partners who are having to collaborate and apply resources over
broader theatres of war
o Differing priorities in terms of the most important places to focus their efforts
o Allies decide after 1941 that they would focus the bulk of their effort initially
against Nazis in Europe
 The Germany First strategy
 Primary emphasis on European theatres
 60% effort toward Europe, 40% toward Japan
o Exception of China, 100% against Japan
o Because Germany was considered the more dangerous opponent over the longer
term

LEADERSHIP AND COMMAND

DEFINING TERMS
 What is command?
o Legal or formal authority to issue orders to subordinates
o Can talk about command at many different levels of authority
 Political, military, lower levels -> platoon
 What is leadership?
o About convincing others to follow
o Cannot simply rely on their legal or moral authority to issue orders
 o Have to persuade others to follow
o Human agency
 Soldiers are not robots
 Need to be persuaded to follow orders
 Some commanders are also good leaders, others are not good leaders
 Some individuals on the other had no authority to issue command, but in moments of
crises, prove themselves to be effective leaders

 Douglas Haig
o General Headquarters in WWI
o Branching out ->
o Army headquarters
 Particular formation which is subordinate to General Headquarters
 In control of army troops
 Attached for administrative, transportation and support functions
 Had Corps Headquarters
o Divisional headquarters
 Brigades
 Battalions + artillery units
o Do the actual fighting
 But this is only 1 branch
 Nominal strength of battalion in WWI was around 1,000.
o 4,000 usually in a brigade.
 Brigade = 18-20,000 soldiers
 Corps = 100,000 soldiers
 Army = 200-300,000 soldiers
 But units in the field were never up to full strength
o Sickness, death, away on leave, training
 Reality, 1 battalion = 700 men

UNDERSTANDING HIGHER COMMAND

o High Command is usually referred to the corps level and above
o High command as a management problem
o Not a leadership problem
 Don’t have direct contact with many subordinates, with troops in the field
 So the important skill here is to administrate, lead at the highest levels of
the organization
 Effective high commanders: capable of administrative, organizational
functions
 Size of British army expanded so much after 1914 that there were many
vacancies to fill at High Command level
 At the outbreak war, in British army only 12,000 officers of all
ranks
  But nearly ¼ officers were commissioned. Huge number of new
managers that had to be trained from scratch. Most men were only
going to be serving for officers for war, and then return to civilian
life.
 When senior managers make mistakes, it was because they had
limited experience to learn how to do their jobs
o Consider growth of armies
o 1914: 12,000 British officers
o 230,000 wartime commissions
o High command inflexible by definition
o Inflexible in their capacity to influence events after a battle begins
o No matter how detailed the plan is, in real life, no plan survives from first contact
with the enemy
o Once the troops engage with the enemy, a huge amount of confusion results
 Little communications, senior commanders would lose a clear picture of
what was happening
 Whatever information arrived to high command was usually obsolete
 Many commanders experienced sense of helplessness
 At least a number of hours before a clear picture of how things had
developed
 And this picture was dependent on circumstances
o E.g. poor weather, unable to fly over and perform
reconnaissance
o Telephone lines were cut by artillery fire, troop traffic,
o Operating in the dark
o No plan survives first contact…
o Communication and interpretation
o Wireless used to a limited degree because of the primitive nature of the
technology in WWI
o But even in WWII, radios were unreliable, malfunctioning
o Difficulty for commanders to interpret what is happening.
o Must keep in mind when analyzing decision making
o Commander does not have hindsight that we do almost a century after the fact
o Much more difficult in the moment to know what was going on

LEADERSHIP/COMMAND IN THE FIELD

o Looking inside the division
o Leaders are not to fight the battles but the plan the battles
o Officers who had direct contact with troops
o Where leadership in a charismatic sense becomes important
o Officers have to ultimately persuade soldiers to follow them
o In the heat of battle, legal authority isn’t very important
 To inspire the men to move forward into a situation where they may be
killed
 o Role of personality
o Importance of relationships and rapport
o Difficult to quantify, capacity of individual leaders to build rapport is intangible
o Discipline must be maintained, at the same time, troops must also look up to the officer
as someone who represents their best interests

PROPORTIONALITY AND HUMAN AGENCY

o Between Mutiny and obedience
o Case study of ordinary soldiers in the French Army in WWI
o Fifth Division
o Soldiers writing letters to home
o Censored, to be sure that no sensitive military information was let out
o Looking at the matter from the bottom up
o Why did men follow their leaders and/or obey their commanders (or not)?
o Between Mutiny and Obedience (Leonard Smith, 1994)
o Conclusion smith offers revolves around the theme of human agency and a process he
refers to known as proportionality
o The theory of ‘proportionality’
o Men were willing to take far-reaching risks, follow dangerous orders, if they felt
that the risk they were taking, were proportional to the potential benefits that
might be gained from a particular attack or action
o If soldiers believed that an attack had a good chance of succeeding, or that it
would make a meaningful military contribution, they would be more likely to
carry out the attack as their commander instructed them to
o 1917
o After a series of costly offensives, significant elements within French army broke
out into mutiny and refused to carry out further attacks until certain conditions
were met
 Improve quality of life as soldiers
 Macro expression of soldiers
 Tens of thousands of soldiers refused to continue fighting
o If every soldier followed every order to the t, casualties would have been even greater
o Because in real life, soldiers often took measures to limit their exposure to danger
when it was necessary to do so
 E.g. go into an attack, but not press forward with all that much vigor
 Taking shelter in craters
o Gives us an idea of how important it was for junior commanders to have persuasive
power

HISTORICAL AND MOSTLY POPULAR INTERPRETATIONS OF COMMANDERS

o During war years, senior commanders were revered, well-respected
o But by the time of the Great Depression, and the rise of fascism in the late 1920s and
early 1930s, more and more cynicism toward senior commanders
o no purpose in fighting WWI, because post war world did not seem to be a nice
place. Lives were sacrificed for no foreseeable purpose
 o First World War
o lions led by donkeys
 Soldiers of the first world war were like lions, brave and energetic, but
their commanders, men like Haig, were stupid, slow and ponderous.
 Popular in the 1930s, but was not realistic
 Didn’t take into account the circumstantial challenges that commanders
faced
o German commanders were betrayed by subversive elements at home
 A very different mythology in Germany
 German commanders were held in reverence
 Even though it was Hindenburg and Ludendorff whose military strategies
led the nation to complete ruin
 But they salvaged their reputations by encouraging the myth that it wasn’t
their mistake, but in fact the Jewish subversives at home who betrayed
them and undermined their moral authority, sabotaged German war effort
 But both left and right were supportive
 So this idea that commanders did not lose the war, is absurd
 Exploited by extremists and Hitler
So, these mythologies that developed had pretty far-reaching consequences

o Second World War

o German commanders were really clever
 Despite the fact that they lost the war
o Hitler ruined the war for his commanders
 While Hitler did intervene, particularly after 1941, it would be a gross
exaggeration. To suggest he alone was responsible for Germany’s
reversal. It was convenient however for surviving German commanders on
Hitler’s madness and fanaticism. Had the effect of taking the spotlight off
of their own complicity
 As if they were fighting two separate wars
o Allied commanders were overly cautious
 Have to keep in mind that senior commanders were responsible to
democratically elected governments
 Had to conduct themselves in such a way that they would be approved by
political
 Placed upon commanders’ greater restrictions to the extent where they
could take risks
 Axis commanders were responsible to leaders, but didn’t have to
answer to general population

LECTURE 5: STRATEGIC AIR POWER

 Relates to themes of
o Strategic decision making
 o Total war

Strategic Air Power

 Not used as much in WWI
 Technology not advanced enough
 Much greater impact in WWII
o Ultimately how the war was brought to an end

ORIGINS OF STRATEGIC AIR POWER

 What does it mean?
o Use of long-range aircraft to challenge civilian morale and destroy infrastructure
in the enemy’s homeland
o Attack civilians rather than armed forces on the battlefield
 Tactical air power = attack on military forces
o Significance: sign of total war

 Experiences of 1914-18?
o Impact on how people would plan for the possibility of strategic air attack during
the interwar period
o Limited use of strategic airpower during WWI
 Aviation technology had not matured to the point where it was useful
o Significance: precedence was set for attacking enemy cities

 Implications for the Second World War?

o interwar strategic air theory
o Giulio Douhet: The Command of the Air
 Italian army officer
 Never lived to see WWII
 Saw how much difficulty armies had fighting decisive battles on the
ground
 Imagined that in the future, agonizing slaughter on the conventional
battlefield could be bypassed by attacking the enemy’s home-front,
civilians and infrastructure
 Is it equally inhumane?
 Idea was that it would lead to shorter conflict
 Supposition that technology, through its destructiveness, would make the
next war short and decisive
 Once again, not entirely accurate assumption
 Did not lead to a shorter war
 Did not avoid heavy fighting on the ground
 Popular understanding between the wars
o See above
 Air force did do severe damage
 But the method by which it would be done, was different than imagined
o Special fear that air forces would be used to deliver chemical weapons
  What ends up happening is
 Limited use of chemical weapons in WWII
 Conventional bombs are what do the most damage
o No need for chemical attack

EARLY BRITISH AND GERMAN APPROACHES

 1939-40: British avoided civilian targets
o German did the same against Britain early in the war
o But Germany did so against Netherlands and Poland
 Germany heavily bombed some cities as a coercive measure, or also just to wreck stuff
o Warsaw
o Rotterdam
o Intended to terrify civilians and force government to capitulate

 1940-41: Battle of Britain and the German ‘Blitz’

o French government had already reached peace agreements with Germany
o Germans planned invasion of Britain
 By sea and by air
 Code name: Operation Sealion
 But in order for Sealion to succeed, Germans had to neutralize
 Royal Navy
 Royal Air Force
o Fighter Command
o Single engine, fighter aircraft like the Spitfire and the
Hurricane
 Royal Air Force must be neutralized first, Navy would be more vulnerable
 Germans failed
 Sealion was not feasible in 1940
o So, Luftwaffe would bomb cities
 Theory was that Britain could be brought to the negotiating table as a
result of mass casualties from these attacks
 Killed tens of thousands of civilians
 Did not bring Britain to negotiating table
 German air force simply lacked the capacity to do enough damage to come
close to derailing the British war economy
 Did not have enough bombers that didn’t carry enough payload
Now British did not hold back against German cities, late 1940 and first half of 1941, British did
not undertake a wholesale strategic bombing campaign. Chose precision bombing
 1940-41: ‘precision’ targets by night for British bombers
o limited impact on economy; British suffered high loss rates
o Specific factories
 Weren’t engaged in area bombing, or wholesale bombing of entire cities
and towns
o Attacking at nighttime
 Evading German counterattack
  Hard to find targets

THE FAILURE OF RAF ‘PRRECISION BOMBING’

 The Butt Report (August 1941)
o Shows/example of operational research
 Applying a scientific approach to tactical/operational problems to figure
out more efficient ways of fighting war

o Of the aircraft crews that reported attacking their targets, only 1 in 3 were actually
within 5 miles of the target
 And of those, maybe none hit the target
o Meant massive effort into precision attacks,
 Expense in terms of bombs, fuel, crews,

o Over French ports, the ratio was 2 in 3

 Relatively closer to Britain
 Easier to find, situated on the coastline

o Over Germany on average, the ratio was 1 in 4

 Anti-aircraft defenses stronger
o Over Germany’s Ruhr industrial region, it was 1 in 10(!!)
 Most heavily defended

Significance: Suggests investment was not paying off. Must consider other ways to apply
strategic bombing

ALTERNATIVE TO PRECISION ATTACKS?

 ‘Area’ bombing of enemy cities by night
o Carpet bombing
 Introduction of:
o 4-engined bombers (capable of up to 10-ton loads)
 Reliable and serviceable
 20,000 pounds of bombs
 Lancaster bomber
 WWI = 1 ton
o Electronic navigational aids (Gee, Oboe)
o Special pathfinder squadrons
 Guide main bomber to the target
 Drop markers, flares, over the target area to show the way for bombers
which followed
o Heavy concentration of bombers in a single raid
 1,000 bomber raids over Cologne, May 1942
 More damage than the Blitz
 By the end of the war, German cities within range of RAF, were almost
destroyed
  Introduction of ‘Window’ or ‘Chaff’ defeat fool enemy defensive radar, circa 1943

o Bundles of aluminum foil

o Confuse German radar operators trying to figure out where the bombing attacks
were coming
o Effective counter-radar measure

US and UK army liked to mark their planes with nose art

 ‘pin up girl’
o Vicky the Vicious Virgin
 Disney cartoons

CONSEQUENCES OF STRATEGIC BOMBING (AGAINST NAZI GERMANY)?

 As of 1943, strategic air bombing was a centerpiece of allied air strategy
o After 1943, US Army Airforce also engaged
o Until the Allies built enough ground forces, they relied on air pressure against
Germany

 Americans intent on daylight attacks

o When navigation problems were less acute and target areas were easier to find

 Stanley Baldwin
o In the next big war, the bomber would always be able to get through and threaten
the war effort
 Reality: The bomber did not always get through
o RAF Bomber Command flew 365,000 sorties (1 aircraft) and dropped about 1
million tons of bombs
 Canadians involved were impossibly young, university age
o Aircrew fatality rate reached 45%
o About 8,200 Canadians were killed while serving in RAF Bomber Command
 About 1 in 5 Canadians killed were killed in bomber crews
o Irony is that pre-war, people believed that air force would reduce casualties

 About 600,000 German and European civilians killed by Allied bombs

o about 1/5 were under 16 years old
o But maybe in the end, more lives were saved than lost
 Strain on German defences?
o Campaign on Italian theatre
o Eastern front
o War at sea
What the bombing campaign forced, was to bring lots of artillery back to the homefront rather
than against Allies
Compelled more fighter squadrons back to Germany
  Opportunity cost of bombing?
o Could have been used for other military purposes
 Aluminum, rubber, training crew members
o For Germans, created sources of friction in war manufacturing
 Bomb damage in factories, transportation infrastructure
 Factory workers constantly losing sleep, were not working at peak
efficiency,
 Quality control of manufacturing output

 Final impact difficult to quantify?

o How would it have looked if there had not been such a heavy bombing campaign

LECTURE 5: SUBMARINE WARFARE

BRITISH AND GERMAN NAVAL STRATEGIES, 1914-15

 Royal Navy
o Distant Blockade of Central Powers
 Aims to prevent trade between Germany and the outside world
 E.g. Germany needed chemicals to support its agricultural industry
 Physically stopping neutral ships from reaching the ports of Germany
 ‘Distant’ because the blockade operates at a distance from the Gerrman
coast
 Includes sea minefield from Scotland to the coast to Norway
o Any ship that makes its way past the blockade has to deal
with the mines
o Distant blockade has an increasingly incapacitating effect on Germany

o Royal Navy was one of the most formidable instruments of strategy that ever
existed in history

 German Navy
o commerce raiding (on the surface)
 expensive surface fleet
 did not engage with the Royal Navy
 attack lone merchant vessels that are delivering goods to the allies
o submarines as commerce raiders?
 Seen as more of a novelty in 1914
 Is not seen as a weapon that has a far-reaching strategic potential
o Also known as the High Seas fleet

o Relatively young
 Imperial Germany only created in 1871
o Not the equal of the Royal Navy
GERMAN SUBMARINE CAMPAIGNS, 1915-16
 German surface vessel strategy not working
o Not well protected, vulnerable, hunted by the Royal Navy

 German submarines operated waters around the British Isles

o Was not detected
o No technology to do so yet
o Small fleet of 20 submarines

 Six Weeks Campaign

o Unrestricted submarine warfare
o Submarines would allegedly do so much damage that it could bring an end to the
war
o Lasted much longer, went into 1916, 6 months
o Give commanders carte blanche to attack any ship
 Doesn’t matter if there are civilians on board or whether it’s a neutral
vessel

 February to August 1915

o 20 operational boats in service
o impact on neutral opinion
 Americans was not yet involved in the war
 sinking of Lusitania
o Spring of 1915
o Passenger liner
o Killed over 100 Americans
o Attacked without warning
o While the submarines are effective, they caused diplomatic problems
o Conventions of maritime warfare
 Permissible for a naval vessel to stop or seize an enemy or neutral vessel,
as long as the vessel guaranteed the safety of the crew and the passengers
o Submarines cannot do that
 Must act quickly
 Because it does not want to draw the attention of the Royal Navy
 Does not have the armament to survive
o Not possible to guarantee the safety of a commercial vessel with a crew and
passengers of hundreds, it can’t bring them onto the submarine
o Not enough time to evacuate onto lifeboats
o Little option but to find a target attack it quickly and get away
 One of the key reasons why the unrestricted campaign was discontinued
 By 1916 they were not allowed to make these attacks
o For fear of aggravating public opinion
UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE, 1917
o Germans suffering manpower shortage
o Suffering from deprivations of distant blockade
o Germans are getting desperate
o Considering renewing unrestricted submarine warfare
o Could eventually starve Britain out of the war
 Willing to try anything

o Hindenburg and Ludendorff knew they would lose if it could win quickly
o
o Ludendorff’s strategy
o Convoy Tactic
o Rather than merchant vessels sailing without protection
o Merchant vessels were grouped in convoys, and these convoys would be protected
by Allied destroyers and cruisers which would pose a threat to the submarine
 So, a submarine may sink 1, but it may be caught
o Effective at discouraging submarine attacks
o As the use of convoys increases between April 1917 and the end of the war, the
number of sinkings/volume of tonnage sunk, steadily declines
No new special technological equipment to detect a submarine. The simple fact that its protected
discourages attacks. Caused submarine strategy to fail.

o American reaction
o April 1917, Americans join in large part because of unrestricted submarine
campaign
o implications for total war?
o Instrument of total war by attacking commercial shipping
o Threaten enemy war effort and the survival of enemy civilian population by
cutting off food imports
o Undernourishment and starvation of German population
o Submarine seemed to have strategic potential but ultimately fell short

THE ATLANTIC OCEAN IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

 Interwar attitudes toward submarines?

o Dismissive
 Based on the failure of the German submarine fleet
 Not much of a future role to play because of convoys
 Obsolete
o convoys
o asdic (sonar)
 At the end of WWI
 Sound waves to detect underwater objects like submarines
 German naval strategy
o Admiral Raeder: surface raiders should attack commercial shipping
  As Imperial Germany had done
o Admiral Doenitz: U-boats should attack commercial shipping, as in 1917-18

Neither commander won the argument decisively. Neither was ready for a protracted war in
1939. Navy wasn’t sure how it would fight the next world war.

 In Germany, neither type of navy was ready for protracted war in 1939
o Shy of 60 operational U-boats in 1939
o '1/3rd rule'
 Only 20 could be expected to be at sea at any time

THE ATLANTIC WAR, 1939-40

 Relatively little U-boat activity outside of British waters
o As had been the case during WWI
 Range of U-boats operating from north German bases was limited
o None of them further than Iceland
 German navy engaged in surface commerce raiding with limited success
o Again, vulnerable to Royal Navy

TRANSITIONAL PHASE: SUMMER 1940/SPRING 1941

 Capitulation of France
 Whereas German ships had to venture further
 Now Germans could build naval bases on the entire Western coastline of Europe
 Made it impossible for British to enforce blockade
o Germans controlled to much coastline

 Germans built submarine bases (‘U-boat pens’) on (French) Atlantic coast

 U-boats ventured further west, toward mid ocean

o Attack closer to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
o Convoys had previously been escorting up to the middle of the Atlantic
 Picked up by new escorts for the final stretch toward UK
o Now that the Germans could venture further, allies had to cover that gap
o Placed more strain on Allied navies
 RN, RCN, USN provided further escort coverage in mid-ocean
o US already involved in 1940/1941 even though Americans didn’t go to war until
December 1941
 Allies could read German naval signals as of March 1941 (Ultra)
o Broken the German naval code
o Allies cracked the Enigma machine (German ciphering machine)
o Could avoid areas where submarines were lurking

MID-OCEAN BATTLES: SUMMER 1941/WINTER 1942

  Germans pushed ever further west, and implemented ‘wolf-pack’ tactics
o From Greenland to western coast of Africa
o Wolf pack
 Up until this point, submarine attacks usually launched by themselves
 Measure to defeat the convoys
 Attacking with multiple submarines at the same time
 Patrol U-boat sends signal to U-Boat headquarters
 5-7 submarines
 Overwhelm naval escort to protect the convoy
 Did drastic damage
 Sinking up to ¼ of the ships protected by the convoy
 Allies implement end-to-end escorts in response
o Escort convoys from 1 end of the other without any breaks
o Halifax to Britain

USN TO THE PACIFIC: WINTER 1942/WINTER 1943

 Much of US Navy escort fleet that was operating in the Atlantic hitherto, was transferred
to operations against Japanese
 Allies lose convoy capacity after Americans enter
 RCN assumed greater burden from USN

 Germans ravaged US merchant shipping on Eastern seaboard of North America

o Germans attack merchant shipping directly in US waters
o Successful because American naval officials are not convoying their coastal
traffic
o Not blacking out cities on the coast at nighttime
 E.g. New York, Boston all lit up, tons of merchant traffic
 All German submarines have to do is wait for night to fall and choose their
targets

 Upgraded German naval Enigma machine shut out signals intelligence to Allies
throughout most of 1942
 Allies lost 6 million tons of shipping in 1942
o Worst phase for shipping losses
o Serious problem in strategic terms

ALLIED VICTORY: MAY-SEPTEMBER 1943

 Stronger escorts with the right type of equipment came into service
o Short-wave radar (Type 271)
 In contrast with sonar, radar is useful for detecting submarines on the
surface
 More effective than sonar was at detecting underwater
 Able to find submarines in the dark before they could launch an attack
o Gyro compasses
 o HF-DF
 High Frequency Direction Finding Equipment
 Turn advantage of wolf pack against Wolf-pack
 Germans had to send lots of signals, signal to German HQ,
German HQ to other submarines
 HF-DF tells Allies what direction the submarine is in relative to the
convoy when it sends the message, and how far away it is
 Convoys just don’t go that way. Submarines find it harder to find targets

 Escort aircraft carriers came into service

 VLR air cover for mid-Atlantic was extended
o Very long-range air cover
o Mid-Atlantic most dangerous, no air cover from NA or UK
 Aircraft could bomb submarines from the sky

As of second half of 1943

 Heavy losses of experienced German crews
o May-Oct ’43: 135 U-boats put out of action
Submarines no longer present a strategic threat to Allies. As in 1918, the German submarine
strategy failed. Cat and Mouse game much more complex than in 1918

STRATEGIC CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

 Germany went to war in 1939 without a clearly defined naval strategy
 Allied navies nearly lost control of the Atlantic in 1942-43 – why?
o Neglected anti-submarine technology during interwar period
o Didn’t put effort in until 1943
o Only had so much capacity to manufacture cutting edge radar, frequency finders,
aircraft,
 Allied human and material war-fighting resources were finite
o Contrary to popular belief
o Had to make difficult decisions on allocation

LECTURE 8: EMPIRES AT WAR

FRENCH COLONIAL TROOPS
 France recruited 607,000 colonial soldiers, mainly from north and west Africa
 o 134,000 served on the Western Front
o 31,000 were killed
 About 90,000 troops and laborers came from French Indochina and Madagascar
 Racialized mythology of colonial troops
o Allies: Dependable but needed to be carefully overseen, under the command of
White European officers
 Patronizing, racist
o German: Envious of additional recruits from Africa
 Supernatural set of abilities of colonial soldiers
 Especially threatening/dangerous

 Little precedent for employing colonial troops within the “Mother country”
 Primary motive:
o shortage of human resources
o Consequence of the very heavy casualties
o By the end of 1914, 5 months of fighting,
 French army lost more than 300,000 men killed
o By the end of 1915,
 French fatalities climbed to 700,000
 Fully half of fatal casualties during the entire war
 Indigenous people owed it to France to protect it
 The Blood Tax
o France had arrived in Africa to perform a civilizing mission
 Over 600,000 of France’s 8 million men army, came from colonies
o Not even citizens of France
 Sometimes recruited through voluntary, sometimes through conscription

BRITISH EMPIRE
 About 5 million men recruited from Britain (including Ireland)
o More than 2 million additional soldiers recruited from colonies
 E.g. India, Australia
o Importance of imperial war effort
 When Britain was at war, the empire was also at war
o Even self-governing dominions like Canada
o Up to Canada how it would participate in war, but legally it was at war
 Benefits and liabilities of empire?
o Maritz Rebellion, South Africa, 1914
 Challenged British rule
 Failed
o Easter Rising, Ireland, 1916
 Dublin
 Intended to use war emergency to throw off British rule
 Failed

INDIA
  1.4 million volunteers
o Mostly Nepalese and Punjabi men
o 138,000 men on the Western Front in 1915
o Many more served in the Middle Eastern and African theatres
 Most important source of recruits from British colonies
 1914-15 contribution important because BEF had suffered heavy losses and it would take
time to replace losses with freshly trained recruits
 In the absence of the Indian corps, the BEF may have temporarily collapsed for lack of
replacements
 Many in British army assumed Indian soldiers would not be able to function in colder
weather
o Racialized, baseless prejudices
o Continues to be a poor understanding of how significant the involvement of
Indian troops was

CANADA
o 458,000 troops served overseas
o Newfoundland (wasn’t part of Canada) sent 8,000 men overseas
o Canadian Corps (Western Front)
o 320,000 served on Western Front
o Like the Indian Corps, the fighting group
o Canadian Railway Troops
o 15,000
o Canadian Forestry Corps
o War effort depended heavily on wood and railways
 Housing, laying railway
o Conscription (Military Service Act), 1917
o Casualties in Canadian Corps outstrip volunteers
o By 1917
o Probably the most divisive political issue
o Until recent history
o Rural v cities
o English v French
o Recruits who were raised through conscription were badly needed
o Important because in English Canada, there’s a sense that the war forged Canadian
identity/nationhood
o Because while it fostered national pride
o The military service act tore about the national fabric

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

o 332,000 Australian volunteers served in Egypt, the Dardanelles, and on the Western
Front
o no conscription for Australia
 o People of Australia voted against conscription
o 112,000 New Zealanders served overseas – heavy emphasis on universal service
o the ‘digger’ and the ANZAC legend
o digger = slang term that Australians and New Zealanders used to describe
themselves
 believed it set them apart from British soldiers
 compared to heavily stratified, caste structure, the Australians believed
themselves to be more egalitarian
o ANZAC= Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
o War experience forged new all defining national identity
 Similar to Canada
o Idea that Australians were men with lots of experience living in the outback
o Mythology of what it meant to be Australia
 Mythology increased during Galipoly campaign
o A legend/sense of identity based entirely on late 19th and 20th century ideas of menhood
o Does not really represent identity of Australia

SOUTH AFRICA
o 146,000 white troops served in Africa and on the Western Front
o Dutch population
o Boer population
o South Africans of British ancestry supportive of war
o South Africans of Dutch ancestry more supportive of colonial theatres
o Black Africans willing to serve, administrations opposed
o Would mean that one woukd have to confer upon them the full rights of
citizenship
o Similar in Canada with Indigenous volunteers
o Meant they would have to be given full respect
o 25,000 black South Africans served in the South African Native Labour Contingent
(1,300 deaths) in France
o Intended to be labors doing heavy work
o Even though British needed every spare hand it could get
o South African government refuses to take advantage of
o Domestic politics dictated that Blacks could not be real soldiers
o Many more black and multi-ethnic South Africans (about 60,000) served in the African
theatres

Significance;
1. Imperial masters willing to take advantage of their colonies
a. Benefited from total war context from vast resources
2. Cultural and racialized component in which colonial troops are depicted and treated
a. E.g. Native South African labor vs White African who served in the Somme
3. Qualities ascribed to these soldiers to have played a major role in shaping national
identity
 a. Continues to have a cultural impact

LECTURE 8: FIGHTING ON THE PERIPHERIES

THEATRES OF WAR, 1914-19
o Western Front
o France and Belgium
o Eastern Front
o Imperial Germany and Russia
o Austria Hungary and Russia
o Balkan and Italian Fronts
o Austria Hungary, Serbia
o African Fronts
o Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Fronts
o The War at Sea
o Blockade
o China and South Pacific
o German possessions
o Siberia (Russian Civil War)
First shot of the war fired at a German, was by an African soldier
o Alhaji Grunshi

THE WAR IN AFRICA

o Geographic range of operations
o Much larger than the Western theatre
o German East Africa is larger than all of France
o More sporadic fighting
o Poor infrastructure
o Size and composition of ‘armies’
o British East Africa
o “armies” very small
 Not the same strategic priority for major powers as the war in the Western
or Eastern front, fewer resources
 Logistically difficult to transport soldiers from Britain or France

o Climate and disease

o Battle casualties relatively light compared to death from disease
o In contrast, on the Western front, battle casualties more severe
o Diseases borne by insects, e.g. malaria
o Not the same quality of medical treatment
 o Wide range of experience
o Togo
 Immediate German defeat
o German East Africa
 Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (German)
 His 14,000 troops, only 2,000 ethnic Germans engaged a much
larger British force throughout the war
 British East African troops
 Multi-ethnic
 Anyone from a Canadian to a South African to a Fijian

Indigenous punished by either Allied or German, expressions of total war

Improvisations in the African theatre of war,

o Not the same amount of resources
o British horse artillery dragged by a cut down tree

THE MIDDLE EAST AND MEDITERRANEAN

o Ottoman Turkey joined the Central Powers in late 1914
o Why?
o Ottoman empire lost lots of territory before WWI
o Opportunity to regain influence through friendship with Germany
 Shared common enemy of Imperial Russia
o Germany at war with Britain and France, chance to regain influence
 E.g. Algeria, Egypt
o Why did Germany seek this alliance?
o Wished to enhance influence in Middle East
 Had to come at the expense of British, French and Russians

o Berlin-Baghdad railway
 Baghdad still under Turkish control at the time
 Germans were hoping simply to destabilize enemies by encouraging a
Holy War
o To encourage ‘Holy War’ against Allied colonial powers
o Once ottoman entered the war, it was a Convenient reason for British and French to
expand own colonial influence at the expense of Ottoman empire
o Present day Iran and Arabian peninsula
o Allies have justification for knocking Turkey
o Gallipoli straights into black sea for supplies and material support to imperial
Russia

British attempted to force their way through the Dardanelles straits but did not materialize
BRITISH INTERESTS IN THE REGION
o Mostly imperial/colonial nature

o Protect access to oil

o Project British power (via the Indian government) in the region
o Secure fertile agricultural land for the British Empire
o British Indian authorities interested in Mesopotamia (Iraq) for agriculture
o Secure space for emigration from India
o Where Indians can immigrate to
o Secure warm-water access to Russia via the Dardanelles and the Black Sea
o Keep France at bay in the region

MESOPOTAMIAN CAMPAIGN
o British launched invasion through Basra
o ‘Force D’ of British Indian troops under Townshend
o Intention was to Advance to Baghdad, topple local Turkish authorities
o Hoping for a joint Russian invasion
o British vastly underestimated determination of Ottoman troops
o Racialized component to what the Ottomans were capable of
Dismissed Ottomans as a pre-modern, dying empire
o Not the case
o Received new training and equipment from Germany

Autumn 1915
o British retreat to Kut
o Not enough supplies to continue
o Seige of Kut
o Entire Force D captured
o Townshend’s defeat and disgrace, April 1916
o Townshend spent his captivity under house arrest in luxury
Prestige as an imperial master was blown; handily defeated by Ottoman Turks

Force D Indian soldiers succumbed to starvation or abuse

GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN
o Intention was to send British squadron into the Dardanelle straits and the sea of marmara
and bombard Constantinople and bomb Turkey out of the war
o To force Ottoman Turkey out of the war

o Winston Churchill
o First lord of the admiral
o Churchill wanted a more active/kinetic function for the navy to fulfill, do more than just
blockade
o Professional naval officers against the scheme, felt it was a waste of resource
o Simply too risky to send assets through Dardanelle straits
 Turks filled it with naval mines and under fire from fire under shore

o Initial attempt poor

o Had to increase the scope of the campaign
o Expansion of Churchill’s naval strategy by adding the landing of army troops who
were supposed to open up the passage routes
o Again, Churchill and others underestimated the Ottomans

o To open warm water access to Russia

o March 1915, naval operations failed to open the straits
o combined operations: April-Dec 1915
o naval operations and amphibious landings
o deadlock lead to mini Western Front
o Allied troops dug in
o Static front line developed
o 180,000 Allied casualties
o Needless casualties
o An operation that was supposed to knock Turkey out of the war and avoid heavy
losses, ended up opening a new, miniature Western front

 Strategic decision making

 Ottoman Turks, British, Germans
 Culture and ideology
 British underestimation of Ottoman Turks
 racialized superiority
 Alliance structures
 motives for Germans and Ottoman Turks to cooperate
 French and British cooperation, because of mistrust for fear British could capture lions
share of rewards
 Impact of geography and climate on the war
LECTURE 9 : IMPERIAL JAPAN AND THE ASIA PACIFIC
WAR
INTERWAR JAPANESE STRATEGY AND IDEOLOGY:
 Industrialization and Raw Materials
o Oil, steel
o In order to continue rapid pace of economic growth experienced until the 1920s
 Wasn’t realistic to expect indefinite growth
o Namely in Pacific rim and in East Asia
 Didn’t see why Western powers should have a monopoly over colonizing
the East

 International Trade and the Great Depression

 Xenophobia
o Colonial competition with western powers
o Surrounded by ‘enemies’ (ie, USSR)
 Borders Manchuria
 Japanese are terrified of terrorism
o Increasingly, the Japanese begin to see themselves as a bastion against a series of
foreign enemies

 ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’

o Invasions of Manchuria (1931) and China (1937)
o Euphemism that describes a new order where Japan is at the top of the pyramid,
and the other neighboring countries would fall in line
o Not co-prosperity, geared toward Japanese prosperity

 Occupation of French Indochina (1940)

 Rapid industrialization and population growth in Japan from 1890s-the First World War
o Social economic change
o Pressure on Japanese policy makers to address population
 Strain to feed itself, make an adequate living
 Could’ve
 Encouraged immigration
 Engage in trade for agriculture
 Peaceful approach toward addressing Japan’s concerns was attempted, but fell apart by
1930s
o Because of
 Nationalistic attitudes
  Particularly in the army and navy
 Great Depression interrupted capacity for Japanese to pursue normal trade
relations with other countries
 E.g. Japanese exports fell
 Pushed Japanese toward a more aggressive foreign policy in the 1930s

ESCALATION, 1940-41
 Context: China was in a civil war between Nationalists and Communists
 US felt that China was a client of the United States
o Americans and the international community outraged at the behavior of Japanese
troops in China

 Japanese atrocities in China

o Nanking massacre, 1937
o Sexual violence, looting, destruction
o Rank and file among Japanese soldiers were completely out of control
 But in fact, had the tacit approval of commanders
o Even the Germans were shocked by Japanese abuse

 US trade embargo against Japan tightens, 1940

o Aggravates situation because Japanese relied in imports of steel and oil from the
US
o Even more impetus for Japanese to engage in conquests

 US Navy Pacific fleet transferred to Hawaii, May 1940

o Japanese interpreted this as an act of aggression

o Japanese respond by moving into French Indochina, September 1940

 US Selective Service and Training Act, September 1940
o June 1941 = 280,000 men
o July 1941 = 606,915 men
o Effectively military conscription
 Before US even formally becomes involved in WWII

 US ‘lend-lease’ with China and Britain, March 1941

o Give Chinese and British easy access to American military supplies
o In exchange for this access, Americans secure basing rights
 To establish military bases in British colonies
 US gets strategic power, establish foreign bases

 US froze Japanese assets, July 1941

  German victories in opening phases of Barbarossa gave Japan a ‘free hand’ after June
1941
o Japan did not want to fight China, Britain, and Soviets at the same time
o Japanese see that they have an opportunity

 Recall Soviet-Japanese border conflicts of summer 1939 on Mongolian frontier

o Japanese suffered badly

JAPANESE DECISIONS IN 1941

 Continental options:
o War with USSR?
 Not desirable because they had suffered reversals in border conflicts in
1939
 Even signed a non-aggression pact with Soviet Union which remained
until 1945
 Even though Japan was an ally of Germany
o Expand operations in China?
 Desirable in principle, was not feasible from an economic standpoint
unless the Japanese could get around the problem of secured access to
industrial inputs/raw materials
 “go south” option:
o Southeast Asia
o Philippines
 Under American
o Burma
 British
o Malaya
 British
o Dutch East Indies
 Very ambitious
Japanese Strategy
 Secure all of their objectives
o Continue war with China and somehow prevent Americans from intervening

 Admiral Yamamoto’s naval strategy

o Cripple US fleet as a preventative measure
o Preventive
 No indication that Americans were on the verge of attacking
o Prevent US from attacking Japan because they wouldn’t have the resources to do
so

 Assumptions about the Americans’ response?

o Assumed that Americans would focus on Germany first
 Mostly correct
  Did elect in 1942
 But it didn’t mean Americans abandoned Japan

o Abandon Pacific to Japanese influence?

 Americans looked to the pacific as an extension of the American colonial
frontier
 Japanese assumption that Americans would abandon Pacific to Japanese
 Japanese assumed that it could deal a fatal blow to American forces
o As in Pearl Harbor
o Inflicted catastrophic damage
o But did not destroy aircraft carrier fleets
 They were not in harbor
o Major problem for Japanese strategy because it was the aircraft carriers that were
the most powerful
 Americans used their carriers to launch counterattacks
 Americans still had lots of fuel available to operate aircraft carriers
o From Hawaii
o Thus, attack at Pearl Harbor failed
 Because it failed to prevent American counterattack

JAPANESE EXPANSION, 1941-42

 Philippines
o December 1941 to May 1942
o 80,000+ POWs
o Blow to American prestige
 Dutch East Indies
o December 1941 to March 1942
o 93,000 POWs
 Hong Kong
o December 1941
o 2 Canadian Battalions lost
o 8,000 British and Indians lost
 Singapore (Malaya)
o January – February 1942
o 130,000 British POWs
o Singapore of 1942 was a crown jewel of British
o Very well garrisoned, but Japanese overcame by attacking through jungles
o Took British by surprise
o Similar to British defeat against the Turks
o Racialized attitude underpinned British defeat
 Psychologically, British never got over their defeat

 Burma
 o December 1941 to May 1942
o British retired to Indian frontier

AMERICA RESPONDS
 Mass mobilization continued with Selective Service Act
 60% American resources against Germans, 40% against Japanese

 Doolittle Raid (April 1942)

o US bombing over Tokyo
o Completely unexpected by Japanese

o 16 army bombers travel 1,000 km from aircraft carrier

 Flew from aircraft carrier
 But by aiming carrier in right direction with wind, luck and skill
o Didn’t have enough fuel to return to carriers
o So it was necessary for crews to crash landing in China

o Significant psychological impact on Japanese

 Japanese were at the peak of their conquest
 Not what anyone expected
 Exceptionally violent response
o Punitive campaign in Chekiang and Kiangsi
 Because Japanese realized American forces were being harbored by the
Chinese
 May have killed 200,000 civilians
 War of extermination

 Naval strategic turning points

o Coral Sea (May 1942)
o Midway (May – June 1942)
o Americans delivered a series of far reaching blows against Japanese carrier fleet
in Pacific waters off Australian coast
o First time that naval battles were fought largely by aircraft
 Aircraft doing most of the fighting
o Prevented Japanese from doing further conquest because of damage to aircraft
carriers
o Role of signals intelligence
 Similar to British cracking Enigma
 Magic, counterpart of Ultra

Japanese depicted by Americans as snake in propaganda

 Half human, half animal
 Heavily racialized
 Resulted in especially brutual treatment of Japanese prisoners
Japanese abused/murdered their prisoners

LECTURE 9: AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE

COMBINED OPERATIONS
 British origins of amphibious warfare (1940)
 Strategic bombing over Europe to prevent German amphibious landing

 Early commando raids

o Operation Biting, Bruneval, February 1942
o Objective to capture technical components from a German radar set
o Highly successful
o Combined operations headquarters
o Cooperation of ground forces, naval and sometimes air forces

 Operation Jubilee
o Raid on Dieppe, August 1942
o Compared to smaller attacks at Bruneveal, Jubilee was an all-out attack
o First time tanks were landed against a defended shoreline
o Most objectives not reached
o Heavy casualties
o In the aftermath, combined operations headquarters understood it was too soon for
a major amphibious landing against France
o Air supremacy had to be achieved ahead of time was a practical lesson learned

 Context for Allied strategic debates

o Tensions between British and American command
o Americans as early as 1942 are keen on major amphibious operations against
Northwest Europe
 Why?
 Because British argued that the allies weren’t yet prepared in terms
of human resources or technique
 Americans argued that the Germans would only become stronger over
time
o British concerned they would lose influence in the colonies
 So British focus on North Africa, Mediterranean, Middle East
OPERATION TORCH, NOVEMBER 1942
 First major joint amphibious operation between join Anglo American
 Invasion of North Africa
 British trying to push East, Germans West
 Crucial because if Germans and Italians overrun British positions in Egypt, they could
threaten Suez Canal, the logistic lifeline of the British empire
 Designed to relieve British forces in Egypt
 After French capitulated,
o Germans allowed a puppet regime in Southern France under Petain.
o Vichy government administered French colonies
o Continued to be garrisoned by armed French troops under Petain and Vichy

 Anglo-American landings in Vichy-French Morocco and Algeria

o To what extent would these French troops resist the Allied landings?
o Algeria and Morocco initially offered some resistance, but ultimately convinced
most of Vichy soldiers to abandon the Axis and Vichy regime
o Convinced them to fight for Free France under Charles de Gaulle

 850 ships, 107,000 troops

 Vichy French troops resisted the landings, against Allied hopes

 Strategically important because once Vichy garrisons were secured, they could begin
driving toward the East
o Just as British forces were pushing West
 Essentially trapping surviving Italian and German forces left in North Africa
 Best course for Germans would have been to evacuate Tunisia
 But Hitler did the opposite and sent in reinforces
o Most of whom were killed or taken into captivity

 Achieved objectives
 Brought Vichy soldiers
 Eliminated Axis troops in North Africa
o More safely secure passage into Mediterranean ocean and into the Suez canal
 Came at a cost
o Delaying the landing into Northwest Europe
 British argued for more operations in the Mediterranean and Italian mainland
o Also concerned that Soviet may occupy
o British looking ahead to post-war world

OPERATION HUSKY, JULY 1943

  Invasion of Sicily
o 140,000 troops
o 3,000 ships
o 3,700 planes
o Defended by Italian and German forces dedicated to Axis cause

 Montgomery (8th Army) and Patton (7th Army)

 Airborne and amphibious landings

o Most amphibious landings were successful
o But dropping troops from aircraft/paratroops
o Significant numbers of American paratroopers were killed as a consequence of
friendly fire
o Mistaken for enemy troops
o Allied aircraft had to have clear markings

 Terrain and climate

o Dry, hot, mountainous
o Germans able to delay allied advances by taking best advantage of rocky terrain
 Following Allied landings in Siciliy, fascist Italian government overthrown, and new
government in
 After Italy’s formal withdrawal from the war, German high command decided to occupy
all of Italian mainland

 Germans were able to withdraw to mainland Italy after fighting a series of defensive
battles
 Italy negotiated a separate peace with the Allies
 Germany occupied the Italian mainland

OPERATION NEPTUNE, JUNE 1944

 The seaborne landing component of Operation Overload, June 6 (D-Day)
 Why did allies decide to land on Normandy?
o Geography
o German troop disposition
o In Normandy, there are the elements of the 7th and 15th German armies
o Germans figured Allies would want to land at Calais, the shortest crossing from
the channel
 Assumed it would be within air support range of England bases
o As a result, German defenses were strongest in Calais, not Normandy
 Beaches easier to land on versus Calais which was very terrain, rocky, hard to land on
 Hitler still convinced that England would attack at Calais, and withheld vital
reinforcements
o Allies fed Germans misinformation to guide misguided conclusion
THE PLAN
 Combined airborne and seaborne landings
 150,000+ troops landed on 6 June
o 6,900 naval vessels
o Each landed at different beaches on Normandy
o Wide open, flat, beaches, except for Omaha
 Troops supported by massive navy flotilla,
o 69 different vessles
o E.g. battleships, smallest landing craft
 Airborne landings came on either
o Function was to
 Seal off amphibious landing area, prevent entry of German reinforcements
coming into landing area
 Cause confusion by getting in behind enemy lines
Successful

 Deception operations
o Convincing Germans that landings would come in Calais
o Creation of Allied ghost units
 Existed only on paper
 Included just radio operators
 Specialized landing craft and amphibious equipment
o By comparison, in 1940 when Germans considered invading, Germans did not
have this
o Did not have at Gallipoli
 Artificial harbours
o Portable, modular harbors that could be brought over from England in order to
facilitate the follow on of troops?
o Allies based on their experienced in 1942 and 1943, pushing the technological
limits of operations
 Harbors consisted of large concrete boxes
o Floated/towed across the channel
o Boxes were flooded so that they sunk down to the bottom, created artificial harbor

LECTURE 10: ATTRITIONAL WARFARE: 1916-17

 Of little consequence in terms of ground changing hands, but significant casualties

THE STRATEGY OF ATTRITION

 What is an attritional strategy?
 o Aims to win the war not through operational masterstroke or tactical innovations,
but rather to decide the outcome of the war through a contest of endurance

 Why was attrition the last resort on the Western Front in 1916 and 1917?
o Because short of negotiating a peace settlement, there was not much else for
Allies to contemplate in terms of war-winning strategies
 Attempts were made to carry the war beyond the Western front,
 But those campaigns had little to do with winning world war, more to do
with winning during peacetime in terms of imperial and colonial influence
o By the end of 1915, the Germans held a lot of the strategic cards,
 e.g. 90% of Belgium, 10% of Northern France
o No advantage, except to try and force the Germans into submission by killing
more Germans than they could replace

GERMAN STRATEGY FOR 1916

 Falkenhayn as Chief of the General Staff
o September 1914 - August 1916
o Succeeded Moltke after his breakdown
o More interested in fighting the Western front, Ludendorff and Hindenburg
focused on Eastern front
o Believed Britain and France were the strongest

 Western Front strategy

o Mainly defensive in 1915
o Believed that Germany because of its disadvantages over the long-term, had to
settle Britain and France earlier rather than sooner

o Falkenhayn is attempting to fight a battle in 1916 which will see Germany win an
attritional victory, but because its Germany is taking an offensive, it’s likely that
it will take heavy losses
o Mistake

 Goal of the Verdun offensive in early 1916

o Against French fortress of Verdun
o Was a relatively inactive sector
o French was surrounded by Germans on 3 sides
o Modern fortifications because it was close to the German border
o Falkenhayn believed if he got Verdun, he would be able to draw French forces
into a series of battles, attritional, believed German forces would not suffer
excessively
 In reality, both sides suffer heavy attritional losses, just that Germany was less well able
to absorb the losses because it was at a human resources disadvantage compared to the
Allies
  Germans never captured Verdun, made some early gains in February, the fighting stalls
in the middle of 1916, and gradually the French push the German forces back to the start
line
 By the end of the year, although both sides suffered several hundred thousand casualties,
no change in who held the ground

LOGISTICS
 Verdun was largely surrounded by German forces
 Road that feeds into the Verdun salient is not really useable
 Railway too close to front line, and under constant artillery fire
 Leaves French with 1 good road leading into Verdun
 And a temporary narrowgage railway line
o Just a track around 60 cm wide, small carts pushed by hand or pulled by horses,
small diesel electric engines
 French turned largely to motor vehicle-based transport
o Up to this stage, most transport was carried out by horses and wagons
 Keeps them running constantly, bringing up supplies and bringing wounded back
o 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

 The Sacred Way

 Noria system
o Water wheel from ancient times, move from 1 elevation to another elevation
o Used to describe rotation of French troops in and out of Verdun
o French High Command only left troops at the front line for a limited period of
time, a few weeks, before rotating them to a less intensive sector
o Almost everybody who was in the French army spent some time at Verdun
o Germans did not employ such system, did not have spare reinforcements to do
that
 Shows how careful logistical planning can make a difference in the outcome

ALLIED STRATEGY FOR 1916

 Chantilly Conference, December 1915
o Commanders discussed offensive schemes and decided to coordinate offensives
on the Western front with offensives on the Eastern front
o Germans would be overwhelmed to respond effectively
 What was the original objective for the Somme?
o From the French perspective, it looked like the Somme was another part of the
attritional campaign to wipe out the Germans
 o From a British standpoint, the Somme was to achieve some type of decisive
operation breakthrough in the front line which could unhinge German positions in
France all together
 More unrealistic than trying to win a major attritional victory
o Commanders after the Somme claimed it was never about operational victory

 Impact of Verdun offensive on Allied plans?

o 14 British Divisions
o 9 French Divisions
o Was initially going to be a French campaign, but as French became more pressed
at Verdun, it became more of a British offensive
o Haig in charge
 Had no interest, more interested in fighting in Belgium

 Nature of the ground:

o Open fields, rolling terrain, small clusters of wooded areas
o But the Somme valley was favorable to the defender
o Problem/difficulty was that there were lots of dead spots, impossible to get an
idea of how enemy positions are arranged
o Rise in ground allows German to situate their defenders, artillery,
 Reverse slope
 Able to conceal their strength and inflict heavy casualties

AFTERMATH OF THE SOMME

 12km total advance
o Lasted from July until November of 1916
o If you drive from Albeirs to Bopalm,

 420,000 British casualties

 200,000 French casualties
 500,000 German casualties

Clearly a German defeat. After all, the Germans held their ground and inflicted more casualties.
 Because Germans were less able to afford these casualties

 ‘muddy grave’ of the German field army?

o Particularly the Junior
o Most experienced non-commissioned officers who were leading troops on the
battlefield, and survived the first two years were killed at the Somme
 Difficult to replace their experience and capacity as combat leaders
o The back of the German army was broken, damaged, seriously cracked at the
Somme, it was only a matter of time until the German army came apart
 popular memory and Haig’s command
o widely praised as an effective wartime commander
 o respected by the troops
o popular opinion then turned heavily against him after his death, because of heavy
British losses at the Somme

 Heavy attritional struggle

o Allies suffered more than Germans

ROBERT NIVELLE’S SPRING OFFENSIVE

 Took the place of Joffre
o Joffre was convinced the war would be solved through an attritional strategy
o French public and politicans not keen on attritional losses and massive French
casualties,
 Joffre was fired
 Nivelle promised the war would be ended in a matter of weeks if he was given a free
hand to pursue offensives
 Neville wanted to launch two attacks, 1 from South, 1 from North, trap German forces
o French Aisne river
o British launch from east of Arras
o Each drive toward saint constant
o Coup de gras was be a third French attack at Saint Contant

Germans were building a fallback position that ran from Arras in the North to the Aisne river

 German retreat to the Hindenburg Line (14 March-5 April)

o Known as Operation Alberich
o Germans destroyed infrastructure between old front line and new front line
o Obstacles for Alliies
 Mined the roads, demolitions, traps
 Germans leapt backward before heavy punches were even delivered

 Battle of Arras (9 April)

o BEF component
o Initial strong advances on British front at Arras (for example Vimy Ridge)
 Vimy Ridge completely fallen

o Limited advances beyond mid April

 Because Germans brought in reinforcements
 Shorter line let Germans, less front line to defend
 And while the intial gains were good, there was no major breakthrough

o Catastrophic casualty rates: Cdn Corps lost nearly 11,000(!) men in about 4 days
 Higher than the Somme and Passendale
  To this day, the battle of Vimy Ridge remains most expensive battle in
history
 Led to a dropoff in voluntary enlistments
So a strategic failure

 Second Battle of the Aisne (16 April)

o French component
o 134,000 casualties by 9 May
o less than 4 mile advance after 30 days
o mutiny
 Refuse to undertake further attacks unless French government offers
concessions to better the lives of soldiers
 Better food, more time on leave

third attack never comes

So by May 1917, the Allied Spring offensives have made no significant strategic breakthroughs,
and Nivelle lost his job, return to a straightforward attritional struggle

LECTURE 10: NORMANDY TO THE RHINE 1944-45

THE BATTLE OF NORMANDY, JUNE-AUGUST 1944
 What was accomplished?
o Succeeded at nothing less than destroying 7th and 15th German armies
o Like the Stalingrad of the West
 Allied capabilities on the ground
o Dominant view in the 60s and 70s was that Allies did not exhibit greatest tactical
acumen
o Only succeeded simply through numerical superiority
o Challenged in 90s, and today
o Brute force was not nearly as important a factor, but that allies defended heavily
at tactical skill
o Force ratios were 1 to 1, 1 Allied soldier = 1 German soldier
 Should’ve had 3 to 1
 But Normandy peninsula was too small
o Terrain favored defence, broken ground, hedge rows where Germans made use of
their weapons like machine gun
 Victory through brute force or operational and tactical skill?
  Could the war end in 1944?
o Because it seemed as if German forces were broken, and falling back in seeming
disarray
o There would have been hundreds of thousands of people who were killed in 1945
could have survived if Allied commanders could win in 1944

 August 1944, Allied efforts to trap surviving German forces

 Hitler rather than encouraging withdrawal, launched a counterattack
o Gave allies more time to close the opening on East side
o Criticism: failing to close the pocket more quickly, allowed escape into France
where they could fight again
 Germans trapped in the Falaise and Argentan pocket

THE PURSUIT TO THE SEINE, AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1944

 Upon the collapse of German forces in Normandy, they were unable to establish a
defensive line on the Seine river in September 1944 – so what next?
 Seine empties out in the English Chanel from Paris
 Allied believed Germans would try to form a defensive line along the Seine, so Allies
were trying to get to the Seine
o Fear that attrition warfare would be prolonged
 But German simply didn’t have the strength or the resources to create a new line
 So the surviving 7th and 15th armies were just continuing to withdraw
o So not challenged by attrition warfare, but more the logistical problems with rapid
pursuit
 Figuring out how to conclude the war in 1944
o Given that their supplies had to come through the Normandy beaches

ALLIED STRATEGY AFTER NORMANDY?

 Narrow Front? (Montgomery)

 Broad Front? (Eisenhower)

THE NARROW FRONT SCHEME

 Because surviving German forces in the West are in such disarray, the best thing to do
was to extend pursuit to Seine river and put as much available logistical material into
Allied forces to drive northeast and capture strategic points like Antwerp, cross the
Rhine, and drive into Ruhr valley
o If this area could be overwhelmed, it would be difficult for Germans in the west to
put up defences
 Once Allies cross the Rhine they could head toward Berlin itself
 Most fighting would fall to British and Canadian troops
 o Some US troops
 But majority of US armies would be parked and defend
o Didn’t sit well, robbed their troops of playing a meaningful opportunity
o Frustration on part of US commanders
 Lion’s share of the glory
 British 21 Army Group

THE BROAD FRONT SCHEME

 Aims at a less bold, more measured approach

 Rather than focusing most resources on 21 army group

 Wished to share supplies equally among 21 and 3rd and 7th US armies
 Constant steady advance into Luxembourg, Belgium, and across German frontier and
over the Rhine
 Argued it was still possible to win the war in 1944
 No particular emphasis on driving all the way to Berlin
o Frustrated Montgomery and some American subordinates
o Everyone expected to end the war in Berlin
o But Eisenhower knew solders of Western armies would not finish in Berlin
o Because Berlin would fall into the Soviet occupation zone
 No sense in expending Allied lives trying to capture Berlin when they would have to
hand it over to the Soviets

SUMMARY OF KEY OPERATIONS IN NORTHWEST EUROPE 1944-45

 Combination of narrow and broad approach
o Immediate weight of resources applied to Market Garden, essentially
Montgomery’s narrow approach

 Operation Market Garden

o September 1944

 Antwerp and the Scheldt

o October-November 1944
o In 1944 the largest, best-equipped port in Europe
o Situated on a river which is some distance from the coast
o Problem was that banks were under German control, meant heavy fighting to
open up the Scheldt so Allies could land and not truck everything forward from
Normandy
o Opening of the port of Antwerp was a very difficult battle after Montgomery’s
failure to achieve objecives in Market Garden
  Hürtgen Forest
o September 1944-January 1945
o 9th US army
o Attritional battles
o Questionable if Americans should even have been operating offensively,
 Lots of rivers, valley, mountains, ideal for the defensive

VICTORY IN 1944? OPERATION MARKET-GARDEN

 Started roughly in September, 1944
 Objective: secure a bridge over the Rhine
o Give Western allies an access point into North German plane, expedite end of the
war
o If it failed however, it would be a case of going back to the drawing board
o No more time left in 1944 to undertake another major offensive,
 Was victory possible in 1944?
 Allies are just on the frontier of the Netherlands and German
o But still some distance from reaching the Rhine
o Rhineis the last major natural, geohraphcal defence Geramns have to fall back on
o Once allies breach the Rhine, it would be difficult for Germans to defend it

Germans still control the approaches to Antwerp

Objective for market garden was to use the small part of Belgium under allied control from
Leopoldsberg, project the advance of the 30th British corps
 Drive across in a north easterly direction, link up with Allied airborne dropps
 End up/reach all the way to Arnem?
 Air borne capture viral river crossing and bridges first, and then 30th corps catches up,
drive deep salient in Netherlands

 Joint ground and air assault, 30th British corps on the ground
 A risky attempt at a narrow front approach
o US and British airborne bridgeheads drop troops behind enemy line, in
conjunction with ground assault of the 30 corps
o XXX Corps to follow on the ground

 All airborne troops are landing in enemy territory

 Faulty assumption that Germans don’t have significant troop strength
o No hardened combat troops
 But in fact, there were strong German troops capable of withstanding the airborne assault
 Allied do manage to secure all of the crossings, and although 30th corps do advance and
link up with airborne forces,
 The British airborne troops simply could not hold on long enough against German
counterattacks for 30 corps to reach them
  90% successful, but the Arnem crossing, it doesn’t get
 Left with a deep salient toward Arnem, but not with Arnem
 Means operation is ultimately a failure
 Without the arnem crossing, all the resources don’t achieve any strategic oiutcome
without the Rhine crossing
 ARNHEM
 Implicatiionis: not possible to invade Germany without a secure Rhine crossing
 Puts pressure on opening approaches to Antwerp so that Allied supply ships can go
straight to Antwerp instead of thorugh Normandy
 STRATEGIC. EITHER WIN THE WAR IN 1944 OR IT WAS FOR NOTHING

LECTURE 11: GENOCIDE

DEFINING GENOCIDE
 Raphäel Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944)
o WWI broke out when Lemkin was a teenager in Berlarus
o Narrowly escaped captured after German and Russians invaded Poland in WWII
 United Nations definition:
o genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in
whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
 Killing members of the group;
 Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
 Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
 Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
 Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

GENOCIDE AND TOTAL WAR

 What is the nature of the relationship between genocide and modern total war?
 Unique in the 20th century
o Nature of total war in the industrial age has been unique because of the extent of
destruction on civilians using weapons of strategic range such as bombers,
submarines
 Genocide is not a 20th century phenomena
 In earlier conflicts, nationalistic content is often missing, but its common in the 20th
century
o Demonization of the enemy
 Conflict in the 17th, 18th, or even 19th century, you simply don’t find the degree of cultural
demonization in most conflicts
o E.g. Napoleonic period
 o Even though France and Britain are perpetually at war, exchange of ideas,
travel, and collaboration between the two countries in an academic or scientific
o No such example between enemy nations in WWI or WWII
 Once the demonization of the enemy occurs, it’s only a few short steps to genocide

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: CONTEXT AND MOTIVES

 Motive is an important component of the definition of genocide

 Historical friction between Christian Armenians and the Ottoman regime

o Mostly because of Christianity and the fact that Ottoman Turkey was a Muslim
empire
 Impact modern Ottoman Turkish nationalism
o 19th century was the age of nationalism, and Armenians became more nationally
conscious, agitating for sovereign status from Ottoman empire
o Growing sense of modern Turkish nationalism
 Suspicions of Armenian treachery grew more pronounced
 Fear of Armenian treachery on behalf of Russia
o Proximity of Armenian population to the frontier, and the fact that Armenians
were living on the Russian side of border and serving in the armed forces
o Self-fulfilling prophecy
 Ottoman regime looking for excuse to persecute Turkish Armenians
o Turks surrounded Armenian community of Van, siege
o Armenians resisted with armed force, killing a number of Turks
o Ottoman government used this as evidence of Armenian treachery which had to
be answered with more violence
 Simply a pretext that the regime provoked
o Priests, shot to death
o Violence became more pronounced after the Western allies opened up a new front
in the Gallipoli peninsula hoping to force Turkey out of the war

 The siege of Van (April 20, 1915)

o pretext for mass murder?
 Gallipoli campaign (April 25)
o Turkey was under assault and any internal threat had to be completely crushed

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: THE PROCESS

 Similarity between Nazis: localized improvisation
o General intent of regime was understood by actors on the ground, left up to them
to improvise and pursue policy of destruction in their own way

 Expulsion or deportation from Turkish Armenia through the desert to Syria

o Meant to show that Armenias were rounded up and forced into convoys, marched
out into open desert between Aleppo and Mosul
 o Fatalities from exposure, intensive weather, lack of clean drinking water, medical
treatment, starvation
o Died through policy of neglect

 Poorly supplied Turkish troops and local criminals raided and looted Armenian
communities near the Russian border
o Seizure and expropriation
o Similar to what happened with European Jews
 Turkish authorities seized Armenian wealth and property

 Turkish political leaders such as Tallet Bey (Interior Minister), Enver Pasha (War
Minister), and Djemal Pasha (Naval Minister) tacitly encouraged the widespread
destruction of the Armenian community
o By ordering deportations of Armenians from their homes, they were setting up a
set of circumstances in which genocidal policies could be carried out

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: CONSEQUENCES

 Turkish Armenians were a large minority within Anatolia
 Deaths numbered between 500,000 and 1.5 million
o 25% to as much as 75% of the population

 Development of an ethno-Turkish state in Anatolia after the war

o Also destroying Syrian Christians and Greek Christians
 Pre-war Turkish nationalists realized their goal of creating an ethno-Turkish state in
Anatolia

 Reaction of international community?

o Widespread sympathy for Armenians
 Because it was perpetrated by one of the Central powers
 Allied media demonized Turkish authorities
o Not much they could do
 Already attempted to invade during Gallipoli campaign
o The one nation who could have had an impact, Imperial Germans could have
made a difference
 Knew exactly what was happening through diplomats, missionaries, and
attaches
 Johannes Lepsius
 Not willing to condemn the Turks for the crimes, depended on Turks as an
ally in the war
o Little concrete difference made in terms of intervention
 Implications?
o Far reaching when it came to experience of victims of Nazi Germany
 o Because what the Nazis learned from the Armenian genocide were that if the
authorities were in control of the population they wished to destroy, there was
little anyone else could do about it
o Seemed as far as Nazis were concerned that once the genocide was concluded, it
became largely forgotten
 Few repercussions for perpetrators of genocide
 Hitler remarked in 1942 that
 Look nobody remembers the Armenian genocide, nobody is
holding the Turks to account
o Emboldened future perpetrators of genocide

HOLOCAUST: CHRONOLOGY AND PROCESS

 1933-39
o pre-war ‘legal’ measures disenfranchisement, expropriation, deportation from
Germany and Austria
 1939-41
o Ghettos in occupied Poland
 Not yet purpose designed murder facilities
 But Jews were already being murdered through improvisational round-ups
o Improvisational round-ups and some killing – not widely coordinated
 1941-45
o Einsatzgruppen ‘Actions’ in occupied USSR territory (1941-42)
o Wannsee Conference (1942)
 Systematic deportation of Jews to purpose built purpose facilities mainly
located in Poland
o Systematic Deportation to murder facilities in Poland (1942-45)

HOLOCAUST: EARLY MEASURES, 1939-41

 T4 Program
o Ethnic Germans and Austrians, mainly children, who the Nazis considered to be
unworthy of living
 Because of disabilities or illnesses
 Widespread euthanasia, but it was murder, to eliminate people
o Administered by doctors and nurses
o 300,000 victims
o Most of the damage done by 1941
o Methods of mass killing were later implemented against European Jews
 Developed and refined during T4
 And many officials involved in the T4 program
 Toxic gas chambers
 Responsible for holocaust killing machinery
  Resettle Poles in the ‘General Government’ (Poland) territory
o Creation of Jewish ghettos
 Difficult to make any kind of living
 More and more ghetto residents died from neglect
 No access to medical treatment, or sufficient food
 Jews to Madagascar?
o Not realistic
o Only if Britain were to surrender and allow sea passage
o Not too different from Armenians, effectively marooned and abandoned to their
fate
 Syrian desert
 Parallels in the approaches to genocide in both conflicts

HOLOCAUST: INSTITUTIONALIZED MURDER, 1942-45

 Shift from field murder to murder facilities (ie, ‘camps’)
o Wannsee Conference (January 1942)
o Chaired by Heydrich
o Policy came down from highest levels of Nazi regime

 A synthesis of existing elements and techniques

o Gas delivery
o Camp facilities
o Transportation infrastructure
o Who did all of the thinking and planning?
 Not the most powerful members of the regime pulling the levers
o Lower level people responsible for perpetrating the crimes
 Trend of deporting victims is common between WWI and WWII

HOLOCAUST: CONSEQUENCES
 Between 5 and 6 million killed (not including other ethnicities or other types of ‘enemies
of the state’)
o = 2/3 of European Jews
o = 1/3 of all Jews in the world
 About 3 - 4 million dead in ‘camps’
 About 1 - 2 million killed elsewhere (mostly in occupied USSR)
 Implications, within the context of total war?
 Genocide of Armenians was a byproduct, motives predated WWI but the actions as they
were carried out were a byproduct of the context of total war
 But the Holocaust was not simply a byproduct, but rather a focal point, and an aim of
Nazi strategy
o Embodiment of a motive for waging total war
LECTURE: OCCUPATION: A MORALITY STUDY

OCCUPATION IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR

 Most occupations were carried out by the Central Powers
o Objectives
 Maintain order amongst civilian population
 Exploit resources of occupied territories
 Material resources and human resources
o Forced/compelled labor
o Deportation of workers
 E.g. in German factories
 Agriculture, labor in situ
o Jurisdictional conflicts (within and between)
 E.g. civilian bureaucrats and military leaders may have differences
 Joint occupation
 Such as in Romania
o German forces, Austro-Hungarian forces
 Just because one fights a war with alliance partner doesn’t mean they
share common long-term objectives

o Evolving policies
 Belgium in 1915 was different in 1918
 By 1918 the Germans were so short of food on the home front that
they were taking more and more away

 Principal territories that were occupied

o Belgium, northern France
 90% were left to an occupation of 4 years
o Western part of Russian Empire (Lithuania, Latvia, Poland)
 Germans were intending to integrate much of the territory they had
occupied somehow into larger German empire
 Whereas that was not the case for Belgium and France
o Serbia
 In 1914 when Austro-Hungarians invaded, they were thrown back
 But in 1915, a renewed invasion by central powers, which led to a joint
occupation of German and Austro-Hungarian forces
 Most closely resembles WWII
 Visceral ideological and cultural component to this occupation
 Serbia was to be destroyed in the eyes of Austro Hungarians
 o Romania
 Resource rich, agricultural and oil production
 Occupying nations argued intensely over oil output
o Ukraine
 Almost completely under German control when Bolsheviks negotiated
after Russian revolution
 Eastern Ukraine controlled by Germans
 Full fledged exploitation of agricultural output
o Northern Italy (1917-18)
 Miniature version of occupation of Ukraine
 Rich in resource
 Disorganized occupation

ALLIED AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

 Central power sources

o Reliability of evidence?
o Less evidence from Allies

 Allied and international perspectives?

o Allies played up German war crimes
 More than 5500 Belgian civilians killed
 Useful for Britain to justify entry into the war, encourage voluntary
recruiting
o Other neutral countries interested because of refugees
 Various charitable organizations to relieve Belgian refugees
 American food aid into Belgium
 Germans allowed to exploit more food sources
o Relieved them of the duty to feed Belgians

 The plight of the Belgians

o Elicited the most amount of international sympathy
o Why? Belgium was a neutral country, no desire to be involved
o Germans were committing war crimes

 The Balkans, Reiss reports

o Many dismissed his reports as biased
o Volunteering to serve in the Serbian army

 Implications for war crimes prosecutions

o Few war crime prosecutions
 Why do we have this moral oversight? Even if crimes did not reach same
level/scale as in WWII
 Armenian genocide, crimes in Belgium or Serbia
 o General exhaustion
o Impact of the royal naval blockade
 Starvation of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Germany
 Could also have been construed as criminal, so not much interest
on Allied side in pointing fingers at Central powers war crimes
 Allies could also have been held responsible
o Sense that there was exaggeration
 Distorted some details in Belgian crimes

OCCUPATION IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

 Complexities
o Geographical scope
o More complex in WWII than WWI
o Larger geographic area and population
 Resistance to occupation
o In WWI, few
 Most were passive resistance

 Geographical scope
o Almost all of Western and Eastern Europe under German control, exception of
Great Britain
o China and the Pacific
o Germans in North Africa

 Varied war aims among the Axis powers

 Ideological components
o No equivalent of the Holocaust in the first world war
 No attempt to commit a genocide

 Changing fortunes of war

o Living in occupied France in 1940, assuming you weren’t Jewish, would mean
life didn’t change that much in the countryside
o But by 1942, as the fortunes of war changed against Germany, that meant living
could be a different prospect
 Food, young French being conscripted for forced labor
o Also happened in WWI
 Another common thread
o Most occupation is carried out by Central/Axis powers

THE ETHICS OF LIVING UNDER OCCUPATION

 3 Courses of action that the occupied population could follow
o Openly collaborate
o Do nothing
 o Resistance
 Passive resistance
 Active resistance
 Armed resistance to undermine
 Acts of sabotage, direct attack
 Decisions of resistance affects bystanders
o Punishment for assassination will not be visited on the perpetrator but by
bystanders who knew nothing about it
o Demonstration by German authorities
 Dutch resistance ask British to bomb the Germans/Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen
o Collateral damage on civilians
o Willing to sacrifice the lives of Gestapo headquarters
o Film: the bombardment

 Citizens living under occupation exercised human agency by making choices

 They could choose to carry on with life as far as possible, to collaborate (to varying
degrees), or to resist
 Acts of resistance must be understood in context, as they invariably impacted the lives of
bystanders

THE ASSASSINATION OF REINHARD HEYDRICH

 Czech government and forces in exile in Britain

o Believed that the Czechs were not exhibiting enough acts of resistance compared
to the Greeks or the Poles
o If it was going to have some kind of independent voice postwar, it would have to
show that it directly opposed the Nazi occupation
o Largely symbolic action, there was always going to be someone to replace him
 Had to have known that there would be a disproportionate retaliation

 Heydrich was chief of the SS Reich Security Main Office and also governor of Bohemia-
Moravia
o Responsible for carrying out the Holocaust
 Rationale for the assassination (May 1942) vis-à-vis the Czech government in exile

 On Hitler’s orders,
o Destruction of a village called Lidice and its population (500 people)
 Dead 340 residents, including 80 children
 Men were shot on the spot
 Women and children were arrested and deported to murder facilities where
they were ultimately killed in gas chambers
  Fewer than 10 children survived because doctors believed they had
Germanic features and they could be adopted
 Murder and/or German ‘adoption’ of the children of Lidice
 Resistance comes with a price
o Bystanders cannot make a choice

PARTISAN WARFARE
 Example: the Soviet context
 Civilians in occupied zones caught between partisan fighters and German forces
 German attitudes toward civilians in occupied zones
 Soviet attitudes toward civilians in occupied zones
o Any civilian who was not actively resisting deserved to be killed anyhow
 Cruel calculation on both sides
 Civilians harassed by partisans who asked for supplies
o Milk, food, from farmers
 Civilians caught in a deadly vice

LECTURE: DEFEATING GERMANY, 1917-18 AND 1944-45

GERMANY’S SITUATION, 1917-18
 Battlefield attrition and the impact of the Royal Navy’s blockade put German decision-
makers into a race against time
o Decision-makers are Hindenburg and Ludendorff
o Re-introduce unrestricted submarine warfare
  To try and choke off the flow of reinforcements and war material sailing
across the Atlantic to support the British
 Failed to force Britain out of the war
 Germans still pursued USW because Germans knew they would lose the
war over the longer-term anyhow, and if they could make a strategic gain,
they could handle the risk of bringing America into the war
 Germans didn’t think Americans would pose a threat until a year
after they entered the war
o Not yet a global military power

 One possible route to victory was unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917, but we
have seen already how this failed as a strategy, and brought the US into the war
 The victory over Russia (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk) seemed to offer some relief in early
1918, but it was now a pressing matter to seek victory in the west before massive
numbers of trained US reinforcements reached the front that year

THE GERMAN SPRING OFFENSIVES, 1918

 German commanders knew it was their last shot at winning the war
 Under the circumstances, the German high command decided to risk its last reserves in a
series of powerful attacks on the Western Front
 This was, incidentally, probably the last chance that Germany had to make a negotiated
peace with cards to play; instead, the high command chose to attack
 What was the immediate goal of the spring attacks?
o It is not entirely clear what the high command hoped to achieve, except to break
through at the operational level
o But even a series of operational successes might not translate into any kind of
strategic decision
 Because Western allies could rely on infusion of American soldiers

OFFENSIVES ON BRITISH SECTORS

 Operation Michael, 21 March, 1918
o 40-mile advance against British 5th Army
 Not in good condition having suffered heavy losses in 1917, wasn’t
prepared for the Germans artillery firepower and troop strength
o Major German breakthrough
 Advanced 40 miles
o Germans also suffered heavy casualties, expended materials couldn’t be replaced
o German logistical shortfalls
 Couldn’t supply themselves
 Men increasingly in disarray
 When German troops discovered how well Allied troops were supplied,
they became demoralized, not interested in pressing attack forward
o Not as much a disaster for the Allies, showed Germans in strategic terms how
much trouble they were in from a logistical standpoint
  Operation Mars, 28 March
o Less effective against stronger defences of 3rd Army
 Germans lost operational surprise
 Operation Georgette, 9 April
o Too few resources available for a successful attack
 Germans did not focus efforts on one particular place or time, suggests fundamental
failure to define overarching purpose/objective
o Taking shots in the dark, expecting something to give
o Although Allied front line had broken in one place, it became clear that it would
not break completely

OFFENSIVES ON FRENCH SECTORS

 Chemin des Dames, 27 May
o 10-mile advance
o Acute threat to Paris
o French held fast
 Second Battle of the Marne, 15 July
o Weak impact, loss of surprise
o Influenza weakened the German Army
o Difficult terrain
o American forces available in strength
 Took part in fighting at the Marne
o Allies turn to the offensive
 Nobody thought the war would end in 1918

CONSEQUENCES?
 Despite some breakthroughs, the Allies stood fast; German offensive capacity was
broken, beyond repair
o Did not have human resources, supply, food, to undertake meaningful offensives
 German morale was cracking at the front and at home
o Hungry, tired, and sick
 A supreme Allied commander was finally named in late March 1918 to oversee all Allied
forces on the Western Front
o Marshal Ferdinand Foch
o Under Foch, the Allied armies staged a series of effective offensive operations
from July-November 1918 that pushed Germany to the armistice table
o Lesson for WWII
GERMANY’S SITUATION, 1944-45
 Although the initial narrow front thrust of September 1944 (Operation Market Garden)
had failed, Antwerp was open by November, and the Western Allies prepared for new
offensives against the Rhine in early 1945
 As in 1918, the German high command gambled on a counteroffensive in December
1944, but this time there was almost certainly nothing to be gained
 o Battle of the Bulge
o Germany was in such deep trouble in late 1944 that it was hard to imagine what
they could have achieved in 1944, compared to 1918.
 No strategic success that would have altered the situation
o In common with 1918, German forces in the West used their last capacity in the
Ardennes
 The failure of this counteroffensive (in the Ardennes) left the west bank of the Rhine
virtually indefensible, and the Allies crossed by February 1945
 Contrast to 1918: Allies would not have accepted negotiations, and Hitler would not have
done it either. Completely successful or completely destroyed.
 Meanwhile, the Soviets had launched a major offensive along the Vistula in Poland in the
autumn 1944 comprising
o 4 million troops
o 9,800 tanks
o 40,000 heavy guns and mortars

GERMANS’ MENTAL STATE

 In 1918, it was almost impossible to procure fuel for heating, and getting decent food for
the average German
o But they were not expected to be defeated
o No allied soldiers anywhere near German territory in early 1918
 In 1945, the situation was different
o Beginning 1943, German areas had been under strategic bombing
o Far reaching damage to life and infrastructure
o Not as hungry, but many had no place to live
o Hard to hide the fact that East were on the frontier and Germany was going to be
invaded
o Few could imagine an outcome other than German defeat

 Hitler’s state of mind seemed to swing from hyper-optimism to deep despair

o Not out of his mind
o Was mentally competent. Not insane
o Increasingly prone to fantasy based thinking
 Although he probably remained mentally competent, he was increasingly prone to
magical, fantasy-based thinking
o No miracle that would save Hitler from his fate
 Blind faith in Hitler, cynicism, fatalism, resignation, fantasy, panic also gripped the
public
o Lose faith in the Nazi regime, but still look at Hitler as someone capable of saving
them
o Hitler myth, omnipotent ability to fix Germany
o Natural outcome for the damage that had been inflicted in their name
o Increasingly high rate of suicide
  General refusal of leaders to accept responsibility for much of anything
o No attempt to evacuate civlians out of harm’s way
o Officials are looting
o Refusal to accept responsibility for crimes they have committed
o German people are left leaderless
 Up to low-level authorities like mayors, to usher residents through disaster

THE BATTLE FOR BERLIN

 Case study of the final moments of regime
 Prelude: surreal normalcy
o Zoo was open, symphony played
 Local authorities did little or nothing to evacuate or protect civilians
 Casualties
 About 350,000 killed or wounded in the Red Army (including approaches to Berlin)
 At least 100,000 German military deaths, possibly more
 Perhaps 125,000 civilian deaths

COMPARING GERMANY’S SITUATIONS, 1918 vs 1945

 Able to forget the defeat of 1918 and blame scapegoats
 In contrast, defeat was impossible to forget

1918
German infrastructure was essentially intact
Fighting or aerial bombing barely touched German soil during the
war
German civilians had suffered shortages of food and key supplies
(soap, shoes, coal) since relatively early in the war
There was no wide-scale Allied invasion, and only a limited
occupation of the Rhineland; Germans soldiers returned home often
as organized units
Defeat was obvious to just about everyone, but in the absence of
enemy occupation, it was later possible to forget the reality of the
1918 defeat and blame scapegoats (the Left, Jews, etc) for ‘stabbing
Germany’ in the back
1945
German infrastructure and housing were already widely damaged
(by strategic bombing) even before the invasions of 1944-45
Due to exploitation of slave labour and the occupied lands, many
Germans continued to eat well until relatively late in the war, when
acute shortages of everything became more notable
Virtually all Germans experienced invasion, either from the west or
the east
Loss of life was generally the result of violence rather than hunger,
whereas by 1918, many Germans had succumbed to shortages
because of the Royal Navy’s blockade
Compared to the 1920s/30s, defeat was impossible to forget or
ignore in post-1945 Germany: the nation was in ruins, and
occupation forces were to remain on German soil for the next 40
years

LECTURE: DEFEATING IMPERIAL JAPAN

THE CENTRAL PACIFIC LANDINGS, 1943-44
  These amphibious operations punctured the perimeter of Japan’s 1941-42 conquests and
brought US air bases closer to the Japanese home islands
o Stepping stones to the development airfields, reduction of Japanese defensive
perimeter
 Gilbert Islands (Tarawa, 1943)
o heavy losses for US Marines
 Marshall Islands (Kwajalein, 1944)
o US forces applied greater fire support to minimize casualties
o Japanese dug in deeper, essentially fighting underground
 Offset US advantage in heavy fire support
 Once again, increase US casualties
 Mariana Islands (Saipan, 1944)
o 1,000 US ships and 250,000 troops
 Same magnitude as Operation Overlord
o Marianas ‘Turkey Shoot’
 So easy to bring down Japanese aircraft by that time in the war
o Japanese in sharp decline
 By 1943 and 44, Japanese sent in inexperienced pilots who did not have much effect on
opponents
 Japanese logistics failed at most levels to sustain the defensive perimeter
o No resupply or reinforcement
o Left behind to slow down advance of US navy
o Ill-fed and suffering from tropical diseases
 Similar to German USW
o Japanese refusal to adopt convoy/escort measures
 Highly vulnerable to interception and destruction

APPROACHING THE JAPANESE HOME ISLANDS

 Change in tactics in 1944-45
o Encourage troops to fight for as long as possible
 Not to throw their lives away so cheaply
o Tended to fight in exposed positions in 1942-43, vulnerable to artillery fire
 Product of military culture, had to advance directly to the enemy, and not
fight from protection of defensive positions
o Difficult to clear Japanese clusters of resistance
 Iwo Jima landing
o 10 sq miles island cost 30,000 US casualties against garrison of 21,000 Japanese
o Gradual evolution of Japanese defensive tactics
 Invasion of Okinawa
o 65,600 US casualties
o Hundreds of ships struck by Kamikaze suicide pilots
 Most damage against smaller US vessels
 Steer against first ships they came into contact with, difficult to infiltrate
into landing fleets which were heavily defended by US aircraft
  Conventional fire bombing of Japanese cities left a barren landscape, even before atomic
weapons were available
o Tokyo, 9 March, 80,000 Japanese deaths
 Atomic bombings are only a mere turning point in the type of technology applied

ENDING THE WAR WITH JAPAN

 By the summer of 1945, US decision makers considered various options regarding the
war with Japan:
o Prepare for an extensive two-phase invasion of the home islands, to happen in
1945-46
 Would have involved 1.3 million men, the entire US pacific fleet,
reinforcements from Royal Navy, 5,000 aircraft
 Greatest amphibious operation in history
 Allied calculated potentially 0.5 million casualties
o Continue with naval blockade and heavy conventional strategic bombing
 Even heavier loss of life, especially the young and the old
 Problem: no clear timeline
 Increasing political pressure in the US to get this over with
o Use newly available atomic weapons
 Would encourage Japanese
 Show of force to the Russians who wanted to be involved in the Pacific
now that the war in Germany came to a close
 Disadvantage: moral
o Seek some sort of negotiated settlement
 Similar to armistice with Germany
 Some Japanese decision makers wanted to continue fighting until
everyone had been killed
 Not a unified perspective among Japanese decision makers
 Would cause public outrage in US
 For the last 3 years, propaganda machine in US was telling how
dangerous Japanese were and how unconditional surrender was the
only option

DROPPING THE ATOMIC BOMBS

 Some argue that the fact that Japanese did not surrender immediately after the first bomb
suggest that it shows other strategies would have taken longer for Japanese to surrender
 Seems US government did not make a strong effort to open channels of communication
to negotiate a surrender
o One of the suggested concessions was to allow Japanese to keep their emperor as
head of state
 Up to this point, assumed that he would be tried and executed
 Historians suggest that if US allowed this, it would have convinced
Japanese negotiators to come to the table
 If this possibility had been communicated more clearly, it’s
feasible that the war could have been ended without an invasion or
the use of atomic weapons
o Context of nightly bombs, Japanese decision makers could have thought it was
more of the same
 They had already been witnessing the destruction of cities for months
before

 Hiroshima atom bomb (6 August)

o 100,000 to 140,000 dead
 Japanese high command remained unmoved
 Soviet declaration of war (8 August)
o Mutually convenient for USSR and Japan to maintain non-aggression for most of
the war
 Little influence for Soviets to expand influence in the far East
o Explains why Americans dropped 2 bombs, as a show of strength to Moscow
o Soviet declaration of war, if it were combined with diplomatic aggreemnt to allow
emporer to maintain his throne, could have led to war immediately, without need
or justification for dropping the 2nd bomb
o

 Nagasaki atom bomb (9 August)

o 50,000 to 70,000 dead
 Emperor Hirohito called on his people to surrender (14 August)
o Broadcast, first time Japanese people had heard his voice
o
 So what was the decisive moment here?
o Somewhere around the Nagasaki bomb

LECTURE: RESTORING PEACE, 1918 AND 1945

CONFRONTING PEACE, 1918
 One could argue that the transition from war to peace, beginning in 1918, was even more
complex than the transition from peace to war had been in 1914
o Much of Europe was completely devasted
 Not purely physical
 Emotional exhaustion, physical exhaustion of individuals
 Let’s explore why this was the case…

UNRESOLVED CONFLICT
 Fighting continued in eastern Europe and throughout the former Imperial Russia well
beyond the armistice of November 1918
  The outcome of the Russian Civil War (1918-21) would be dictated by force, not by any
peace treaty
 The Bolshevik victory and the birth of the Soviet Union precipitated the first ‘Red Scare’
around the world
o Divided Western nations and new Communist powers

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INSTABILITY

 In both the winning and losing nations, the war had exacted terrible social, economic, and
psychological tolls
 Returning to peace meant reintegrating former soldiers with economies that were
contracting due to the sudden declines in war-related contracts and purchasing
o Decline in demand for manufactured goods at the end of war
o Industries putting breaks on production in combination with soldiers returning
home
 In Canada, for example, there was significant labour unrest, such as the 1919 Winnipeg
General Strike, the largest labour disruption in Canadian history

CONFLICTING PRIORITIES AMONG ALLIES

 Among the victors, there was no common view for the postwar world
 France, for example, wished to see German military power permanently disabled
 Britain, in contrast, feared that a weak German state would leave the middle of Europe
open to Bolshevik revolution (or French dominance)
 The 1919 Treaty of Versailles (ostensibly) deprived Germany of military power, while
exacting economic reparations
 Otherwise, it left Germany’s postwar political destiny largely up to Germans
 This latter point was problematic, because many Germans, especially on the Right,
refused to accept defeat as a matter of principle, no matter what the treaty actually said:
o A peace settlement which left the German Right with a political voice was
fundamentally insecure, because the German Right could simply attack the basis
of the settlement
o In retrospect, it might have been better for the Allied powers to play a greater role
in shaping Germany’s postwar political landscape and economy
o In the end, the Nazis recast the treaty as a crime against Germany; this is ironic
because many historians, including German historians, have since concluded that
the treaty terms were rather well balanced under the circumstances
o Much more lenient than what Germany did to Russia in the Treaty of Brest
Litovsk
o Germans’ political future left to Germany was problematic
 Right refused to accept defeat as a matter of principle
o Nazis recast the treaty as an international crime against Germany
 Ironic considering German historians have since concluded that the Treaty
terms under the circumstances were actually well-balanced
 Not nearly as Draconian as German Right claimed
POLITICAL CHAOS IN GERMANY
 Although the Imperial German high command lost the war, it was left up to civilian
leaders on the Left to make peace with the Allies
o Run out of manpower, material, no way out
o High Command did not accept responsibility
 As a consequence, the German Right blamed the loss of the war on the Left rather than
those who were really responsible
o Rewrote history or
o Insisted that High Command didn’t lose the war, but rather politicans from the
Left
 Radical movements like the Nazis capitalized on this mythology, convincing many that
redemption for Germany lay only in another great conflict
o But there was no inevitability in this decision
o Was on a path to becoming thriving economic power without the Nazis
o But this radicalization had taken enough root in German thinking to convince
enough people that the only salvation was another great conflict
 To redo what had not been done properly the first time around
o Without it, we do not have a second world war in Europe

Would Europeans be better off if Imperial Germany had simply won the war in 1914?

MAY 8, 1945: STUNDE NULL – ZERO HOUR

 This expression describes the end of the war in Germany in May 1945, ostensibly
because all that came before had ended in catastrophe and an entirely new Germany was
to be created from scratch
 Unlike in 1918, nobody in Germany thought that
 Germany under National Socialism had been so thoroughly defeated
o Many Germans took their own lives
 Goebbels, Hitler,
o Ordinary citizens too

THE RECKONING
 As we have seen, Germany in May 1945 was in a state of complete collapse, with no
organized government, and most of its infrastructure, industry, and urban housing in ruins
 There was no question this time of a negotiated settlement – Allied leaders insisted on
unconditional surrender and (indefinite) occupation
 The Allies divided Germany into four principal occupation zones (American, British,
French, Soviet), with each zone to be administered by Allied military governors
o Berlin which falls inside Soviet zone, captured by Red Army, was jointly divided
by the 4 Allied powers

THE GERMAN STATES

  By 1949, the American, British, and French zones merged to form the Federal Republic
of Germany (West Germany), a liberal democracy
 Meanwhile, the Soviet zone evolved into the German Democratic Republic (East
Germany), an authoritarian communist regime
 East German culture and military symbolism
o Relied heavily on Pre-Nazi German precedence
 Military uniforms of German Democratic Republic similar to earlier 20th
century German uniforms
 Similar military culture
o Whereas West Germany military and political culture similar to NATO countries

 Each of the two German states harbored many former Nazis, but the new realities of the
Cold War meant that old crimes were often forgotten
o Both West and East needed Nazi supporters
 Teachers, police, doctors, civil servants, professors
 Without them, it would be impossible to rebuild a post-war German state
 Needed their experience
 General tendency to overlook Nazi history and crime amplified by new
realities of cold war
 Germany remained divided until the collapse of Soviet communism in 1989-90
 Second world war, if it ever really ended, came in 1989-90 with the reunification of East
and West Germany

JUSTICE
 In contrast with 1918, Allied leaders decided to try senior Nazi officials and commanders
for war crimes and crimes against humanity
o Armenian genocide in WWI was not tried
o Knew it was a mistake not to hold the responsible parties to account
 To this end, the International Military Tribunal convened the Nuremberg trials in
October 1945
o 10 were tried and sentenced to death
o Hans Frank, Julius Screiber, von Ribbentrop
o Goerring sentenced to death, committed suicide
 Allied nations also tried Germans for such crimes individually in separate proceedings
 Defendants argued this was an expression of victors’ justice
o Victorious powers hardly impartial, and that they themselves were also
responsible for war crimes, which they did not have to answer for because they
also had won the war
 Important precedent had been set that individuals who perpetrated war crimes could be
held responsible by an international body
o Turning point

JAPAN IN DEFEAT
 The Allies permitted the Japanese to keep their Emperor in defeat
 o Japanese less likely to challenge occupation
 It remained to disarm and repatriate millions of Japanese soldiers who were still deployed
in China and throughout east Asia
o 4 million Japanese troops in China in Aug 1945.
o Major Japanese effort was always deployed in China, not southwestern Pacific
o If US didn’t quickly repatriate Japanese soldiers, conflict would have broken out
between powerless soldiers who had no authority anymore, and vengeful local
populations
o Also because if Allied authority did not quickly establish itself in other Southeast
Asia, local leaders of independence movements would seek to throw off pre-war
European colonial authorities
 E.g. French Indo-China

 The American general Douglas MacArthur was appointed Supreme Commander Allied
Powers (SCAP) in Japan, and oversaw war crimes trials
o Problematic because McArthur responsible for losing control of Phillipines in
1942
 Controversial because
 MacArthur displayed poor generalship compared to Japanese opponents
o Essentially abandoned his troops in the Phillipines, suffered heavily as POWs
o Seems clear that in the first wave against Jpaanese war cirimnals, he picjed on
Japanese commanders who had been his opponents in the Phillipines
 What they were guilty of in his eyes, was not the war crimes, but that they
had embarrassed him in the Phillipines

 As in Germany, Cold War priorities in east Asia meant that many Japanese war criminals
went unpunished
o Around 1,000 were executed as a result oof their sentences
o Not all trials followed legal standards perfectly, but better compared to
MacArthur
o Japan important US ally in Asian in the fight to contain communism
Initially great emphasis on post-war justice, but the calls for justice tend to fall by the margins
with the Cold War

LECTURE: THE LEGACIES OF TOTAL WAR

BURYING THE DEAD
 When assessing the totality of war, an important indicator is the manner in which the
dead, (soldiers) were commemorated
 Napoleonic period, early 19th century, large armies and casualties, but not to the extent of
WWI and WWII
 o Social composition of 18th and 19th century armies was such that nobody was
bothered by the fact that this soldier was killed and pushed into an unmarked
grave
o Because the soldiers of those days were from the lowest echlons of society
 Contrast to WWI
o Not many professional soldiers. Most were conscripts or volunteers who put aside
their civilian activities. They had families, trades, careers. They were missed
when they were gone.
o And for this reasons, observers even at the beginning of war, knew different
management had to be taken with the remains of the dead
 The sheer volume of fatal casualties in the First World War required military authorities
and their governments to reconsider how and where the dead were buried and
commemorated
 Fabian Ware
o Found that British had no management system to keep track of deaths
 Where they were killed and buried
o So, Ware did it on his own.
o By 1917, he was permitted to Imperial War Graves Commission, mandate to mark
graves of all British empire service members
 One of the enduring legacies in this regard is the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission, which traces it roots back to 1915, and is responsible for commemorating
all British Imperial and Commonwealth war dead from both world wars
o Can even be found in London Ontario and in Brantford
o Even more common in WWII because Canada was responsible for training aicrew
from British
 Training accidents
 Broad cross-section of society fighting in wars means there is an imperative to treat
casualties with much greater care and respect than in earlier conflicts.
o Essential indicator of totality of war.
o Affects everybody from every walk of life.

POST-COLONIAL CONFLICT
 Another legacy of war
 The First World War destroyed four empires (Austria-Hungary, Russia, Germany,
Ottoman Turkey) and destabilized Britain and France
o British and France destabilized because they had invested so many financial and
human resources that they would not recover from the cost
o The legitimacy of European colonial authority was brought into question by the
brutality that the European participants in the war visited on each other
 Premised colonial authority that they bring a civilizing character to the
places of imperial authority
 But it was obvious to people who witnessed WWI, that European
countries were by no means in a position to claim a monopoly on
civilizing tendencies
  The Second World War further undermined the imperial and colonial influence of
Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, in Africa, south Asia, and east Asia
 This was especially true in territories that had been occupied by the Japanese
o Because in those early Japanese campaigns of 40,41,42, they put European forces
to shame, winning victories in smaller numbers.
o Made Dutch, British, Americans, why they should be dominated by Western
colonial masters.
 Refused colonial masters who tried to re-establish control
 Violent colonial conflicts followed almost immediately, for example, in the Dutch East
Indies and French Indochina

COMBATANTS REDEFINED
 While civilians and/or non-combatants living in the path of conflict have suffered
throughout history, the total war efforts of 1914-18 and 1939-45 redefined who is a
combatant, and therefore who is a legitimate target of violence
o Conflicts in earlier periods, suffering of civilians was incidental to military
campaign, not necessarily an objective.
o But in WWI and II, role of civilian changes for good.
o Industrial character of war effort, necessary for civilian involvement, not in just
traditional agriculture production, but in widespread and sophisticated industrial
production effort
o If civilian was so closely involved in actively supporting war effort, then the
civilian becomes a combatant

 Widespread social mobilization saw large numbers of civilian workers labouring in

support of the war effort on the home fronts
 Technology such as long range bombers could reach out and destroy war production
facilities and their workers, and their homes
o Increased capacity to target civilians
o WWI, enemy cities were bombed to the degree that technology permitted
o But massive strides in 1920s, meant that entire strategies were premised on the
bombing of homelands with the intention of destroying the civillan’s ability to
support the war effort
 Strategic bombing campaigns
 German and Japanese cities
 Strategic bombing recast the home front as a new front line, and treated civilian workers
as if they were combatants
 Without civilian effort we couldn’t have fought WWI or II because we wouldn’t have had
the materials to fight it

FIGHTING FOR IDEOLOGY

 Degree to which ideology influenced WWI and II set them apart from earlier conflicts
o Religious wars
 Virtually all nations in both wars claimed to fight for particular ‘causes’ or ideological
goals
 o E.g. nations of WWI claimed to be fighting for the salvation which was facing
existential threat as a result of Germany’s expansionist policies
o WWII, Japanese establishing Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere
 Replace Western influence with Japanese influence in the Pacific Rim
o National Socialist Germany
 Claimed to be fighting for salvation of EU civilization threatened by
International Jewish intrigue, bolshevism, capitalism
 Some were more destructive than others
 Most participants claimed to be fighting for some form of ‘freedom’
 In Nazi Germany, for example, this meant ridding Europe of ‘racial’ enemies, in
particular European Jews, for its own good
 Nazis murdered 12 million people, not collateral casualties or battlefield accidents
o People whose lives the regime purposefully set out to destroy and erase
o Ideological victims
o European Jews, about 6 million
o Targted on ideological grounds for who they were and what they represented
 Despite massive human cost, Nazis didn’t even reach all of their objectives
o Prior to invasion of USSR, vowing to completely annihilate Soviet people
o Destroy completely
 Ideological motives are at a level that have not been seen before

THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

 Affects the whole world

 Up until WWI, American imperial and colonial interests were concentrated mainly in
Western hemisphere, central and south America. Limited in the Pacific and Pacific rim,
largely as a result of Spanish American war
o How they ended up in control of the Philippines

 Did not boast a permanent standing army

o Just enough for colonial and frontier force
o Not for intervention in international conflict
 By 1942, Americans are not just equipping their own forces, they are largely responsible
for equipping many of their allies
o Especially motor transport, and aircraft even to the Soviet Union
 During WWII, incredible expansion of American industrial capacity for the purpose of
supporting total war effort

 The mobilization of Americans and American industrial capacity during the Second
World War set the stage for a semi-permanent armaments manufacturing complex in the
US, especially in the advanced technological fields of aviation and long-range strategic
weapons
  Despite a temporary draw-down in spending after the war, the onset of the Cold War, and
actual war in the Korean peninsula (1950-53), meant that defence spending was to absorb
a significant proportion of the US federal budget for decades to come
 The military industrial complex
o Ongoing relationship between armed forces and industry
o Military becomes dependent on industry
o And certain industrial sectors, like aerospace and shipbuilding, become dependent
on ongoing demand from armed forces
 Consider President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 warnings about the military industrial
complex in the US
o Warned they shouldn’t become enthralled in military industrial complex
o Continue to manufacture weapons and find palces to use them because we have
them
o Takes on a life of its own
o Root of foreign policy making
o Searches out conflict for the sake of using amassed weapons
o Getting involved in conflict because a self-fulfilling prophecy

GREAT MIGRATIONS
 The two world wars precipitated mass movements of people, within and beyond national
borders
 For example, the 1919 peace treaties re-drew boundaries in Europe that saw various
peoples displaced from their pre-war nations, some of which no longer existed as such
o Poland and Czechoslovakia after WWI
o After new states created, there was pressure on inhabitants, who may not be the
same ethnicity, to move
o E.g. German speakers in inter-war Poland

 In the Second World War, African-Americans in particular left their homes in the
southern states to take war jobs in the north
o Brought Great Depression to a close
o Michigan, NY, New England, influx of workers to fill the spaces needed to keep
factories working, from the American South, white and African American

 Ideological imperatives such as Germany’s attempt to redefine European ‘racial’

identities left vast numbers of people displaced by 1945
o Jews were deported to murder facilities in Poland
o Deported Jews from Italy, Egypt, Hungary, left the war as fortunes turned against
the Axis
 For the sake of exploiting labor
 Germans deported Belgian and French citizens in WWI to work in factories
o More widespread in WWII
o By 1944, 1 in 5 workers in German factories were forced labourers, or slave
laborers outright
  In 1945, there were 7 million intransient civilians in western Europe and 7 million more
in eastern Europe
o Examples of refugee crises, unprecedented
o Population of Canada almost
 For years after the war, displaced persons (‘DPs’) lived in temporary camps, waiting for
opportunities to find new homes
o Represent unique legacy of total war

AN ENDURING LEGACY
 The wars may be long over, but they are not finished with us yet
 Among those who lived through the wars, many could not let go of their experiences
(more so for some than others)
 Year by year, we confront reminders of these conflicts