The Impact of the Great War

• Military• Physical • Personal• Psychological

– Individuals– European society

• Political

Military

• All of those new technologies help usher in the age of total war

• There is also a connection between the “modern” feeling that there are no more rules and that all morality is relative and the ability to wage war against any and all…even civilians.

Physical

• The actual ground– Flanders– Northern France – Infrastructure as well

Personal

• Incredible casualties!

Country Dead Wounded Missing Total

Africa 10,000 - - 10,000

Australia 58,150 152,170 - 210,320

Austria-Hungary922,000 3,600,000 855,283 5,377,283

Belgium 44,000 450,000 - 494,000

Britain 658,700 2,032,150 359,150 3,050,000

Bulgaria 87,500 152,390 27,029 266,919

Canada 56,500 149,700 - 206,200

Caribbean 1,000 3,000 - 4,000

France 1,359,000 4,200,000 361,650 5,920,650

Germany 1,600,000 4,065,000 103,000 5,768,000

Greece 5,000 21,000 1,000 27,000

India 43,200 65,175 5,875 114,250

Italy 689,000 959,100 - 1,424,660

Japan 300 907 3 1,210

Montenegro 3,000 10,000 7,000 20,000

New Zealand 16,130 40,750 - 56,880

Portugal 7,222 13,751 12,318 33,291

Romania 335,706 120,000 80,000 535,706

Russia 1,700,000 5,000,000 - 6,700,000

Serbia 45,000 133,148 152,958 331,106

South Africa 7,000 12,000 - 19,000

Turkey 250,000 400,000 - 650,000

USA 58,480 189,955 14,290 262,7255

• A literally LOST generation

• The impact is even greater because of things like Pals Units.

• Then, in 1918, influenza (the Spanish flu) and an additional 25 million die

Psychological

• The first experience with “shell shock” now know as PTSD

• This also comes from the WAY in which the war was fought.

• Also, lots of cynicism because of the gap between soldiers and leadership (military and political)

European Society

Take all of those “modern” ideas from pre-war days– Man is not the crown of God’s creation (Darwin)– There are no absolute rules, even time and space

(Einstein) “They cheer me because they all understand me, and they cheer you because no one understands you.”

– People are not in control of their own minds (Freud)

And add

• Horrors of war• Proof that there are no rules, no absolutes ie

Heisenberg• Morality does seem relative• And you get

– The Age of Anxiety• Anxiety of meaningless• What is the meaning of life?

The Lost Generation

Dadaism

• Dada does not mean anything

Dada Poetry

The airplane weaves telegraph wires

and the fountain sings the same song

At the rendezvous of the coachman the apertif is orange

but the locomotive mechanics have blue eyes

the lady has lost her smile in the woods

Surrealism

• The belief that rational thought represses creativity. You must get in touch with the hidden mind.

Salvador Dali

Rene Magritte

Time Transfixed

Literature - Stream of consciousness

– Virginia Woolf Mrs. Dalloway (The Hours)– James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young

Man– DH Lawrence…Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Political

• Lack of faith in governments, especially in Germany

• What will the peace look like?