Download Global War.Total War

Assignment #4: TOTAL WAR/GLOBAL WAR
How did the attitudes about the war change for soldiers over time?
Listen to the song and read the two poems and be prepared to discuss.
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) "Dulce et Decorum Est "
Latin for “"How sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country”
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped those that dropped behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under I green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Gibson (1878-1962) "Back"They ask me where I've been,
And what I've done and seen.
But what can I reply
Who know it wasn't I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands...
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name.
Part 3: Changing Homefront Documents
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: On August 4, 1914, the German Reistag (parliament) approved funds to
support mobilization for war and decalred a "civil peace". This meant that, for the duration of war, prewar
conflicts among Germans would be set aside, and that civilians would unite in the interest of defending the
country. Though most Germans had expected a rapid victory, by late 1916 they were experiencing the impact of
total war. In November 1918, after the Kaiser abdicated and a republic was proclaimed, Germany surrendered.
Describe and analyze changing views toward a concept of “Civil Peace” in Germany between 1914-1918
1. Use the documents to discuss the changing views toward the concept of Civil Peace
2. Choose one document to practice extended analysis for:
a. Describe what the document shows about the concept of “civil peace.” (1-2 sentences)
b. Extended analysis: write the historical context, Point of View, Purpose of Document, OR Intended
Audience.
Document 1
Source: German Emperor Wilhelm II, speech to a crowd of 40,000 from a second story window at the royal palace,
Berlin, August 1,1914
From the depth of my heart I thank you for the expressions of your love, of your faithfulness! In the struggle now lying
ahead of us I see no more political parties, only Germans! If in the past, some of the political parties turned against me, I
forgive then all. All that matters now is that we Germans stand together like brothers, and then God will guide the
German sword to victory!
Document 2
Source: German Government News Service photograph, Royal Palace, Berlin, August, 1914.
Document 3
Source: Forward, Social Democratic Party newspaper, Berlin, August, 1914.
The Social Democratic Reichstag delegation voted to approve the requested war funding in today's Reichstag session.
We are standing before an hour of destiny. German Social Democracy could not let itself be extinguished in this
moment. Our organizations would have been destroyed, crushed, had we not voted to finance the war. Now the
government is no longer in a position to treat our party as outside the law. A strong democratic spirit will come after the
war.
Document 4
Source: Helen Simon, women's rights advocate, editorial in Woman, official publication of the League of German
Women's Movements. Auguwst, 1914.
Now rings out the redeeming call: national women's service! For that the women's movement is thankful. We too stand
in the rank and file, fighting with our entire will and ability, fighting with our entire heart's blood for the German empire.
These times create no worries or sorrows. We want only victory! Victory against the enemy at our borders, and victory
over the economic and moral danger within.
Document 5
Source: Oskar Schmidz, author, member of the Pan -German League, phamphlet, "The REal Germany," 1915.
Our strength today is our unity, that is the best individuals in all our classes support the war and are determined to see it
through to the end. Other "opinions" are not allowed. That in England there still exists freedom of thought concerning
the war is England's weakness.
Document 6
Source: Evelyn Blucher von Wahlstatt, English wife of a German prince, dairy, November, 1915.
I hear women in the streets saying, "Why should we work, starve, send our men out to fight? We'd rather fight for a
more just division of the goods of this earth. The state that called on us to fight cannot even give us decent food, does not
treat our men as human beings, but as so many nuts and bolts in the great machine of the German army."
Document 7
Source: General Wilhelm Groener, Army Chief of Staff, proclamation, April 1917.
Who dares not work when Supreme Commander Hindenburg commands? He who goes on strike so long as our armies
stand before the enemy is a stinking dog. I hereby order that all highminded workers in the factories enlighten their
comrads about what the time and the future of the Fatherland demands from us all: work and more work until the
victorious end of the war.
Richard Fogarty, Race, racism and military strategy
World War I
Race and racism were important aspects of World War One for two reasons. First, ideas about race had developed over the
course of the 19th century to make the concept one of the most prominent preoccupations of modern Europeans. Second,
several of the major belligerents at war between 1914 and 1918 possessed large colonial empires, where white Europeans
ruled over Africans, Asians, and Pacific Islanders. These two factors came together because a large part of the justification
for the possession of colonial territories was the supposed right of superior whites to rule over allegedly inferior nonwhites. This in turn led several European combatant nations to make use of their colonial resources, both materials and
men, to wage war. Thus, while purely military and political considerations often shaped strategy during the war, ideologies
of race and racism also played a role, helping in particular to make the war a genuinely global one.
Race and nationalism
By the early 20th century, thinking about race was moving toward a more biological understanding of human difference
and its significance, with an emphasis on physical features such as color. But earlier conceptions of racial difference had not
disappeared completely, and it was common during World War One for Europeans to speak of national or ethnic
differences in terms of race. For instance, many believed that the war pitted the English and French ‘races’ against the
Germanic, or Teutonic, ‘race’. Another area where this kind of national or ethnic understanding of race played a role was in
the Balkans, where the war began. Despite numerous similarities and centuries of mixing that created many commonalities
among the peoples of the region, ethnic differences loomed large in the self-understandings of many. Ethnic tension and
nationalist aspirations helped ignite the war in 1914, when Serbian nationalists assassinated the heir to the throne of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, and these same factors were paramount in American President Woodrow Wilson’s calls for
national self-determination during the war and at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
Race and colonialism
European colonial possessions, particularly in Africa and Asia, played the most important role in injecting race and racism
into World War One strategy. The race factor was most visible in the use of millions of colonial subjects as workers and
soldiers. Many Africans and Asians labored and fought in their home territories, as they had done before the war. But
hundreds of thousands travelled to new lands to contribute to the war efforts of their colonial masters. Some even
travelled to Europe itself.
France was the colonial power most enthusiastic about deploying its colonial populations, especially in Europe. Some
200,000 came to France to work in war industries, but even more, some 500,000, wore the uniform of the French army and
manned the trenches of the Western Front. Even before the war, military officers like Charles Mangin (an important general
during the war) advocated recruiting from the vast ‘reservoirs of men’ in Africa to strengthen the French army in the face of
a larger and more populous Germany. When the war began in 1914, soldiers from North and West Africa began arriving in
France and played an active role in the fighting. Eventually, soldiers from Indochina and Madagascar also served in France.
These men were often very popular among the French people, although many in France regarded non-Europeans through a
haze of racial stereotypes. For instance, black West Africans were popular and celebrated for their courage and loyalty, but
also denigrated for their primitive savagery and mental inferiority.
The British army also deployed colonial soldiers. A force of nearly 140,000 Indians served on the Western Front in 1914, but
they departed from the Front, and from Europe altogether, in 1915. British authorities were concerned about the effect of
pitting non-whites against white Europeans in battle. Indians with such experience might be more difficult to rule after the
war. So, in the end, the bulk of Indian soldiers who fought in World War One, some one million in all, fought in the Middle
East against the Germans’ ally, the Ottoman Empire. West Indians also fought in the British army, in France and other
theatres. Racial politics precluded arming South African blacks for combat in Europe, though more than 20,000 came to
France as laborers. As was the case with France’s use of troops from its colonies, the participation of these men in the
British war effort was visible to the public, reinforcing racial stereotypes in some cases, but also enhancing the awareness of
the conflict as a world war.
Other combatant nations with extensive colonial possessions, such as Belgium and Portugal, did not make use of their
colonial subjects in Europe, but they joined Great Britain and France in deploying indigenous people as both soldiers and
workers within the colonies. Hundreds of thousands participated as porters carrying supplies and soldiers fighting to gain
control over German colonies in Africa. The Germans did the same with their African subjects, though the Kaiser’s
government complained loudly and publicly about the Allies’ introduction of ‘uncivilized’ warfare and racially inferior
warriors into the conflict at home in Europe.
Race, religion, and global strategy
The most obvious case of colonial considerations helping to shape strategy in the war was the attempt of Germany to
exploit the Muslim religious faith of some of its enemies’ colonial populations. This attempt took many forms, but one
particularly active site of German activity was in prisoner of war camps. The German army made much of the ‘exotic’
soldiers it captured from among enemy troops, often subjecting Africans and Asians to anthropological study in the camps
and using images of the prisoners in propaganda. The Germans also gathered together in one special camp, near Berlin, all
the Muslim prisoners of war captured from the Russian, French, and British armies. This ‘Halfmoon Camp’, named for the
Muslim symbol of the crescent moon, was the site of an aggressive propaganda campaign to convince these men to switch
sides and fight against their colonial masters. After all, Germany was allied with the Muslim Ottoman Empire, and the
Sultan in Constantinople had declared jihad, calling all the faithful to fight the Ottomans’ enemies. These efforts mostly
failed, as did other German attempts to encourage the Muslim populations of the Russian Caucasus, British India, and
French North Africa to rise up en masse in the name of Islam. But the effort was a serious one, and demonstrated the
important role non-European peoples and lands played in geo-strategy during the conflict.
Conclusion
Race and racism helped shape both the approaches of combatant nations to waging World War One, and the experience of
the war for millions of people among the European public and in European colonies in Africa and Asia. From the color of
their skins, to the content of their religious beliefs, colonized peoples’ attributes were of major concern to those making
decisions about how and where to wage war. In fact, the very racial and cultural differences of non-European peoples gave
European colonial powers a sense of entitlement to rule their colonial possessions in the first place. Then, during the war,
these differences justified making use of Africans and Asians as workers, soldiers, and objects of European strategy.
Source: https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/race-racism-and-military-strategy
Using information from the reading and your own understanding of Imperialism and the causes of World War I, agree or
disagree with Lenin’s statements regarding the causes of World War I and the relationship of the colonial people to their
imperial powers. How would you address Lenin’s POV or bias?
The war of 1914-18 was imperialist, predatory war of plunder on the part of both sides; it was a war for the
division of the world, for the partition and repartition of colonies and spheres of influence of finance capital.
Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1914)
If tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China on Russia, and so forth, those
would be “just” “defensive” wars, irrespective of who attacked first; and every Socialist would sympathize with the
victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slave-owning, predatory “great” powers.
Lenin, Socialism and War (1915)