England and The Great War

1
England and The Great War

• Origins, Progress, and Meaning 1906-1918

2
Englands Abandoning of Splendid Isolation

• Fear of and Rivalry with GermanyKrueger
  Telegram, 1898 Naval Law
• Dreadnought
• Concerns with Balkans
• Triple Entente (1907)

3
England responds to Von Schlieffen Plan

• Germany refused to evacuate Belgium
• Britain declared war on Germany on August 4,
  1914.
• Why honor an eighty year old treaty to protect
  Belgium
• Zara Steiner Thesis

4
Conduct of the War

• Ironically, since the naval arms race did so much
  to unsettle international relations, there was
  but one major surface ship battle at Jutland in
  1916.
• U-Boats did challenge Britains ability to
  survive.
• German strategy dictated a major land war on the
  western front.

5
Triumvirate of Old Men

• Sir John Frenchcommanded the Br. Expeditionary
  Forceforced to retire in 1915
• Sir Douglas Haig seemed even worse
• Lord Kitchenerno innovator he as Secretary of
  State for War.
• These men thought of war as a chance to test
  ones mettle and struggled to adapt to new
  changes in warfare machine guns, poison gas,
  aircraft, trenches. Haig even wrote that the
  role of cavalry would increase and that the
  bullet lacked stopping power against the horse.

6
French (1852-1925) Haig (1861-1928) Kitchener
(1850-1916)
7
Attempts to Lift Stalemate

• Poison Gas1915YpresGermans
• Dardanelles Expedition (Gallipoli) 1915
• Tanks1916SommeBritish
• German attack at Verdun (1916)
• British reply by attacking at the Somme to
  relieve pressure on Verdun
• Passchendael (July-November 1917)

8
1916 Was Critical Year
9
Battle of the Somme(July 1, 1916-November 18,
1916)

• British suffered 58,000 casualties (1/3 KIA) on
  First Day
• 420,000 British casualties during entire battle.
• Before dawn, in the darkness, I stood with a mass
  of cavalry opposite Fricourt. Haig as a cavalry
  man was obsessed with the idea that he would
  break the German line and send the cavalry
  through. It was a fantastic hope, ridiculed by
  the German High Command in their report on the
  Battles of the Somme which afterwards we
  captured. In front of us was not a line but a
  fortress position, twenty miles deep, entrenched
  and fortified, defended by masses of machine-gun
  posts and thousands of guns in a wide arc. No
  chance for cavalry! But on that night they were
  massed behind the infantry. Among them were the
  Indian cavalry, whose dark faces were illuminated
  now and then for a moment, when someone struck a
  match to light a cigarette. Phillip Gibbs

10
Tank used at the Somme
11
Somme12 KM of Ground Gained
12
Passchendaele was no better

• 4.25 million shells fired to set up the attack.
• Germans used Mustard gas
• Floods of rain and a blanket of mist have doused
  and cloaked the whole of the Flanders plain. The
  newest shell-holes, already half-filled with
  soakage, are now flooded to the brim. The rain
  has so fouled this low, stoneless ground, spoiled
  of all natural drainage by shell-fire, that we
  experienced the double value of the early work,
  for today moving heavy material was extremely
  difficult and the men could scarcely walk in full
  equipment, much less dig. Every man was soaked
  through and was standing or sleeping in a marsh.
  It was a work of energy to keep a rifle in a
  state fit to use. William Beach Thomas

13
310,000 British Casualties At Passchendaele
14
Liquid Mud at Passchendaele

• "I died in Hell
• (they called it Passchendaele)
• my wound was slight
• and I was hobbling back and then a shell
• burst slick upon the duckboards so I fell
• into the bottomless mud, and lost the light"
• Siegfried Sassoon

15
What Sassoon was describing
16
War at Home

• DORAgave cabinet carte blanche to manage
  warresisters were jailed including Labour leader
  J. Ramsay Macdonaldindustry regulated
• All men aged 16 to 51 were eligible for military
  service
• Easter Rebellion (1916)Eamon de Valera

17
Ending the War

• Friedensturm failed and U. S. entered war.
• ArmisticeNov. 11, 1918.
• 750,000 war dead1.5 million woundednational
  debt increased by 8 billion L.
• Income taxes rose from 5 to 30 an death duties
  rose to 40.
• 5.7 million British citizens served in war.

18
1918 Election

• Current Parliament had been sitting since 1911
• Coupon Electiona few Lloyd George Liberals
  plus many conservatives.
• Liberal Party severely divided and Labour becomes
  number 2 party behind National Coalition

19
Treaty of Versailles

• 14 points are not an option
• SecurityBritain wants German navy
• Revenge?
• Mandate System for Ottoman and German Empires
• Post war foreign policy less concerned with
  France and Continent and focused a bit more on
  relations with U. S.

20
War Changes Consciousness
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come
gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene
as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable
sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would
not tell with such high zest To children ardent
for some desperate glory, The old Lie Dulce et
decorum est Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)