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VIDEO PROGRAM
CONCEPTS AND THEMES Bloodbath, Attrition, Slaughter KEY GENERALIZATIONS AND IDEAS
STUDENT LEARNING EXPECTATIONS After the end of this lesson, students should be able to: 1. Define 'slaughter' and describe situations on the battlefield that contributed to the slaughter, leaving as many as 30,000 men killed in one day. 2. State the effects of the war on artists, like Otto Dix, and writers, like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. 3. State the reasons why the city of Verdun was selected as a target objective by the German army and the reasons why the French fought so intensely to defend Verdun. 4. Explain the meaning of the expression 'strategy of attrition' and state the reasons for following such a strategy. 5. State the important reasons why the Battle of Verdun was such a pivotal one for both the French and the Germans. 6. Describe possible thoughts and feelings of the men who participated in and survived the slaughter and who were engaged in actions that lead to the slaughter of their enemy. 7. State the major advantages and disadvantages of groups of friends ('Pals,' 'Chums' or 'Mates') enlisting and then being assigned to the same small combat unit. 8. Describe the effects on the living of the death of many of their 'pals' within a few minutes of one another. 9. State the reasons why the Battle of the Somme was begun as well as the reasons why it continued. 10. State the reasons why a commanding officer who lost nearly 20,000 men killed on the first day of a battle would continue the battle. 11. Describe the impact that a vivid war documentary might have on civilians far from the front lines. 12. State the advantages and disadvantages of showing vivid documentary films to civilians. 13. Describe life behind the trenches and the diversions that were available for the mental, emotional and physical health of the men. 14. Explain the weather and land conditions during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 and how these affected the lives of the men at the front. 15. State the reasons why the governments of the combatant nations and the civilians back home would allow the slaughter to continue. 16. State the reasons why the Battles of the Somme, Verdun and Passchendaele are usually considered the most famous battles of this war?
BACKGROUND DISCUSSION In early 1916, along the Western Front the British had over 1 million men in Belgium and France while the French and German armies had resupplied their front line troops. The stage was set for both sides to try to make the breakthrough on the battlefield that would assure each victory. Instead, by year's end, both sides would lose nearly one million men with very little change in the position of the front line trenches. The battlefields became "killing fields" and only one word "slaughter" accurately describes the extent of the killing, violence and destruction. Three battles exemplify the futility of the efforts on each side and the slaughter that typified the killing. Begun by the Germans in mid-February 1916, and ending in December, a series of battles made up the Battle of Verdun. The magnitude of the effort is revealed by the fact that one million shells and poisonous gas canisters were fired on the first day along an 8 mile line of advancing troops. After ten months, over 40 million shells had been fired. In part because of the way the battlefield and night skies were constantly lit up by the blasts of the artillery, men on both sides referred to the region around Verdun as "the Furnace." The offensive was launched because the German High Command saw it as the last chance to defeat France before all the British forces had landed and because its major advocate, General von Falkenhayn decided, rightly, that Germany could not win the war by attrition or by fighting only on the defense. If Germany was to win the war, he reasoned, she had to win it soon and on the Western Front. In the end, the front lines were nearly the same as when the battles started while over 300,000 French and Germans were killed and over 750,000 were wounded. For the French, Verdun symbolized the strength and fortitude of their armed forces and the solidarity of the entire nation. Verdun is still considered by many military historians as the 'greatest' and most demanding battle in history. After a few short weeks, the battle took on a life of its own, with small groups of men on both sides fighting local battles in constant struggles for life and survival as well as for the little sections of land they were either protecting or trying to capture and secure. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides fought beyond all expected limits of human endurance under conditions that often resembled killing fields. The Battle of the Somme was begun when the British General Douglas Haig ordered a British advance for reasons that even today are not certain. What is clear is the French demanded a British attack to pull part of the German army from Verdun. Without a distraction such as a major attack by the British, the French army was very likely to lose the region around Verdun with Paris being the next target. As in all battles along this front, victory was linked to the destruction of the 13-mile German front line defenses. While the need to attack to take pressure off the French at Verdun was evident, the planning that went into this offensive was not well thought out and what was done was done poorly or with inadequate materials. Because of the use of heavy bombardment of the German lines, British officers told their troops that they would march with ease into the Ger-man trenches where they would find all the Germans dead. The real attack was very different from the expectations. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916, of the 100,000 British who attacked, 20,000 were killed and over 40,000 were wounded to only 6,000 German dead. This day remains the single worst day in deaths and casualties in British military history. Many of the units were made up of men from the same community (or "Pals"), so that high death and casualty rates for a unit meant a large portion of men from that community were dead or wounded. For instance, 3,500 men from Manchester and over 5,000 from London died on July 1st within minutes of one another. Eventually this battle which did not change the front line trenches much at all involved over 2 million men along a 30 mile front and resulted in over 1 million casualties. The Third Battle of Ypres (or "Passchendaele") began on July 31, 1917 and lasted to November 10th after General Haig failed to take advantage of massive destruction of German fortifications caused by nearly 1 million pounds of high explosives on June 7th. During the wettest summer in memory, the rains turned the land into mud fields which quickly and silently swallowed entire vehicles, horses and thousands of men, whether wounded, dead or alive. Men, vehicles and animals were seen slipping off the road and disappearing in seconds beneath the mud. Another danger brought by the rains were the filling up of the bomb craters, foxholes and trenches with water, drowning those too weak to escape, wounded or trapped. By the end of the Battle of Passchendaele, the British forces, which included Canadians and others from throughout the Empire, defeated the Germans with a gain of only five miles and over 250,000 deaths and casualties. Still neither side was closer to defeating the other, especially on the battle field of the Western Front. As the slaughter continued with no significant gains in territory by either side, the men on both sides questioned more openly and often the purposes of continuing the war. The reasons why they were fighting were no longer clear and with this doubt was added doubt about the abilities of their leaders. This video reveals much about these three battles and the perceptions and feelings of Germans, French and British soldiers and civilians about the violence, terror, conditions and killing on the battlefields.
LESSON PLAN SUGGESTIONS 1. Write the Concepts and Themes words on the board or overhead. Ask students to define each. Help them to list all the characteristics of a "slaughter." Ask them why the citizens of a nation would want to continue a war when so many men were dying. Unless students consider these concepts immediately before, during and immediately following this video, they will miss many details. Also, the Concepts and Themes will help them see the video segments as related, complementing one another to describe the moods, events and contexts of the period. 2. Using an overhead or handout, ask students to consider the Key Generalizations and Ideas for this module. Ask them to paraphrase the ones you want to emphasize. Ask them to watch the video with these points in mind, looking for relevant information. 3. Distribute Student Handout 4-A, Questions. You may want them to pay particular attention to specific questions, stopping the video after a segment to give them time to make notes. 4. Distribute Student Handout 4-B, Context and Overview of the Great War. Ask them to read this summary and answer the questions before watching the video. You might supplement this reading with textbooks, other readings or a lecture. 5. Distribute Student Handout 4-C, The Battle of Wirballen. Ask the students to read this account of a short segment of the battle, during which Russian soldiers advanced toward German machine gunners. Ask them to answer the questions and consider what it must have been like for soldiers who were ordered to go over the top. Ask them why a general would order his troops to advance across an open field to try to capture land defended by machine gunners. 6. Distribute Student Handout 4-D, Casualty and Death Tables. Have students examine the data in the two tables and answer the questions. Ask the students to imagine the battle described in Handout 4-C and discuss how the type of offensive maneuvers the Russians used would have contributed to the statistics in table 1. 7. Ask the students to consider the title of the module, SLAUGHTER, and ask them to watch for the events, attitudes, emotions and decisions--both on the battlefield and off--that led to the continuing slaughter in the battles of the Great War. 8. Ask students to reflect on one quote from Student Handout 4-E, Noteworthy Quotes. Ask them to interpret the quotation in the context of the person speaking and the situation in which the statement was made. You might want to ask them to interpret these both before they watch the video and afterward, and then to compare the differences in their interpretations. Students might also offer their personal reactions to particular quotes.
ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES 1. Ask the students to investigate one of the major battles of this war and to report on the decisions and weapons that contributed to the slaughter, violence and destruction. Ask them what lessons might be learned from how this battle was fought. 2. Ask the students to explore the weather conditions during one of the battles of the Great War and to describe how the weather conditions may have affected the battleground and how the battle was fought. 3. After students have researched several battles, ask them to compare the battles in terms of why they were fought, the weapons that were used, the extent of the violence and slaughter, and the results for each side of the fighting. Ask them how the commanders who ordered their men into each of these battles might have justified their orders. 4. Ask the students to write a poem that reflects the violence and slaughter on the battlefields of the Great War. 5. Ask the students to brainstorm the many ways that civilians far away from the front lines may have contributed to the violence and slaughter, directly or indirectly. 6. Ask students to investigate the meaning of the word "slaughter" and to identify how the slaughter of human beings by one another differs from the slaughter of animals by humans for food and other products. 7. Ask students to look for pictures and paintings that portray the violence and slaughter of this war. Ask them to make a list of the emotions they feel toward what these pictures reveal. Ask them to describe the emotions that they might have felt if they had been standing in the picture. Ask them to compare their emotions with those of their classmates.
ADDITIONAL POST-VIEWING QUESTIONS In addition to the questions in the section on Student Learning Expectations and on the student handouts, the following questions may be asked: 1. Why was the Battle of Verdun pivotal for both the French and the Germans? Why did the Germans select Verdun as a target? 2. What are some possible thoughts and feelings of the men who experienced the slaughter of the battlefields, both in terms of surviving the slaughter and of participating in the slaughter of the enemy? 3. Some of the most moving accounts of the effects of the war came from civilians who were not professional writers. What words did they use to describe what it was like to have a loved one fighting in the war? 4. Why did the Battle of the Somme take place?
STUDENT RESOURCES 4-A. Questions. This resource provides a set of questions to focus students' attention on the important content in each segment of the video. 4-B. Context and Overview of the Great War. This resource provides background details to help students put the violence, slaughter and killing fields of the war in perspective. The information will also help the students understand the dominant conditions, events, weapons and moods associated with the slaughter. It includes questions to be answered before seeing the video, questions that you may ask them to reconsider after the viewing. 4-C. The Battle of Wirballen. This resource provides an excerpt from a newspaper article describing a segment of this battle between the Germans and the Russians. 4-D. Casualty and Death Tables. This resource provides two tables: one with data on the total number of casualties and deaths that occurred during the Great War and a second with data on the total number of American deaths and casualties for all major wars. 4-E. Noteworthy Quotes. This resource provides a number of quotes from individuals whose words express the thoughts and feelings associated with the violence and slaughter of the Great War. |
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