NOT ACCORDING TO PLAN:THE OPENING ROUNDS OF THE GREAT

WAR

1. German troops drive toward Paris in August 1914 but suffer defeat in the Battle of the Marne (September 5-9)

2. Russia invades Germany quickly but suffers crushing defeat in the Battle of Tannenberg (August 26-30)

3. November 1914: The Ottoman Empire joins the Central Powers and endures invasion at Gallipoli in March 1915

4. May 1915: Germany achieves a breakthrough on the Eastern Front; Italy joins the Allies but cannot advance; sinking of the Lusitania outrages USA

5. October 1915: Austrian, German, and Bulgarian troops conquer Serbia

The “Schlieffen Plan” vs. the French “Plan XVII”

The actual German

advance by September

5, 1914.The French

assembled a new 6th Army to threaten the flank of the German

1st Army.

THE GROWTH OF MILITARY FIREPOWER, 1815-1914

ARMIES AT WATERLOO, 1815:

70,000 men each under Napoleon & Wellington, fighting on a 1.5-mile

front

ARMIES AT BATTLE OF THE MARNE, 1914:

1 million men on each side, fighting along a

90-mile front

FIREARMS:

Smooth-bore muskets

RANGE: 150 yardsRATE OF FIRE: 2 rounds per minute

High-powered riflesRANGE: 1 mileRATE OF FIRE: 12x per minutePLUS 2 machine guns per thousand men; RATE OF FIRE: 400x per minute

ARTILLERY:

3 cannon per 1,000 men, firing solid shot or canisterRANGE: ½ mile for shot, 150 yards for canisterRATE OF FIRE: 1 round per minute

6 cannon per thousand men, firing high explosive shellsRANGE: 4-10 miles

RATE OF FIRE: 20 rounds per minute

A German trench on the Western Front, November 1914(by now they stretched from Switzerland to the English

Channel)

The Western Front: Aerial view of a German trench network

Artist’s rendering of the failure of the first Austrian assault on Belgrade in August 1914

The old fortress of Belgrade,which survived all

bombardment

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY SUFFERED UTTER

DEFEAT IN ITS FIRST ATTEMPT TO INVADE

SERBIA

Russian troops invade East Prussia, August 1914(but coordination was poor between the 1st & 2nd

Armies)

The Battle of Tannenberg, East Prussia, August 27-30, 1914:

30,000 Russians killed, 100,000 captured

Russians surrendering at Tannenberg, August 30, 1914 (published in Germany)

General Alexander Samsonov committe

d suicide…

The offer of huge gains at Austria’s expense brought Italy into the war in May 1915, but it

proved almost impossible to launch offensives in Alpine regions…

The conquest of Serbia after

Bulgaria declared war in October

1915

Oscar Laske, “Street Fighting in Belgrade,9 October 1915”

The situation in December 1915

In February 1915 Berman U-Boots began to torpedo Allied merchant vessels around the British Isles

without warning

The RMS Lusitania passenger liner, with ad placed by the German embassy in the New York Times on April 22, 1915.

One German torpedo sank it on May 15, killing 1,195 of the 1,955 persons

aboard.

THE EMERGENCE OF “TOTAL” WAR Carl von Clausewitz prophesied the emergence of “total war,” but most historians regard the First World War as the first “total war” for these four reasons:

1.Economic: industrial warfare by huge conscript armies demanded the reorganization of the whole economy.

2.Psychological: combat became utterly terrifying, with a killing zone over 5 miles deep; “shell shock” became a major source of casualties.

3.Social psychological: massive propaganda campaigns demonized the enemy in each country.

4.Ethical: hunger blockades, bombardments, and anti-partisan actions broke down the distinction between combatants & noncombatants.

In 1916 combat reached maximum intensity in the Battles of Verdun & the Somme….

“On Her their Lives Depend”

(Great Britain, 1916):

Economic mobilization required the

recruitment of women.

Workers in a British shell factory, 1918

General Erich von Falkenhayn chose the fortress complex of Verdun as the battlefield on which to “bleed France

white” in February 1916

The Verdun fortress complex before the battle

The Germans fired 80,000 heavy artillery shells at Fort Douaumont on February 21, 1916

The French commander at Verdun & his protegé:Philippe Pétain (1856-1951) & Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)

French troops recapture Fort Vaux, 2 November 1916:Each side lost over 300,000 killed

French 400-mm railway gun, Battle of the

Somme, 1916

British Mark I tankin history’s first tank assault, Battle of the

Somme, September 15, 1916.

These early tanks only drove at 2-3 m.p.h. and

were prone to breakdown.

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE (1863-1945) founded the Ministry of

Munitions in 1915 and an all-party coalition government in December

1916

Arthur James Balfour,

Conservative P.M., 1902-05, Foreign Secretary, 1916-

19

TYPICAL DEMANDS BY THE FRENCH MUTINEERS, MAY 1917

(from a letter by a soldier in the 36th Infantry Regiment to his uncle)

“When the time came to advance to the front line, an incident happened in the army corps in which we demanded our rights in the following things:

1.Peace and the right to leaves, which are in arrears.2.No more butchery; we want liberty.3.On food, which is shameful.4.No more injustice.5.We don’t want the blacks in Paris and in other

regions mistreating our wives.6.We need peace to feed our wives and children and

to be able to give bread to the women and orphans.

We demand peace, peace.”

In 1917 the Radical Republican Georges Clemenceau developed a program for “total war”

with Pétain

Kaiser Wilhelm II and the new heads of the Supreme Army Command, Hindenburg &

Ludendorff, 1916/17

The “Hindenburg Program” included labor conscription and unrestricted U-Boot warfare

“Destroy This Mad Brute” (USA, 1917):

A commentary on the resumption of unrestricted

U-Boot warfare.

SYMPTOMS OF ILLNESS IN THE RUSSIAN BODY POLITIC

Russia mobilized 11 million soldiers in 1914/15 but could not train competent officers to replace those killed at the front.Most promotions to major commands were based on connections at court, not performance.Russia produced a major food surplus, but the system to distribute food often broke down.By the end of 1916, almost 2 million soldiers were Absent Without Leave.By the end of 1916, the cost of living was 4X higher than in 1913.By the end of 1916, 1.7 million workers had participated in strikes.

Revolutionary soldiers and workers control Petrograd

War Minister Alexander Kerensky addresses troops about to leave for the front

in 1917

“War until Victory!”(an attempt to arouse “Jacobin nationalism”)

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, i.e., “Lenin” (1870-1924), leader since 1903 of the “Bolshevik” faction of Russian

socialism

LENIN’S APRIL THESES

1.Transform the Imperialist War into Civil War!

2.All Power to the Soviets!

3.Land for the Village Poor!

Climax of the “Great October Revolution”:Red Guards storm the Kremlin in Moscow

Fraternization on the Eastern Front, November/December 1917

Europe at the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, March 1918

German troops moving through San Quentin to preparefor the “Ludendorff Offensive” launched on March 21, 1918

The Ludendorff Offensive,

March-July 1918:Each assault was very

well prepared, but their force tended to

dissipate…

American troops disembark at Le Havre, July 12, 1918

The breach of the “Hindenburg Line” at St. Quentin, 2 Oct 1918

British troops line the banks of the St. Quentin

Canal

Their multitude of German prisoners