lecture 14, "trench warfare"
john merriman

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the war up through 1916, today

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on the last day of his life, jean jaures was troubled by what he was going to write about WWI--whether workers of France should fight workers of Germany.

his decision reflects what is called the "sacred union" between all political parties in the war effort. he wrote, then, an article with the headline "Forward/Let's Go," and he went out to a cafe after writing it--and a right-winger put a pistol through a curtain into the restaurant and blew him away. there was tremendous turmoil in the street, a sense that things would never be the same again.

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the way the war started, the way the military planners wanted it to start. german soldiers were going to put Paris/France into a headlock--they would march into Belgium (netrual since 1830s), and wrap around France. Germany is under pressure, again, to win the war quickly.

on the 2nd of August, however, the Belgian government rejected German demands--they fought against overpowering German stregnth. eventually Liege falls after a huge bombardment on the 16th. and once the Germans get through the hills of Eastern Belgium, they move fairly quickly.

the German commander, however, uses some divisions to try and pin down the Belgians. and he has some concerns with regards to the home front (how far the French will go into Alsace). and they have to transfer some troops to the home front, there. so they have fewer troops than in the original plan. and sure enough, the British expeditionary force finally arrives on the 20th of August, in Southern Belgium. but everyone is fairly sure that the war will be over, relatively soon. four divisions, also, are sent to Russia, where the Tsar has advanced far more quickly than had been anticipated.

despite huge losses, on both sides. German forces soon come within 35 miles of Paris (so close that they bombard Paris on Easter Day 1918)--and you can hear the fighting in the city. if someone wants an explanation for how the French home front is able to hold, "spectacularly", throughout the war, there are two key factors: (1) pressure is obvious, and response is heroic; (2) the "sacred union" is extremely effective in mobilizing people across France. (this is unlike Berlin, which is another story).

so, as Germans are trying to drive to Paris, we're also seeing the dawn of air warfare (attempts to drop small bombs from planes). there's a recon pilot, however, who's noting that the Germans are leaving a flank open--at that point the French rush every available soldier to exploit this weakness in the Battle of the Marne (5th September to 12th September 1914). Even the Parisian taxis are conscripted to take soldiers to the front. The British help, pouring through another gap, forcing a 40 mile retreat. And that is the largest exchange of real estate that will take place until 1918. And, without question, this saves Paris.

this is the beginning of trench warfare (a race to the sea to capture ports). the Germans start to dig trenches to fortify themselves. the famous "Western Front."

it had been noted that in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, this had been seen. and this is what happens here, the spade, shovel, the machine gun, artillery, and gas/flame-throwers become the weapons of the war--two armies facing each other across no-man's land. trenches all the way from Switzerland to the English Channel.

attempts to break through don't work. and it's not difficult to understand why--the trenches have very strong defense lines behind them.

the strategy that they adopt is what is known as "creeping barrages"--you try and soften up your opposition by killing as many people as possible, in the area you're going to charge. and all this does is alert your opponent where you are going. thus, besides killing lots of people, these creeping barrages simply kill a lot of people--they create craters on no-man's land where you try and hide, but you are inevitably taken out by the line of machine-guns. horrific.

there's a vigorous historical debate on "did they know what they were doing?"--image of higher-ups drinking champagne in a Chatauex, sending young people to their deaths. it was clear, to the soldiers, that there wasn't going to be a break-through--but there isn't one until the Germans break through in the Spring of 1918. (real estate is exchanged in yards. gains of a couple kilometers are rare.)

a huge discontinuity between soldier and civilian life--popular press exaggerates virtues, bravery, etc., whereas soldiers obviously enormously jaded and scarred. impossible for soldiers to discuss their experiences with those who believe that they wake up every morning and shout "Long Live France."

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by the end of 1914 (half-year of fighting), German and French troops had combined casualties of 300,000 (600,000 wounded--terribly wounded, generally).

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story of Christmas Day, 1914, where they sung songs and played football with each other. in 1915, a British soldier suggested that they do it again--his officers put him against the wall and shot him, for treason. there was a rumor in the trenches that there were troops from both sides with light wounds who were surviving happily in an underground cavern.

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new ways of dying, new ways of going nuts--living amongst mice, lice, dead bodies, fallen comrades, etc. new miseries.

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there are countless atrocity stories that circulate on both sides. most of the atrocities on the western front were committed by the Germans. 500 Belgian civilians executed; rape, limited, not yet a weapon of war.

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why do the Germans try and push through, at Verdun, from February to December 1916. prof is contending that they believe that they can do so by virtue of their greater birth rate--i.e., they will win any battle of attrition, and can therefore afford greater casualties. "we will bleed them."

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what made this war "total warfare"? the mobilization of an entire society--its entire productive capacities--for an extended period of time, towards these martial aims.

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Germany losing this war, after being far inside France for an extended period of time, made it easy for Hitler and other right-wing leaders to say, "we were winning? how did we lose it? we were stabbed in the back by the anti-nationalists--the communists, the socialists, the jews."