Transcription
Okay, let's talk about how World War I was fought. That means things are going to get real trenchy and real stalemate-y. So, if you're ready to get them bran Cal's milked Total War style, then let's get to it.
The first thing you have to know about the fighting of World War I is that this is the world's first Total War. By definition, that's a war which requires the mobilization of a country's entire population—both military and civilian—in order to fight it. That's kind of a big deal because, in the past, there was a pretty clear line between what soldiers were doing out in the battlefield and what civilians were doing back home. But in Total War, every last Schmo in the country is required to contribute in some way to the war effort.
To make things more devastating in a total war, even civilians were considered viable targets for military efforts. Oh, and by the way, if you want to follow along with this video and all my videos, check that link in the description.
Anyway, as you may have guessed, waging a total war is not easy. So, you're going to need to understand that governments use various strategies to keep morale up among the troops in the battlefield and civilians back home. The chief strategy that you need to know is that governments used all kinds of propaganda to motivate everyone to keep making the necessary sacrifices.
These propaganda campaigns demonized enemies and often exaggerated the atrocities that the enemies were committing. The goal was to remind everyone involved in the war that their own cause amounted to a righteous struggle against evil forces, and therefore whatever sacrifice was demanded was worth it. I mean, look at this guy—he's going to insult your mother, eat your children, and then deliberately hurt your feelings!
For all the states involved in World War I, they went bonkers producing this kind of material in the form of art and various media, including newsreels, posters, and pamphlets.
Now, one aspect of these propaganda campaigns that you really need to remember is that they used intensified forms of nationalism in order to get their messages across. From the last video, you know that nationalism was a big cause of this war. People in various states began to view the world as kind of like a collection of enemy rivals, and that their national identities were the most important thing about them. So much of this propaganda capitalized on these nationalist sentiments in order to generate fear of foreign enemies and pride in a nation's own people.
Okay, now let's turn the corner and talk about the general trends that describe how World War I was fought. Look, I could talk all day about Germany's Schlieffen Plan or the various battles that get military historians all tingly, but you really only need to know one basic fact and a few ways to illustrate it.
That fact is this: new military technologies made World War I one of the deadliest wars in human history. Some of those technologies included machine guns, chemical gas, and tanks, just to name a few. But it wasn't just technology that made this war deadly; it was also the nature of how they were used.
Here's where I tell you about the main feature of fighting, namely trench warfare. To understand this, let me give you a little context. In the beginning of the war, generals consulted the past for winning strategies and found that victory always went to the first mover and those who leveraged the most spirited attacks. Therefore, French and British armies charged across the field to fight Germans, but they were met with thousands of rounds of machine gun fire, which led to massive casualties.
So, it wasn't long before generals on both sides changed tactics to avoid such bloody encounters. That tactic is what we call trench warfare, in which each side dug miles of trenches opposite each other and hunkered down for protection.
Now, to be clear, trench warfare was not a new strategy invented for this war, but the scale of it outstripped anything that came before. It was precisely fighting from the trenches that caused so many casualties in World War I. Each side hid in their trenches, which were fortified with machine guns and barbed wire. If one side came out of their trenches and charged, they would be mowed down by machine guns or otherwise caught in the barbed wire. The same was true for the other side.
Therefore, this situation led to years of stalemates where casualties mounted, but neither side made much progress. What everyone believed would be a quick war turned into a years-long effort. With so many men dying on the field, that's when this war became truly global in scope.
Remember that the states fighting this war, like Great Britain, France, and Germany, had spent a great deal of effort over the course of the last period building up massive colonial empires. So, what's an imperial state to do when all of its own men are dying on the battlefield? You call up colonial troops to fight your war.
These various imperial powers mustered troops from Africa, India, China, Southeast Asia, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and many more. Colonial men were conscripted as porters in the war, whose job it was to carry military equipment to various locations.
And look, you don't have to be a historical genius to understand that colonial people who had been dominated and exploited by their imperial overlords weren't that excited to go fight this war that had nothing to do with them. Yet, they did it in hopes that such sacrifices would help them gain independence or at least a greater degree of self-rule after the war.
And maybe it won't surprise you by now, but that didn't really work out, and it's going to cause all kinds of problems for imperial powers. But we'll save that for another video.
Anyway, the war dragged on for four years and left an awful lot of destruction in its way. But a key turning point was the entry of the United States on the side of the Allied Powers, namely Britain and France, in 1917.
Initially, when the war broke out, the US wanted to remain neutral. But Germany had a habit of sinking ships with Americans on them and got sassy enough to try to incite Mexico to start a war with the US to keep them otherwise occupied. All those factors eventually dragged the US into the war.
With the fresh troops backed by the might of American industry, the tide turned against Germany and the Central Powers. The war officially ended in 1918 with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany and the Central Powers had lost, while the Allied Powers had won.
Despite American President Woodrow Wilson's attempts to forge peace without victory among the belligerents of the war, France and Britain used the treaty to punish Germany, which would play a major role in the causes of World War II. But again, that's a story for another video.
Okay, click here to keep reviewing for Unit 7, and click here to grab my video note guides, which will help you get all the contents of this course firmly crammed into your brain fold. I'm glad we got to hang out. I'll catch you on the flip-flop. Himler out!