Why do you think these two sides are fighting?

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In August 1914, both sides expected a quick victory. Neither leaders nor civilians from warring nations were prepared for the length and brutality of the war, which took the lives of millions by its end in 1918. The loss of life was greater than in any previous war in history, in part because militaries were using new technologies, including tanks, airplanes, submarines, machine guns, modern artillery, flamethrowers, and poison gas.

The map below shows the farthest advances of Axis and Allied forces on the fronts to the west, east, and south of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Most of the war's major battles took place between those lines of farthest advance on each front. Germany’s initial goal was to knock the French out of the war by occupying Belgium and then quickly march into France and capture Paris, its capital. German troops could then concentrate on the war in the east. That plan failed, and by the end of 1914, the two sides were at a stalemate. Before long, they faced each other across a 175-mile-long line of trenches that ran from the English Channel to the Swiss border. These trenches came to symbolize a new kind of warfare. A young officer named Harold Macmillan (who later became prime minister of Britain) explained in a letter home:

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the modern battlefield is the desolation and emptiness of it all. . . . Nothing is to be seen of war or soldiers—only the split and shattered trees and the burst of an occasional shell reveal anything of the truth. One can look for miles and see no human being. But in those miles of country lurk (like moles or rats, it seems) thousands, even hundreds of thousands of men, planning against each other perpetually some new device of death. Never showing themselves, they launch at each other bullet, bomb, aerial torpedo, and shell. And somewhere too . . . are the little cylinders of gas, waiting only for the moment to spit forth their nauseous and destroying fumes. And yet the landscape shows nothing of all this—nothing but a few shattered trees and 3 or 4 thin lines of earth and sandbags; these and the ruins of towns and villages are the only signs of war anywhere.

The glamour of red coats—the martial tunes of fife and drum—aide-de-camps scurrying hither and thither on splendid chargers—lances glittering and swords flashing—how different the old wars must have been. The thrill of battle comes now only once or twice in a [year]. We need not so much the gallantry of our fathers; we need (and in our Army at any rate I think you will find it) that indomitable and patient determination which has saved England over and over again.1

The area between the opposing armies’ trenches was known as “No Man's Land” for good reason. Fifty years after the war, Richard Tobin, who served with Britain’s Royal Naval Division, recalled how he and his fellow soldiers entered No Man’s Land as they tried to break through the enemy’s line. “As soon as you got over the top,” he told an interviewer, “fear has left you and it is terror. You don’t look, you see. You don’t hear, you listen. Your nose is filled with fumes and death. You taste the top of your mouth. . . . You’re hunted back to the jungle. The veneer of civilization has dropped away.”2

Unlike the war on Germany’s western front, the war on the eastern front was a war of rapid movement. Armies repeatedly crisscrossed the same territories. Civilians were frequently caught in the crossfire, and millions were evacuated from their homes and expelled from territories as armies approached. On both sides of the conflict, many came to believe that what they were experiencing was not war but “mass slaughter.” A private in the British army explained, “If you go forward, you’ll likely be shot, if you go back you’ll be court-martialed and shot, so what the hell do you do? What can you do? You just go forward.”3

The carnage was incomprehensible to everyone, as millions of soldiers and civilians alike died. Historian Martin Gilbert details the loss of life:

More than nine million soldiers, sailors and airmen were killed in the First World War. A further five million civilians are estimated to have perished under occupation, bombardment, hunger and disease. The mass murder of Armenians in 1915 [see reading, Genocide Under the Cover of War], and the [Spanish] influenza epidemic that began while the war was still being fought, were two of its destructive by-products. The flight of Serbs from Serbia at the end of 1915 was another cruel episode in which civilians perished in large numbers; so too was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, as a result of which more than three-quarters of a million German civilians died.4    

The chart below provides estimates of the number of soldiers killed, wounded, and reported missing during World War I. Exact numbers are often disputed and are nearly impossible to determine for a variety of reasons. Different countries used different methods to count their dead and injured, and some methods were more reliable than others. Records of some countries were destroyed during the war and its aftermath. Also, some countries may have changed the number of casualties in their official records for political reasons. The numbers of civilians from each country killed during the war are even more difficult to estimate. The numbers in the chart reflect the estimates made by most historians today (see reading, Negotiating Peace in Chapter 3).

World War I Casualties

Source: "WWI Casualty and Death Tables," originally published on PBS website. Statistics also available on Encyclopedia Britannica's website.

* Includes deaths from all causes.

** Official figures.

When World War I began in August 1914, both sides expected a quick victory. Neither leaders nor civilians from warring nations were prepared for the length and brutality of the war, which took the lives of millions by its end in 1918. The loss of life was greater than in any previous war in history. The carnage from World War I was incomprehensible to everyone, as millions of soldiers and civilians alike died.

The chart below provides estimates of the number of soldiers killed, wounded, and reported missing during World War I. Exact numbers are often disputed and are nearly impossible to determine for a variety of reasons. Different countries used different methods to count their dead and injured, and some methods were more reliable than others. Records of some countries were destroyed during the war and its aftermath. Also, some countries may have changed the number of casualties in their official records for political reasons. The numbers of civilians from each country killed during the war are even more difficult to determine, though historians estimate civilian deaths at about 5 million.1 The numbers in the chart reflect the estimates made by most historians today.

World War I Casualties

* Includes deaths from all causes.

** Official figures.

1. How was war different in World War I? Why did this war result in so many casualties?
2. How did the reality of combat in World War I compare to the beliefs and attitudes many Europeans had about war before fighting broke out?
3. What did Richard Tobin mean by his statement, “The veneer of civilization has dropped away”?
4. How would you describe the mood and tone of the voices of soldiers quoted in this reading? 

Page 2

Propaganda is the use of information and media to influence public opinion. Propagandists during World War I relied on familiar stereotypes to evoke strong feelings like fear, pride, and prejudice, usually basing their efforts on facts that they embellished to demonize the enemy.

The postcard image that accompanies this reading was part of one of the most successful British propaganda campaigns during the war. It centered on Edith Cavell, a middle-aged British nurse who worked at a hospital in occupied Belgium. After the German invasion of Belgium, she joined an underground group that secretly aided Allied soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. When the Germans discovered her activities, she was arrested, tried, and found guilty of espionage. On October 12, 1915, the Germans executed her.

In addition to building public support for the war, leaders believed it was necessary to forbid criticism and opposition. Official German policy, which was similar to policies in all fighting countries, suppressed expressions of anti-war sentiment by peace movements, pointing out especially the possible impact in other countries:

In the neutral countries as well as among our enemies, false impressions about Germany’s domestic strength will form. Every statement that can be interpreted as a sign of weakness or disunity is used by the enemy side, with obvious pleasure and satisfaction to energize the will and hope of defeating Germany militarily. Through personal contacts and correspondence, the impact abroad of these German apostles of peace can also cause immediate harm without their being aware of it themselves. Their statements about the domestic political, economic, and military situation can give the enemy important information, and it is to be expected that enemy agents will take advantage of the pacifist will to communicate . . . Finally, such behavior by people who portray themselves as representatives of German intellectual life is likely to diminish the respect for the German character and German diligence which we have achieved as a nation in arms. . . . It is thus necessary to make unambiguously clear to the people who stand out in the peace movement in an undesireable way that their activity is dangerous, and to put this communication somehow in writing. . . . Should they defy such a ban, they will have made themselves liable to prosecution. . . . The publication and distribution of pacifist writings and pamphlets may not be tolerated. Sending of these materials to foreign countries or to the front is to be prevented. Writings of this sort that arrive from abroad, as well as private letters whose purpose is to promote international pacifist goals, are to be confiscated.1

1. Analyze the image of Edith Cavell above using the following process:
   • First, look closely, observing shapes, colors, and the positions of people and objects.
   • Second, write down what you observe without making any interpretation about what the image is trying to say.
   • Third, list questions this image raises for you that you would need to have answered before you can interpret its meaning. Share and discuss your questions with another person, and try to find some answers.
   • Finally, given the historical context you have learned, describe what you think the creator of this image is trying to say. Who is the intended audience, and what does the image’s creator want the audience to think and feel?
2. Who tries to influence your ideas, opinions, and feelings today? How do they go about it? Which kinds of attempts to influence you would you classify as propaganda?
3. Why would leaders believe that forbidding expressions of anti-war sentiment is necessary? Are there times during war or national crisis when the right of free expression and dissent must be suspended?

Page 3

As the war dragged on, staggering casualties mounted. For example, at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, over 1 million men were killed in fighting between July and November, with little gain of territory by either side. Despite censorship, it was not possible to hide the death toll from the public. Leaders on both sides feared those huge losses might turn public opinion against the war. The British found a solution in a relatively new technology: the motion picture. Author Adam Hochschild describes its use:

Two cameramen with their cumbersome hand-cranked cameras were given unprecedented access to the front lines, and the resulting 76-minute Battle of the Somme was rushed into cinemas in August 1916, when the battle was not yet at its midpoint. It opened in 34 theatres in London alone, and 100 copies were soon circulating around the country. . . . In the first six weeks of its release more than 19 million people saw the film. . . . (Noticing its success, the Germans hurried out a copycat production of their own, With Our Heroes at Somme.)

For audiences accustomed only to short, set-piece newsreel clips of formal occasions like parades the film was nothing short of electrifying. Its black-and-white images also provided a wealth of detail about the front-line lives of ordinary, working-class soldiers, for here were the army versions of daily routines people at home knew so well—feeding and watering horses, preparing a meal over a fire, opening mail, washing up in a roadside pond, attending a church service in a muddy field—plus the drudgery of unloading and carrying endless heavy boxes of artillery ammunition.

Many parts of the film were calculated to inspire awe, such as shots of huge mines exploding underneath the German lines or the firing of heavy howitzers. TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT OF GERMAN TRENCHES, says the title. Such scenes . . . are now believed to have been faked, taken well behind the lines, but neither audiences nor critics appeared to notice at the time, so riveted were they at what seemed to be the authentic nitty-gritty of the real war.

Millions of people must have watched The Battle of the Somme yearning for a glimpse of a familiar face—or dreading it; what if a husband or son appeared on the screen wounded or dead? For although the battle’s casualties were sometimes presented sentimentally . . . the remarkable thing is that they were presented at all. Unlike almost all earlier propaganda in this war, the film did not shy away from showing the British dead and surprising numbers of British wounded: walking, hobbling, being carried or wheeled on stretchers.

The film’s images, wrote the Star, “have stirred London more passionately than anything has stirred it since the war [began]. Everybody is talking about them. . . . It is evident that they have brought the war closer to us than it has ever been brought by the written word or by the photograph.” Men in the audience cheered when attacks were shown; women wept at the sight of the wounded; people screamed at the staged sequence showing British soldiers falling as if hit by bullets. . . .

The government had taken a calculated risk in allowing these images into the nation’s theaters. David Lloyd George, recently made secretary of state for war, argued that the film, however painful to watch, would reinforce civilian support for the war—and he was right. The more horrific the suffering, ran the chilling emotional logic of public opinion, the more noble the sacrifice the wounded and dead had made—the more worthwhile the goals must be for which they had given their all. 1

1. How did The Battle of the Somme portray the war? How did it appeal to viewers’ emotions? What was risky about showing this film so widely in Britain?
2. War often provides its own justification. Once people have died for their country, why can it be hard for others to believe the war is a lost cause? Is it possible to honor the soldier but not the cause for which he or she fights?
3. How do we distinguish between a film’s use to manipulate public opinion and its use to portray conditions as they truly exist?

Page 4

The war unleashed feelings of hatred on the home front against anyone thought to be associated with the enemy. To prevent supplies from coming into Britain from any nation, in 1915 the Germans announced a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, meaning that they would sink any ship that entered or left a British port. On May 7, they torpedoed the Lusitania

It was five o’clock one evening . . . when a newsboy came racing down from Park Lane, yelling: “Sinking of the Lusitania!” The men stopped short; women peered from doorways. I joined one anxious group, poring over the fatal news. It was right—the “Lusy”, the fine boat I had left Joe and Harold aboard not two months ago, had been torpedoed . . .

[My friends and I] walked around Scotland Road listening to the cries of the women whose husbands and sons had gone down in the “Lusy” and we heard the bitter threats made against Germany and anything with a German name. We walked down Bostock Street, where practically every blind was drawn in token of a death. All these little houses were occupied by Irish coal-trimmers and firemen and sailormen on the Lusitania; now these men who, barely two weeks ago, had carried their bags jokingly down the street were gone, never to return. . . . Something was afoot; we could sense that and, like good slummy boys, we crowded around eager to help in any disturbance.

Suddenly something crashed up the road near Ben Johnson Street; followed in turn by another terrific crash of glass. We ran up the road. A pork butcher’s [shop] had had its front window knocked in with a brick and a crowd of men and women were wrecking the place. A little higher up the same thing was happening—everything suggestive of Germany was being smashed to pieces. . . . Everyone had a brick or a stick or something tucked under his or her coat or apron and there was much pilfering. The police themselves . . . were the most passive guardians of the law. . . .

Mr. Beech had been living in Liverpool thirty odd years, but there was a faint suspicion that years ago he had changed his name. His big shop was in shambles. When we got to it, Mr. Beech and his son had made their escape. The crowd then moved onto Yaag's store in Great George Street.

“Joan of Arc” (a female chip-chopper by the name of Mrs. Seymour) led the mob on a rampage that rarely spared kith or kin. Mr. Yaag, a big, wholesome fellow allegedly had been born in Germany, but I don’t think he remembered much about it. Two of his nephews were with my cousin Berny and the Eighth Irish [fighting] over in France. I always liked Mr. Yaag, but not quite as keenly as I liked to break his window. . . .

As we converged on the big shop, Mr. Yaag came out, pipe in mouth and with his usual broad smile; this vanished instantly as someone kicked him in the belly and a volley of bricks sent in the huge windows. From the sawdust floor the astounded man had the pleasure of seeing his choice sausages kicked down and thrown about and the furnishings reduced to shambles. “You’ll sink the bleedin ‘Lusy’, will you!” yelled our Joan, waving a shillelagh. . . .

Cook’s pork butcher in Mill Street came next. Mr. Cook knew as much about Germany at the time, I think, as I did. Later investigation proved that he came from strictly Yorkshire stock. . . . But he had a pork butcher’s shop, and as pork and Germany were identical items, we left his shop in a shambles and himself stretched across the counter groaning. I began to get sick from all the free sausage I’d been eating.

If the Germans had torpedoed the Lusitania, we certainly had torpedoed everything German in our immediate vicinity—certainly all the pork butchers’ shops.1

Page 5

At the beginning of World War I, the Ottoman Empire included territory that ranged from the Balkan Peninsula in Europe to parts of the Middle East. The ruler of the empire, known as the sultan, was facing serious challenges from inside and outside of the empire at the turn of the twentieth century. While minority groups within the empire were demanding equal rights, some Turkish reformers were seeking a more modern government. At the same time, there were tensions between the empire and other world powers.  

Seizing the opportunity, a coalition of reformers called the Young Turks, with the support of some Armenians, overthrew the sultan in 1908 with promises of democratic reform and equal rights for all. However, the first few years of the new government did not go well. Supporters of the sultan led a massacre of Ottoman Armenians in Adana in 1909, and the empire lost territory in the Balkan wars of 1912–1913, when former minority subjects were able to free themselves from Ottoman rule.

Sensing weakness, an ultra-nationalist group from within the Young Turks took control of the government in a coup d’etat in 1913. Their plan for saving the shrinking empire was to create a modern state that favored people of Turkish descent like themselves; some scholars have described their program as “Turkey for the Turks.”1 The Armenians (a Christian minority that had lived for generations within the historically Muslim empire), Greeks, and other Christian minorities who had survived massacres under the sultan were now viewed as a threat. As the Ottoman Empire fought alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I, the Young Turks leadership—Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha, and Djemal Pasha—were prepared to solve the “Armenian problem” once and for all.

During the winter of 1914–1915, Armenian men who had been drafted into the Ottoman army were stripped of their weapons and killed. Attacks on Armenian villages and Greeks continued throughout the winter and early spring. On April 24, 250 Armenian intellectuals and leaders were arrested, marking the beginning of the systematic deportation and mass murder. In May, Allied leaders in Britain, France, and Russia asked the US ambassador, Henry Morgenthau, to pass along a telegram condemning the crimes to the Young Turks leadership. It read:

For about a month the Kurd and Turkish populations of Armenia has been massacring Armenians with the connivance and often assistance of Ottoman authorities. Such massacres took place in middle April . . . at Erzerum, Dertchun, Eguine, Akn, Bitlis, Mush, Sassun, Zeitun, and throughout Cilicia. Inhabitants of about one hundred villages near Van were all murdered. In that city Armenian quarter is besieged by Kurds. At the same time in Constantinople Ottoman Government ill-treats inoffensive Armenian population. In view of those new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied governments announce publicly to the Sublime-Porte [Ottoman Government] that they will hold personally responsible [for] these crimes all members of the Ottoman government and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres.2

Attacks intensified throughout the spring and summer. Reports poured into Morgenthau’s offices from American consuls across the Ottoman Empire describing the crimes. He was outraged. On July 16, he wrote a telegram to the American secretary of state, one of several he sent to his bosses in Washington:

Have you received my 841[telegram]? Deportation of and excesses against peaceful Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eyewitnesses it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion. 

Protests as well as threats are unavailing and probably incite the Ottoman government to more drastic measures as they are determined to disclaim responsibility for their absolute disregard of capitulations and I believe nothing short of actual force which obviously the United States are not in a position to exert would adequately meet the situation. Suggest you inform belligerent nations and mission boards of this.3

Despite Morgenthau’s warning, massacres continued, using the cover of war. However, the war did not stop press coverage. In 1915, the New York Times ran 145 articles on what is now recognized as the Armenian Genocide. While the United States did not intervene militarily, humanitarian efforts launched with Morgenthau’s assistance by the Near East Relief Foundation, and supported by donations from people in the United States and around the world, are credited with saving over 100,000 lives. Despite these efforts, over 1.5 million Armenians were murdered.

1. Historians Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt note that “the genocide of the Armenians was made possible by two events: the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the first decade of the twentieth century and the advent of total war in the second.”4 Why would the staggering brutality of World War I have made the Armenian Genocide possible? How might war provide an opportunity to enact policies that might not be possible or acceptable in a time of peace?
2. The telegram from the Allied powers to the Ottoman government coined a new term in the language of human rights, describing the actions taken against Ottoman Armenians as “crimes against humanity.” This idea is now a key principle of international human rights law. The original draft of the telegram used the phrase “crimes against Christianity.” Consider the two phrases. What is implied by the choice of words? How is calling something a crime against humanity different from calling something a crime against Christianity?
3. Read the Morgenthau telegram to the state department. What words would you use to describe the tone? What does Morgenthau want the secretary of state to know about what is going on? What choices were available to Morgenthau? In light of Morgenthau’s report, what choices were available to the secretary of state?
4. Look at the photograph of the Mother and Child during Armenian Genocide  above. What can you learn about their situation by studying the image? What questions are you left with? Armin Wegner, a German medic who was in the Ottoman Empire during the genocide, took the picture and smuggled it out of the country along with many others. He wrote this caption for the photograph, which he called “Mother and Child”:

   Fleeing from death. An Armenian mother on the heights of the Taurus Mountains. Her husband has been killed or slaughtered, thrown into prison or driven to forced labor. On her back she carries all that she owns, i.e. what she could take with her, a blanket for sleeping or to use as a tent to protect against the sun, some wooden sticks, and then, on top of everything else, her baby. How much longer can she carry this weight?1 

   How do Wegner’s comments influence the way you respond to the photograph?

Page 6

The year 1917 brought two major changes in World War I. First, in its continuing effort to prevent all countries’ ships from transporting food and supplies to Britain, the German navy’s submarines sank several American ships. In response, President Woodrow Wilson asked for a declaration of war against Germany and the Central powers in April. The declaration brought a powerful new army into the war on the side of the Allied powers. The second change was occurring as Congress voted to approve the American president’s request: a revolution had begun to take place in Russia.

The monarchy of the Russian tsar had been vulnerable since a revolution against its autocratic power had been attempted and brutally put down in 1905. By 1917, participation in World War I had resulted in disaster for the tsar’s armies and government. The nation’s casualties were much higher than those of any other country, and its economy was in shambles. On March 8, another revolution began when food shortages prompted hundreds of women to riot in the streets of St. Petersburg, the empire’s capital. In the days that followed, the violence spread to other cities and towns. Disheartened soldiers increasingly joined the revolt. In less than two weeks, Tsar Nicholas II had to give up his throne at the urging of the Duma, Russia’s parliament. Members of the Duma then set up a provisional, or temporary, government that shared power with councils of soldiers and workers, called “soviets.”

German authorities saw the upheaval in Russia as a chance to end the war in the east. They knew that Russian Communists known as Bolsheviks had long opposed the war and were eager to make peace. But the tsar had exiled their leaders, including Vladimir Lenin, years earlier. Hopeful that their return would undermine the Russian war effort, the Germans allowed Lenin and other Bolsheviks to return to Russia from exile in Switzerland.

Soon after his arrival in Russia, Lenin called for the overthrow of the provisional government by the soviets. But there was little response to his demand; most people were willing to give the new government a chance. As a result, Lenin was once again forced into exile. Within a few months, however, starving Russians weary of war had become impatient with the slow pace of change under the provisional government. Lenin’s calls for “peace, land [for farm laborers and workers], and bread” now attracted more followers. By October, he was back in Russia, and by November 7, his Bolshevik-led army, the Red Guard, had forced out the provisional government and proclaimed government by the soviets.

Lenin believed that Russia must end its participation in the war so that the nation could focus on building a communist state based on the ideas of Karl Marx, a German philosopher who lived in the mid-1800s. Marx argued that the struggle between workers and property owners would end only when workers as a community owned all land and other resources. The system Marx envisioned was a radical form of socialism; its underlying idea was that the government should take work from each citizen according to his or her ability and give goods and services to each according to his or her need.

Lenin revised many of Marx’s ideas to make them more applicable to Russia. Marx believed that communism would be most successful in an industrialized country with a large worker class, but Russia was not as industrialized as other European countries. Lenin did not believe that Russian workers themselves could bring about a revolution. He thought that the country would instead need a small group of leaders to plan and direct the revolution and then rule the country until the people were ready to lead on their own.

In March 1918, the new Russian government, now under Lenin’s leadership, signed a peace treaty with Germany at Brest-Litovsk in what is now Belarus. Lenin had no say in the terms of that treaty; the Germans imposed it by threatening to resume their attacks on Russia if the agreement was not signed immediately. Under the treaty, Russia had to turn over several territories to Germany: Finland, Russian Poland, Estonia, Livonia, Courland (now part of Latvia), Lithuania, Ukraine, and Bessarabia. In addition, the Bolsheviks had to give much of the southern part of Russia to what was still the Ottoman Empire, controlled by Turkey. In all, the treaty forced Russia to give up about 30% of its territory.1

The treaty ended Russian participation in World War I, but it did not bring peace to Russia. Even before it was signed, the Communists found themselves in a vicious civil war with the White Army, a group that wanted to restore the Russian monarchy and that had the support of the Allies. The Communists also faced opposition from various nationalist groups within the Russian Empire; each wanted its own independent country. In addition, the country was filled with outlaws who hoped to acquire wealth and power amid the confusion. As a result, in some parts of Russia, no one was in control, and enormous suffering and loss of life among the civilian population resulted. It was not until 1920 that most of the fighting finally ended and Lenin and his followers could focus on turning Russia into a communist state. Two years later, the Communists gave the nation a new name—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union.

Leaders of western nations, particularly the United States and Britain, watched with anxiety as the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia succeeded. Communism, which rejected religion and which wanted to end private ownership of property as the means of producing wealth, was opposed to the economic and social systems of those countries. It was also noted that Leon Trotsky, who, besides Lenin, was the other major leader of the Russian Revolution, was Jewish. That fact further fueled antisemitism in Europe and inflamed fears that a supposed Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy was plotting to dominate the world—a conspiracy theory that would persist, especially in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s.

1. How did the war contribute to the downfall of the Russian monarchy? Why did Lenin’s ideas eventually appeal to many Russians? Who stood to benefit from those ideas?
2. What were the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk? Why did Lenin lack the leverage to negotiate a better treaty for Russia?
3. How did other nations respond to news of Russia’s revolution? What fears were sparked by the news?

Page 7

The soldiers who fought in World War I were profoundly affected by their experiences. For many of them, the reality of combat did not live up to their previous visions of the heroism and nobility of fighting for one’s country. The poetry and literature written by soldiers in World War I often painted those patriotic and militaristic beliefs as illusions.

British soldier Wilfred Owen wrote several poems about his experiences in the war in 1917 and 1918 (before he was killed in action), including the following poem that ends with a phrase in Latin that means, “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,  Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,  And towards our distant rest 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 hoots 

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling  And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes 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, 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 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.1

After the war, Erich Maria Remarque, who was wounded five times in battle, wrote the novel All Quiet on the Western Front based on his experiences as a German soldier. The novel’s protagonist, Paul, joins the German army, inspired by the patriotic fervor at the beginning of the war, but his experience leaves him disillusioned. In one passage from the novel, Paul describes the terror of the battlefield:

From a mockery the tanks have become a terrible weapon. Armoured they come rolling on in long lines, more than anything else embody for us the horror of war.

We do not see the guns that bombard us; the attacking lines of the enemy infantry are men like ourselves; but these tanks are machines, their caterpillars run on as endless as the war, they are annihilation, they roll without feeling into the craters, and climb up again without stopping, a fleet of roaring, smoke-belching armour-clads, invulnerable steel beasts squashing the dead and wounded—we shrivel up in our thin skin before them, against their colossal weight our arms are sticks of straw, and our hand-grenades matches.

Shells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks—shattering, corroding, death.

Dysentery, influenza, typhus—scalding, choking, death.

Trenches, hospitals, the common grave—there are no other possibilities.2

Later, the character Paul anticipates the end of the war:

Everyone talks of peace and armistice. All wait. If it again proves an illusion, then they will break up; hope is high, it cannot be taken away again without an upheaval. If there is not peace, then there will be revolution . . .

Here my thoughts stop and will not go any farther. All that meets me, all that floods over me are but feelings—greed of life, love of home, yearning for the blood, intoxication of deliverance. But no aims.

Had we returned home in 1916, out of the suffering and the strength of our experience we might have unleashed a storm. Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way anymore.3

In the book, Paul is killed soon after writing these words.

1. What phrases from the poetry and literature excerpted in this reading stand out to you the most? What ideas, feelings, and images do those phrases communicate?
2. What did Wilfred Owen and Erich Maria Remarque learn from their experiences in World War I?
3. How do you think the leaders of England and Germany, during the war and after, might have responded to the ways that Owen and Remarque depicted the war? How might other British and German people have responded?