World War I

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World War I France

• Illustrated History, pp. 242-8
• Verdun, Realms of Memory

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Key terms

• Trench warfare
• Verdun
• Pétain
• Archduke Franz Ferdinand
• Shell shock

3
Quick facts

• WHAT World War I
• WHEN 1914-1918
• WHO
• TRIPLE ENTENTE France, Russia, Great Britain
  (Belgium)
• CENTRAL POWERS Germany, Austria
• WHY
• The military alliances of the triple entente and
  the central powers had spent the previous two
  decades saber-rattling.
• Hostilities between the two alliances were set
  off by the shot heard round the world
  (assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of
  Austria, in Sarajevo by a Serbian gunman).

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A new kind of war

• DEFENSE. New technologies made war defensive,
  rather than offensive. This resulted in the use
  of
• TRENCH WARFARE. 700 kilometers of trenches, built
  between Switzerland and the English channel.
• NEW TECHNOLOGIES. Airplanes (reconnaissance,
  minor bombing raids), tanks, chemical warfare
  (especially mustard gas), German U-boats,
  Zeppelins, Big-Bertha super-gun.

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The Battle at Verdun

• German siege of a symbolically significant French
  fortress.
• Lasted 9 months (Feb. Dec. 1916).
• Enormous casualties (400,000 Allied, 500,000
  German).
• France held the fortress.
• Present-day site of an important French national
  war monument.

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The aftermath for France (the winner)

• CASUALITIES (French)
• 1.3 million soldiers killed
• 3 million disabled soldiers (1 million of them
  permanent invalids)
• 200,000 civilians killed
• DESTRUCTION
• 1 million buildings destroyed
• much agricultural land made infertile in eastern
  France
• loss of 1 million sheep, 1 million head of
  cattle, 500,000 horses
• ECONOMIC IMPACT catastrophic devaluation of the
  Franc
• FRENCH GAINS
• Alsace and Lorraine won back from Germany
• increased colonial possessions

8
The Wounded Dove and the Fountain poem from
Apollinaire, Calligrammes Poems of Peace and
War (1913-1916) (my translation follows)
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• Sweet faces stabbed Dear lips in bloom
• MIA MAREYE
• YETTE LORIE
• ANNIE and you MARIE
• where are
• you oh
• young women
• BUT
• near a
• fountain which
• cries and which prays
• this dove goes into raptures
• ?
• All the memories of the past / Where are Raynal
  Billy Dalize
• Oh my friends off to war / Whose names
  melancholize
• Spurt up toward the heavens / Like footsteps in a
  church
• And your gazes into the still water / Where is
  Cremnitz who volunteered
• Die melancholically / Maybe they are already dead
• Where are Braque and Max Jacob / Recollections
  fill my soul