Woodrow Wilson campaigned in 1916 "to keep America out of war". By 1918, we were embroiled in Europe's fight. This so-called "First World War" was supposed to solve all the world's conflicts and bring peace to Earth. Clearly, it did not.
For this week's blog, spend some time at this website. Notice all the information available to you on the left side of the page (The Details, Multimedia & Narratives). Find a section(s) that interest you and spend some time learning about that aspect of WWI. It may be the propaganda posters, the cause of the war, battlefield maps, new weaponry for this war etc. Pursue what sparks your interest.
For the comment section, write about what you learned. What area(s) jumped out at you? What do you know now that you did not know before this blog?
*Remember, you comment must be at least 200 words.
Well first of all I didn't realize they used these during this age and that they used them to observe it seems kinda dangerous to me. But after reading this i found out that this was not a new innovation and that they were heavily protected by machine guns and anti craft yet it was still considered a dangerous job. They would observe and send information down by the way of radio or sometimes flags which they used certain types to relay messages. If someone brought down a hot air balloon it was added to his list of kills. It was problematic to shoot them down because regular bullets would go straight through the fabric without setting it on fire. When they saw the attack they would start to winch it down and if the pilot did not shoot it down the mission was failed many of these pilots made sure not to go beneath 1000 feet for the fear of anti craft shooting back and them getting killed. The service men had parachutes just in case it did catch a blaze but the chances of them escaping after it had were slim to none. So this was pretty much just setting there Men out to die. (207)
ReplyDeleteWhen war broke out the number of aircraft on both sides were very small. During the war France produced no less than 68,000 aircraft. 52,000 of them was lost in battle. Which is equivalent to 77% of the aircraft. In 1914 it was more important that aircraft would be easy to fly than the amount of training the pilot would get. The rapid pace of technological innovation was matched by a rapid change in the uses in which they put the aircraft. While the planes did not play in the deceive roll that it was to play in later conflicts, the First World War proved their capabilities. One of the things I didn't know was that the Flamethrower has been dated back to the 5th century. Having tested the flamethrower in 1900 the German army developed it for use in three specialist battalions. The development of poison gas was necessitated by the requirements of war time armies to find new ways of overcoming the stalemate of unexpected trench warfare. During the morning of of April the Germans poured a heavy bombardment around Ypres but the line fell silent after the afternoon grew. The First World War has sometimes been labeled a dimly affair with good reasons.
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One thing that they used were bayonets. A bayonet was attached to the end of a rifle so that if an enemy was coming at you it would be a quick way to take them out. But when former people in WW1 were asked about them they said they used them mainly for insignificant purposes like opening a can or something like that. I never knew that the bayonet wasn't very important. Now the flamethrower. The flamethrower has been around for quite awhile, just not in war. The first use of the flamethrower in war was by the Germans against the British audit was a successful attack. After the Germans attacked the British with flamethrowers the made it more common to have a flamethrower in war. In German the flamethrower is called the Flammenwerfer. The French were the ones who developed poison gas even though the germans are the ones credited for the first use of it. An example would be tear gas grenades. When they were inventing the tank it took many ideas. For an example they tired and armored car they tried a tractor with the tracks a tank has and finally they got the Killen-Strait around 1915. It wasn't necessarily a tank but it was the closest thing to it. The first tanks nickname was little Willie eventually would become big willie. (225)
ReplyDeleteHe desperately sought a reason for Germany's defeat. He hated Jews, Bolsheviks and even Democrats. He was a war veteran of some of Germany's worst firestorms. all of Hitler's World War 2 policies came from his experiences of the First World War. In 1909 hitter was living in Austrio-hungaria in the city of Vienna. Both oh his parents were dead so he made a living by painting picture postcards or designing adverts for local businesses. He was rejected from the Viennese Academy of Art and became salty. At night he did not have his own home so he slept in a doss-house behind a railway station. Hitler spent most of his time in the city's libraries reading political tracts and he would change what he read into the way he believed and his corrupt political career can be brought back to this time. He would discuss politics with anyone who would debate him. It was said that if you disagreed with him all you would hear about was conspiracies or terrible thoughts about the Jews. By 1913 he was being actively pursued by the Austrian police because he was a "draft-drogger" on October 7 hitler got shot in the leg. He had to step back while he watched his side have little to no rations of food and many men die leading to Germany's loss in the First World War. Something I didn't know was He admitted this in 1941, saying: "When I returned from the War, I brought back home with me my experiences at the front; out of them I built my National Socialist community."(I did not know he held such Darwinistic views)276 words
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I opened the website, the vintage photographs section really stuck out to me. I've always loved looking at old photographs and figuring out a story behind each one. You don't really think about it, but photographs from days like these really show us a lot, and help us learn new things about the past. It's one thing to read about something, but it's another to see it for yourself. One photo in particular really stuck out to me. Under the miscellaneous section, there is a photo of a crippled soldier working with an artificial limb. My first reaction was pity and sadness for the soldier, but my second reaction was astonishment at the level of modernization that we had at this time. We often make assumptions that life hadn't quite figured itself out, especially in the realm of technology and innovation, but we have to give them credit for always working and progressing in all areas. We think that just because people didn't iPhones and modern safety equipment they were stupid and weren't trying hard enough, but this is the complete opposite. The start of the First World War was the start of a movement. Not just on the battlefield, but in the minds of people everywhere. This was my biggest takeaway from the website, and possibly from the blog as a whole. (226)
ReplyDeleteTo me, it's crazy to think that the death of one person's life can be the outbreak of such a bad war. The "War in the Air" section talks about how after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, "The Great War" immediately started the next month. I also found the weapons interesting. When I think of a war, for weapons, a gun comes to my mind. In the "Weaponry" section I read about how poison gases were developed and the tank was important as well. Along with those two weapons, the use of bayonets, grenades, pistols, machine guns, rifles, and trench mortars were greatly needed for defense during this war. One of the last things I came across was the "Who's Who" section. I clicked on "Royalty" and a huge list of different people from all over came up. I never really thought about the amount of emperors, kings, princes, ect. that there were. These people came from places like Belgium, Serbia, Russia, Greece, and many more. I never knew there was such a variety of different people that had such important places in this war. I noticed all of the different flags from where the people came from and thought it was interesting. (203)
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that the assignation of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in June 1914 was what sparked the war, that Bismarck attempted to place a Hohenzollern prince on the throne in Spain, even though I don't know what that word means I thought it was interesting. I didn't know that posters made a real difference, especially that recruitment posters were in use for most of the war. I thought it was interesting that the U.S.A. joined the war relatively late in April 1917 but still produced more posters than any other nation, I think that shows that we were serious about the situation and we really believed it would be an encouragement to other citizens. The Posters urged wartime thrift, and were asking for money from the public, the posters weren't just for recruitment. Originally I thought that the Germans and Nazis originated the idea of tear ga and gas chambers, but I was suprised to know that it was actually the French In 1914, they fired tear-gas grenades against the Germans. But the German army was the first to use it on a large scale. Germans were ahead in mortar preparedness and the British shared production of the mortar. (202)
ReplyDeleteThe flame thrower wasn't as destructive physically as much as mentally when you first see a wall of flames and nothing else. But mentally if you get over it and start shooting where the flames are coming from you can hit their pack or reserve where they are holding the fuel and then it will explode. The flamethrower was first introduced in 5th century B.C. It consisted of flammable particles and a person that would blow those flammable particles out of one end like a blow gun. The flamethrower was later reinvented and made better it consisted of a lit end, a trigger and three to four tubes consisting of hydrogen in one tube, nitrogen in another, oxygen in another, and carbon dioxide in another combined with pressurized air. When the trigger was pulled one of the gasses expelled and would shoot out a wall of fire up to 18 meters. That was the portable version. The Germans experimented with a larger one but it blew up in their faces figuratively and literally. But the British made a successful tank like flamethrower that's weight was almost 2 tons. They would install them in trenches literally they would build them in the middle of battle and they sometimes got blown up by the occasional mortar. But if they didn't they'd be terrifying in battle because they shot a flame that would set any thing within 90 yards(almost a full football field) ablaze. The flamethrowers presence in battle wasn't very scary after you overcame it and find out how to stop them which they did eventually and all i'm going to say is that it was lit. Unlike the tank in which we use today their life in battle was short lived because of all the people that held them usually burned to death and sometimes their war buddies went down with them. And they didn't last long as in they aren't used in battle as much anymore. The strategy with using flamethrowers were: they were usually in a group of six and two people that had the flamethrowers and the rest rifles and the riflemen would protect the flamethrowers. Make sure they don't get shot in the back. But the counter to it was just rain bullets into where the fire was coming from and then most of the time they blew up. And if one flame thrower goes down usually the other goes down and then consequently the protectors went down with them. Flamethrowers are still used today but they are used rarely, mostly by other countries and not the U.S.(434)words
ReplyDeleteTo me I knew more about World War 2 having being interested in it myself, but I didn't know too much about World War 1 before this. I did know about Verdun and such but what striked me as new knowledge was the fact they had trouble finding the events written in the boom 'Chronology'. It explained how the entry of July 1st was lacking information about the nearly 60,000 lives lost by the British that day. This shows me that there could possibly be even more we don't know about the war that was never recorded.
ReplyDeleteFrance had very few aircraft as little as 140 with their war against Germany but that number increased to 4,500 only four years later, that struck me as something very vital and interesting about just how production can be stimulated and increased due to conflict and threats of war. The country really had no option to boost their production of planes, it's either spend the money on industry or get rolled over by another country who has conflict with you. The weaponry in WW1 was obviously different from the technology and weapons in WW2 or even modern day. Interestingly enough the bayonet was a psychological weapon, both a positive for those using it and negative for those against it. It helped close the thoughts such as "What if I get within whispering distance of the enemy?" The bayonet was the solution to that. It reminded me of the MG42 from WW2 having a different psychological effect, but similar in the scare factor. Just like the MG42 with its high rate of fire and suppression. The bayonet made enemies on edge of searching an unknown building or coming around a corner. Machine Guns were used as suppression tools in trenches just like WW2 and the innovation of poison gas was implemented into the French and German armies. This poison gas was later used and even modern day such as white phosphorus barrages or napalm used it vietnam. Although those might be different in how they worked, they were similar in goals. Trench mortars were obviously a form of artillery and used to lock down a grid area to make sure it was clear. Tanks, although lower in grade from WW2; they still had the same purpose, clearing infantry and advancing the line. They often got stuck in trenches though and were unreliable early on. They aren't at all like the tanks we have today with HE and AP rounds out of a 105mm cannon and 350 mm of armor. It could be described as a prototype of what we have today and was sometimes successful and sometimes not so much. 2,636 tanks were produced by the British and were the first to use them, but the French produced 3,870.
Propaganda was obviously a thing just like in WW2 it played a big role in morale of troops and the citizens of countries. They were intended to boost confidence to join the military and fight. There were commanders of war, we often overlook how the structure of war is really played out but it takes all sorts of people to be successful. Of course the commanders who thought out viable strategy's and led divisions. Then the Air Aces which was new to this era of war, when back in 1965 we would have never imagined a flying vehicle to fight and bomb. And then there were Politicians who opposed or prosecuted the war. Going to war is no easy task and requires a country to completely shift its view to that. You have to use all your resources to come out undefeated and that may cost millions of lives, just like it costed the Russians in World War 2. But we've learned how to resolve conflict a bit better in modern day than we did back then. I think WW1 really started the impact wars have on us today.
(658 Words)
-Matthew Mettendorf
They used bayonets. A bayonet was attached to the end of a rifle so that if an enemy was coming at you it would be a quick way to take them out. The first use in a flame thrower was by the Germans against audit. The flamethrower wasn't as destructive as people thought it was. The flamethrower has first been introduced in the fifth century. The British had later on made a tank like a flamethrower but the tank weighed two tons. The weapons were obviously a big interest to me when reading through these. A lot of the weapons that I read about I wouldn't have really thought about. The poison gas one was pretty interesting to me I had never heard of that before. I had only heard of war weapons as being like guns, pistols, tanks, ect. I also enjoyed looking at the old pictures I think the most interesting picture I came across while looking at them was the picture of King George in a gun pit. 201
ReplyDeleteBasicalł the machine gun was a gun that required a good skill and to be decently strong and that you had to have a good amount of people who can work well together. It was used to take out groups of people and basically they had it on a tripod. And you had to four to six people around helping you run the machine gun. They could fire between four and six hundred rounds per minute. They would double the capacity by the end of the war. The biggest problem with the machine guns was that they would over heat and become very inoperative until they were properly cooled down by certain machines and or ways of cooling them down. That is part of the reason you had to have so many people to fire one. They fired so fast because they had a belt or strip of fabric on them that contained belt full of bullets that could stretch to be one to three feet long. They would be cooled down by water or air depending on how it was being operated. By the end of the war they where trying to make a assault rifle so that they could run and take the machine gun to the offensive side of the fight instead of it just being a defensive weapon.(222)
ReplyDeleteLots of these topics I already know but one that I have never really looked into stood out the most and that was Adolf Hitler's wartime experience. The first World War is what shaped him into the cruel and evil dictator that he would become for the nation of Germany. When he was victimized by the war and found out they lost, he was in great tears. He immediately searched for reason of why and how Germany lost in World War I. He was enraged by the loss and he quickly learned his hate for Jews, Slavs, and Democrats. Hitler believed he was an artistic genius and became very angry when people rejected what he thought was his talent. Hitler was from Vienna but loved Germany with a great passion. When war broke out, he enlisted in the German Army. He first had to wait to see if he was approved to join. When he saw that he was, he immediately praised God for it and crumbled to his knees. It said that he was very nationalistic which explained why he felt Germany was betrayed when they surrendered. However the most interesting thing that I saw from this entire article is that Hitler would've been killed if it weren't for the compassion of one soldier. Private Henry Tandey was a good soldier for the english army during World War One. Upon Hitler fleeing back to his original lines, the man had a clear shot to kill Hitler on the spot. However he was overwhelmed with compassion and decided not to take the shot. One shot that could've changed the entire outcome of the world and save millions not taken. World War One definitely had a strong impact on the future that we have today and impacted WWII in ways that I never knew it did. (259 words)
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ReplyDeleteMany poets from many different nations wrote poems about the war. Muse in Arms is a notable book, a collection of 131 poems written by seamen, soldiers, and flying men who served in World War II. It was first published in London in November 1917 then reprinted in February 1918. Some of the poetry written in it were by poets who eventually became famous, like Ivor Gurney, Robert Nichols, and Rupert Brooke. But it also help to bring notoriety to the "common" men, soldiers who never achieved post-war fame, but still had unique and powerful views and ideas, not to mention talent writing poetry. I never knew that so much poetry was written about World War II. I know that poetry was written about battles in the past, The Star Spangled Banner and The Charge of the Light Brigade come to mind, but to me battle poems seem like a thing of the past. Poems about heros and battles, last stands and victory only happen in fantasy and history, so I thought. It is weird to think of something so modern being written about in poetry. Many of the Poems are quite moving, painful even, and it is sombering to get such a personal look at the personal feelings of the people who went though the war. These scraps of prose were probably scribbled on some page by soldiers who knew they might not live to see tomorrow, and that gives them a kind of power, a weight to them.
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