20TH CENTURY: WORLD WARS & REVOLUTION

1st GLOBAL conflict… the ‘Great War’

WAR because…???
1. IMPERIALISM: competition/rivalries among Eur ‘powers’, over:
• colonies
• resources to fuel industrialization
2. MILITARISM: Eur powers obsessed with building up ‘modern’,
industrial-era armies, navies, weapons…
• Can we use them???
3. NATIONALISM: wanting to demonstrate your natl strength &
superiority, in empire, industry…. & WAR
TRIGGER for war — late June 1914
• ASSASSINATION of Austrian Prince Franz Ferdinand (heir) in
Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia
• nationalism at work here too…
• alliance system kicks in
NOTABLE features:
• 1st TOTAL WAR
AND:
• use of modern technology in warfare
– machine guns, tanks, planes, submarines
– mass produced… industrial war
AND:
• chemical warfare… gas
• 50 different ones used
Mustard gas
Chlorine gas
Cdn soldier: “ … a burning sensation in the head, red-hot needles in
the lungs, the throat seized as by a strangler… Many fell & died on the
spot. The others, gasping, stumbling, with faces contorted, hands
wildly gesticulating & uttering hoarse cries of pain, fled madly through
the villages & farms… carrying panic to the remnants of the civilian
population & filling the roads with fugitives of both sexes & all ages.”
German soldier: “What we saw was total death… Nothing was alive.
All of the animals had come out of their holes to die. … You could see
where men had clawed at their faces & throats, trying to get breath.
Some had shot themselves.
AND:
• unprecedented death & destruction
– 9 million+ soldiers killed
– + wounded, handicapped
– PTSD
AND:
• Hello ladies… women & war — NURSES
– huge medical needs
– more complex medical needs

All my boys are… legs off, shoulders blown away, big head wounds …
They are such fine fellows. Some have only had 12 operations. We are
getting more stumps every day and now have about 300 without legs
and arms. I have about 30 leg stumps to dress every morning…
Nurses essential… but CHALLENGES at the front, esp at first
GREECE: Had a desperately hard time at Lemnos with food, tents, mud
and sickness, as well as great troubles with COLONEL Fiaschi, who
treated Nurses shamefully — No consideration whatever ... I believe
the Hospital would have collapsed but for the Nurses. They all worked
like demons ...

Australian
War
Memorial
AND:
COLONIAL participation & casualties
• Africans fighting for Germany, France
• South Asians (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka), fighting for
Great Britain
CANADA? Initial enthusiasm… & high unemployment = lots of
volunteers
By 1916… reality sinking in… & lots of ‘war jobs’
 Sooo: 1917 Military Service Act
= conscription
QUEBEC?
• rel few vols… who cares about Great Britain & France??
• rural men needed at home
• ESP intense resistance to conscription
• NATIONAL tensions

EASTER RIOTS, 1918… casualties

ALSO notable:
UNITED STATES — intl stature & influence on the RISE due to
involvement in WWI
• BUT… slow to jump in
• Prez Wilson won re-election in 1916 with slogan “He kept us out of
war” — American isolationism
US prodded into war by German aggression directly impacting
Americans:
EG — 1915, German sinking of British cruise
ship Lusitania… 128 Americans killed
EG — Germany began unlimited submarine warfare in the Atlantic
Ocean in 1915 — US TRADE ships destroyed
EG — threatening US territory directly
ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM, 1917 — secret message intercepted by
British intelligence: Germany promises territory to Mexico
OOPS…US enters war, April 1917
• decisive for Allied victory
• demonstration of US strength
– ind, mil, naval