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4-A Questions
STUDENT RESOURCE 4-A
This video focuses on the violence, destruction and slaughter that were common in the Great War. These questions will help focus your attention during the video. Answering them will help you understand this era and what the people thought, felt and did.
1. Define "slaughter." What battlefield situations contributed to the slaughter in the Great War, leaving as many as 30,000 men killed in one day?
2. What effects did the war have on artists (Otto Dix, for example) and writers (Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, for example)?
3. Why was the Battle of Verdun pivotal for both the French and the Germans?
Why did the Germans select Verdun as a target?
4. What is a "strategy of attrition"? Why would a military leader adopt such a strategy?
5. What are some possible thoughts and feelings of the men who experienced he slaughter of the battlefields, both in terms of surviving the slaughter and of participating in the slaughter of the enemy?
6. What were the major advantages and disadvantages of groups of friends enlisting together and being assigned to the same small combat unit?
7. What were the effects on the survivors of seeing so many of their friends die within a few minutes of one another?
8. Why would a commanding officer who had lost nearly 20,000 men the first day of a battle continue the battle?
9. What impact did the vivid war documentary The Battle of the Somme have on British civilians?
10. What were the advantages and disadvantages of showing vivid documentary films to civilians?
11. What was life like for the soldiers far behind the trenches? What diversions were available for the mental, emotional and physical health of the men?
12. How did the weather and land conditions affect the men at the front during the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917?
13. Why did the governments and civilians of the combatant nations allow the slaughter to continue?
STUDENT RESOURCE 4-B
Context and Overview of the Great War: SLAUGHTER
More soldiers were killed during World War I than any war before or since. Battlefields were like slaughter houses. Men were mutilated, dismembered and even disappeared as a result of the new weapons and improvement in existing weapons. The writings of men on both sides spoke of and had to get used to living with the body parts of friends and enemies alike. The destruction was so terrible and effective that at war's end, the bodies of over half the nine million were never found to be buried. The destruction that accompanied the "killing fields" in, behind and in front of the trenches on both fronts affected every person who had direct contact with it and the millions of civilians who knew those in uniform.
In early 1916, 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.
From February 21st to early December, 1916, a series of battles referred to as the Battle of Verdun was fought after the Germans made a surprise attack to capture this vital French fortress area and town. On the first day, the Germans fired one million shells and poisonous gas canisters along an 8 mile front. 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 German 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. After the battle, the front lines were nearly the same as when it began while over 300,000 French and Germans were killed and over 750,000 were wounded. For the French. Even today the efforts by the French at Verdun symbolize the strength and fortitude of her armed forces and the solidarity of the entire nation.
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 make the term "killing field" insufficient. Today the Battle of Verdun is considered by many military historians as the "greatest" and most demanding battle in history.
By mid summer 1916, 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. Being a good ally, the British General Douglas Haig ordered a British advance that began the Battle of the Somme for reasons that even today are not certain. 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 German trenches where they would find all the Germans dead.
The actual results were very different from the expectations. For instance, 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.
A year later, General Haig ordered another battle that become known as the Third Battle of Ypres (or "Passchendaele"). This battle began on July 31 and lasted to November 10, 1917. Once again 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.
Throughout 1916 to mid 1918, the slaughter continued with no significant gains in territory by either side. However, with the results of the major battles of 1916 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. At the same time, their leaders planned more battles using many of the same strategies and even more destructive weapons. The leaders did not question that their men would continue to fight regardless of the conditions, results and the slaughter.
QUESTIONS
1. What information in this reading would justify the use of the word "slaughter" to describe the results of the fighting on the battlefields?
2. What would be a good definition of a "killing field"? What information in this description would suggest that the battlefields were often "killing fields"?
3. The three battles described are considered by many to be the most memorable of the war. What are two facts about each battle that would make it a "memorable" one?
4. Given the way each battle was fought and the results of each, to what extent were the soldiers on both sides justified in asking why the war was continuing?
5. From the information in this description and the video, what words would accurately describe the battle conditions during any one of these three battles?
6. Imagine you were a soldier in one of these three armies during 1916 and 1917. Which of these three battles would you have most wanted to avoid?
7. Imagine you were a friend or relative of a soldier in this war. Imagine further that the army informed you that it could not find the body of this soldier in order to bury it. What impact might this news have on you? Where might you go to remember this soldier?
STUDENT RESOURCE 4-C
The Battle of Wirballen
Below is part of a newspaper account of a few minutes in one battle between the Germans and the Russians. The story is an example of the slaughter that took place along all the battlefronts of the war.
Karl H. von Wiegand, The United Press, October 8, 1914
The German officers moved along in the open behind the trenches encouraging and steadying their men, preparing them for the shock. Finally came the Russian order to advance.
At the word, hundreds of yards of the Russian fighting line leaped forward, deployed in open order, and came on. One, two, three, and in some places four and five successive skirmish lines, separated by intervals of from 20 to 50 yards, swept forward...
From the outset of the advance the German artillery, ignoring for the moment the Russian artillery actions, began shelling the onrushing mass with wonderfully timed shrapnel, which burst low above the advancing lines and tore sickening gaps.
But the Russian line never stopped. For the third time in two days they came tearing on, with no indication of have been affected by the terrible consequences of the two previous charges.
As a spectacle the whole thing was maddening...For the first time I sensed the intoxication of battle and learned the secret of the smiles on the faces of the battlefield's dead.
On came the Slav swarm-into the range of the German trenches, with wild yells and never a waver...The advance line thinned and the second line moved up. Nearer and nearer they swept toward the German positions.
And then came a new sight! A few seconds later came a new sound. First I saw a sudden, almost grotesque, melting of the advancing lines. It was different from anything that had taken place before.
The men literally went down like dominoes in a row. Those who kept their feet were hurled back as though by a terrible gust of wind. Almost in the second that I pondered, puzzled, the staccato rattle of machine guns reached us.
For the first time the advancing lines hesitated, apparently bewildered. Mounted officers dashed along the line urging the men forward...
The crucial period for the section of the charge on which I had riveted my attention probably lasted less than a minute. To my throbbing brain it seemed an hour.
Then, with the withering fire raking them, even as they faltered, the lines broke. Panic ensued. It was every man for himself. The entire Russian charge turned and went tearing back to cover and the shelter of the Russian trenches.
I swept the entire line of the Russian advance with my glasses...The dead were everywhere. They were not piled up, but were strewn over acres.
More horrible than the sight of the dead, though, were the other pictures brought up by the glasses. Squirming, tossing, writhing figures everywhere! The wounded!
All who could stumble or crawl were working their way back toward their own lines or back to the friendly cover of hills or wooded spots.
But there appeared to be hundreds to whom was denied even this hope, hundreds doomed to lie there in the open, with wounds unwashed and undressed, suffering from thirst and hunger until the merciful shadows of darkness make possible their rescue.
(Source: Louis L. Snyder, ed. 1958. Historic Documents of World War I. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 122-124.)
1. The word "slaughter" often describes what took place on the battlefields of the Great War. What other words describe what happened to the Russian troops in this battle?
2. The improvements to the American machine gun made it a very deadly weapon in this war. Based on the description in this news article, what impact did this weapon have on the movement of men on the battlefield?
3. Imagine that you are one of the Russian soldiers ordered to advance toward the German line. What are your thoughts and feelings just before you climb out of the trench?
4. Imagine that you are one of the German machine gunners. What are your thoughts and feelings as you watch the Russians advance across the field?
Casualty and Death Tables
One way to understand the violence and slaughter that occurred in the Great War is to examine the number of casualties and deaths. Exact figures are still in dispute, because of different definitions used for each category, the questionable accuracy of the recording systems used and the loss or destruction of a number of official documents. The data in the tables below reflect numbers from several sources and are consistent with most experts' current estimates.
1. How does the military define a casualty?
2. In each table, which figure is the most surprising?
3. How do these figures justify using the word "slaughter" to describe life and death on the battlefields of this war?
4. Imagine that you are writing a news article based on the data presented in these tables. What five pieces of information would you include?
5. Given that the U.S. army fought in the Great War for less than nine months, what do these figures reveal about America's contribution to the war effort?
Noteworthy Quotes: SLAUGHTER
"Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?"
"Death is the only conqueror."
"Nothing is so trying as a continuous, terrific barrage such as we experienced, ..especially the intense English fire...Darkness alternates with light as bright as day. The earth trembles and shakes like jelly. And those men who are still in the front line hear nothing but the drum fire, the groaning of wounded comrades, the screaming of fallen horses, the wild beating of their own hearts, hour after hour, night after night."
"Lice, rats, barbed wire, fleas, shells, bombs, underground caves, corpses, blood, liquor, mice, cats, artillery, filth, bullets, mortars, fire, steel: that is what war is. It is the work of the devil."
"There's death everywhere. At our feet, the wounded groan in a pool of blood. For hours these groans and supplications continue until they die before our eyes without anyone being able to help them."
Total
Prisoners
Casualties
Mobilized
and
Total
as % of
Country
Forces
Killed
Wounded
Missing
Casualties
Forces
Allied and
Associated Powers
Russia
12,000,000
1,700,000
4,950,000
2,500,000
9,150,000
76.3
British Empire
8,904,467
908,371
2,090,212
191,652
3,190,235
35.8
France
8,410,000
1,357,800
4,266,000
537,000
6,160,800
73.3
Italy
5,615,000
650,000
947,000
600,000
2,197,000
39.1
United States
4,355,000
116,516
204,002
4,500
323,018
7.1
Japan
800,000
300
907
3
1,210
0.2
Romania
750,000
335,706
120,000
80,000
535,706
71.4
Serbia
707,343
45,000
133,148
152,958
331,106
46.8
Belgium
267,000
13,716
44,686
34,659
93,061
34.9
Greece
230,000
5,000
21,000
1,000
27,000
11.7
Portugal
100,000
7,222
13,751
12,318
33,291
33.3
Montenegro
50,000
3,000
10,000
7,000
20,000
40.0
TOTAL
42,188,810
5,142,631
12,800,706
4,121,090
22,064,427
52.3
Central Powers
Germany
11,000,000
1,773,700
4,216,058
1,152,800
7,142,558
64.9
Austria-Hungary
7,800,000
1,200,000
3,620,000
2,200,000
7,020,000
90.0
Turkey
2,850,000
325,000
400,000
250,000
975,000
34.2
Bulgaria
1,200,000
87,500
152,390
27,029
266,919
22.2
TOTAL
22,850,000
3,386,200
8,388,448
3,629,829
15,404,477
67.4
GRAND TOTAL
65,038,810
8,528,831
21,189,154
7,750,919
37,468,904
57.5
NA = Not Available
Number
Battle
Disease
Total
War
Serving
Deaths
Accidents
Wounded
Casualties
Revolutionary War
NA
4,435
NA
6,188
NA
War of 1812
286,730
2,260
NA
4,505
NA
Mexican War
78,718
1,733
11,550
4,152
17,435
Civil War
2,213,363
140,414
224,097
281,881
646,392
Spanish-American War
306,760
385
2,061
1,662
4,108
World War I
4,743,826
53,513
63,195
204,002
320,710
World War II
16,353,659
292,131
115,185
670,846
1,078,162
Korean War
5,764,143
33,651
NA
103,284
NA
Vietnam War
8,744,000
47,369
10,799
153,303
211,147
Persian Gulf War
467,539
148
145
467
760
* Does not include the number of soldiers missing in action
Source: U. S. Department of Defense
QUESTIONS
War involves people, not just nations. These quotes will help you understand the thoughts and feelings of some of the people involved in the Great War. After watching the video, you should be able to interpret each quotation in the context of the person speaking and the situation in which the statement was made. (Quotes marked with an asterisk are from the video.)
"One eats, one drinks beside the dead, one sleeps in the midst of the dying, one laughs and one sings in the company of corpses."
Georges Duhamel
French surgeon at Verdun, 1916
British recruitment poster
Friedrich Georg Steinbrecher
British solder, November 1916
Gerhard Gurtler
German soldier at Passchendaele, August 10, 1917
Otto Dix, 1917*
German machine gunner and artist
Henri Desagneau*