The Ugly Face of Nationalism: The Battlefields of WWI

1. The Ugly Face of Nationalism: The Battlefields of WWI Social 20-2 LCHS Canadian Troops at Passchendale

2. Early WWI - Ultranationalism Breeds Overconfidence • Ultranationalism was running high amongst the people preparing to fight WWI. • People gathered to cheer and celebrate the outbreak of war. • Most people thought that the war would be a short and glorious chance for adventure. • Everyone was confident that their side would win quickly.

3. A Collision of Old Ideas About Warfare and Modern Ways of Killing • When WWI began, people were still following very old ideas about fighting wars. • For example generals still believed in mass charges of men and cavalry in direct attacks against the enemy.

4. Hiram Maxim’s New Killer – The Modern Machine Gun • The machine gun made the battlefields of WWI deadly fields of flying metal. • The first mass produced “modern” machine gun was invented by an American named Hiram Maxim. • One day Hiram was talking with his friends about wanting to make a lot of money as an inventor. One of his friends suggested that if he really wanted to make boatloads of cash, he should invent a weapon that would allow the European powers to slaughter each other by the thousands. • Hiram’s machine gun could fire 500 rounds per minute. • His gun design would be bought out by the Vickers gun company. This company improved on the basic design of the gun and the Vickers gun became the official gun of the British (Canadian) army. • The German army used a copy of Maxim’s gun as their official machine gun.

5. Machine Guns at Work in WWI

6. WWI Artillery – The Big Guns

7. Incredible Destructive Power Unleashed • The biggest gun used in the war was this huge German rail gun called “The Paris Gun”. • It was designed to shell Paris from 120 km away with a 210 lbs (90 kgs) shell. The shell would reach a height of 40 kms on its journey. • The gun was designed as a terror weapon. The people of Paris thought that they were being bombed by a new and phantom weapon since they could not hear the thunder of guns or the rumble of airplane engines when these shells were dropping on their city. • The artillery of WWI turned the battlefields into pockmarked moonscapes of huge shell craters. • With so much metal flying through the air from machine guns and artillery bombardments, it was only a matter of time before commanders and soldiers figured out that to stay upright was suicide. Trenches were dug by both sides to try to keep their soldiers safe from fire.

8. The Western Front – A Race to Outflank the Enemy • Most of the fighting on the western front of WWI took place in France and Belgium. • A network of trenches ran through France and Belgium and stopped when they hit the mountains in the south east and the ocean in the north west.

10. Conditions in the Trenches – Mud, Rats, Lice, Poison Gas, Bullets, Bombs and Other Insanity .

13. Barbed Wire

14. Germans trying to advance across No-Man’s Land through Barbed Wire

18. Other New Weapons of WWI

19. One French soldier who became a "man without a face". Facial injuries such as this were common during the war, and thousands had disfiguring head and face wounds. In the photo to the right, the "man with no face" after facial surgery. In many instances, the surgery included constructing permanent masks that were incorporated onto the man's face. New Medicine – Plastic Surgery

20. Propaganda – Getting Nations’ Support

21. The Kiss – Sigfired Sassoon To these I turn, in these I trust— Brother Lead and Sister Steel. To his blind power I make appeal, I guard her beauty clean from rust. He spins and burns and loves the air, And splits a skull to win my praise; But up the nobly marching days She glitters naked, cold and fair. Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this: That in good fury he may feel The body where he sets his heel … Quail from your downward darting kiss.

22. DULCE ET DECORUM EST – Wilfred Owen "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:mors et fugacem persequitur virumnec parcit inbellis iuventaepoplitibus timidove tergo.“ "How sweet and lovely it is to die for your country:Death pursues the man who flees,spares not the hamstrings or cowardly backsOf battle-shy youths." • Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,  Till on the haunting flares2 we turned our backs  And towards our distant rest3 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 hoots4 Of tired, outstripped5 Five-Nines6 that dropped behind. • Gas!7 Gas! Quick, boys! –  An ecstasy of fumbling,  Fitting the clumsy helmets8 just in time;  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,  And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime9 . . .  Dim, through the misty panes10 and thick green light,  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.  In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,  He plunges at me, guttering,11 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 cud12 Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,  My friend, you would not tell with such high zest13 To children ardent14 for some desperate glory,  The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum estPro patria mori.15