Hist250--World War I

Reading Schedule

In the schedule below, assignments for a given date mean that you should read the listed readings BEFORE you come to class on that day.



Aug 26--Introduction
theory and practice of the course
talking through the first assignment--Tooley: The Great War (identified below as Tooley)


some useful tips

https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page



and some various national archives and museums of the First World War


Aug 28--Some Deep Background on Origins

    Read Tooley Chapter 1, pages 1-12 only.

Extra: Irish Issues




Aug 31--Other Interpretations: The Schlieffen Plan and Other Plans

Read Tooley, Great War, from page 12 to 35. 


Sep 2--The Assassination and July Crisis: To the Outbreak of War

Read Tooley, pp. 35 to end of chapter I.
and the testimony of one of Prinzip's friends:
https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand

(remember that this is an eyewitness who was involved in the incident, to be sure, but one who had incomplete knowledge of all the actual events, since he was busy doing his own part in the plot)


We will read this one in class, so no need to read it beforehand: 
Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum to Serbia
https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Austro-Hungarian_Ultimatum_to_Serbia_(English_Translation)


Sep 4--War: The Formation of the Western Front
Read Tooley, Chapter 2, pp. 41-66



Sept 7--War: The Formaton of the Eastern Front

We start the reading of Norman Stone's book, The Eastern Front, 1914-1917. We will begin with the Introduction and chapter two. These amount to about eleven pages.
This book is available at the AC Bookstore.


Sep 9--In the Trenches: A First Look--Us vs. Them; the Christmas Truce, a geography of the trenches, and more.

Readings:

Tooley, 66-71 (end of Chapter II)
and
Edmund Blunden,  excerpt from Undertones of War, pp. 15 to 41 (that is, chapters 1, 2, and 3.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.55923/page/n11/mode/2up


Sep 11--Allied Diplomacy: Italy, the Ottoman Empire, Romania, and More
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/warfare_1914-1918_jap21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire_during_World_War_I#Entry_into_World_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_entry_into_World_War_I



Sep 14--Atrocities:  From Belgium to Russia to Turkey
In the Encyclopedia of The First World War, read Alan Kramer's article "Atrocities." But only down to the subheading "Poison Gas."

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/atrocities-1-1/


Sep 16--The Blockade and Unlimited Submarine Warfare

no readings for today, but use your time to get the whole of Tooley, Chapter 3 read for Friday.


Sep 18--Mobilizing the Home Fronts: An Overview
 Tooley, Chapter 3.



First Paper due on Sep 21, 5:00pm via Turnitin


Sep 21-Empires and the War I

Read:
Stone, Eastern Front, Chapter 5, whole chapter.

Eric Manela entry:
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/empire
Rustin Gates entry:

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_aims_and_war_aims_discussions_japan
Jürgen Melzer entry:
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/warfare_1914-1918_jap21


Sep 23--More Empires and the War

Santanu Das entry:

Yücel Yanıkdağ entry:
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/ottoman_empiremiddle_east

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/responses_to_the_war_india

be sure to show pic of Menin Gate

Optional:  Anne Samson entry:

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/south_africa_and_the_german_east_africa_campaign_union_of_south_africa


Sep 25--The Green Fields Beyond:  the Stalemate 1915 and Technological Advances

Capture of Przemysl

https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Capture_of_Przemysl
Ypres II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Ypres
Gallipoli, from the New Zealand government site. Please read page 2 (the link below) and read through page 7 (each is roughly three book pages long)
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/the-gallipoli-campaign/gallipoli-in-brief




Sep 30--The United States as Neutral


Short page-long appreciation of Hoover in WWI by the Hoover Institute at Stanford:

https://hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/years-compassion-1914-1923
Watch this lecture by Hoover scholar George Nash. You can skip the long intro by Thomas Schwartz and start at about 6:32. Please listen to all the rest of the lecture by Nash.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?462916-1/herbert-hoovers-world-war-relief-work
Randolph Bourne essay, "War is the Health of the State," 1918
https://www.panarchy.org/bourne/state.1918.html



Oct 2--Back to the Front: Dirt
etierher no reading or a ppt on trenches, digging, tunnelling, gangrene, etc, etc.




Oct 5--Battlefields and Breakthrough: 1915-1916


Read Tooley, Chapter 5



Oct 7--MIDTERM EXAM



Oct 9--No Class: Fall Break




Oct 12--Propaganda, Censorship, Surveillance
read Tooley, Chapter 4


We will go through this ppt. in class:  PropagandaWWI.pptx


Oct 14--War Art
Please look carefully at these sites and try to write down a few names of the most striking art for you. We will read some poetry in class.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/nevinson-la-mitrailleuse-n03177

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/may/14/art-apocalypse-otto-dix-first-world-war-der-krieg-in-pictures


https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/art


Oct 16--War Poetry
We will be reading a good bit of poetry in class. Don't worry, it will be fun!



Second Paper due on Oct. 19, 5:00pm via Turnitin

 

Oct 19--Interning Enemy Aliens and Others
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/31477795
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/31481569


Short ppt lecture (with sound)  Please look/listen as a part of today's material.


Oct 21--Women At War: Factories, Government Work, and More

https://spartacus-educational.com/Wfirst.htm
and

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/55174180  farm labor, US
And bit on brothels

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/inside-the-brothels-that-served-the-western-front-how-one-first-world-war-soldier-found-love-in-the-9643738.html

https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/prostitution/?format=pdf


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordel_militaire_de_campagne

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2022/07/12/comfort-western-front/


Oct 23--NURSES & International Aid Workers

Wikipedia on Vera Brittain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Brittain

Wikipedia on Mary Borden:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Borden

And from Mary Borden's fine book The Forbidden Zone, please read the chapter called "Enfant de Malheur"
http://www.ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Borden2/fz.html




Oct 26--The War Deepens: Breakthrough: The Somme Campaign

Class Discussion of Fussell: The Great War and Modern Memory, no reading, just talk through

Before or after class of Apr 8, ppt with sound: "Verdun and the Somme"

 (it is just under 30MB, so give it a minute or two to load)

 read Tooley, Chapter 5, only pages 143 to 167.


Oct 28--Breakthrough: Brusilov and Jutland
read
Tooley, Chapter 5, pp. 167 to end of Chapter.


Oct 30--The United States Enters the War--I
Years ago for my blog on WWI, I wrote a series of essays about the US entry to the war. Please read four parts of the series for this class and two for the next. They appear in reverse order, so start here to read the first one:
https://twentiethcenturyviolence.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2017-02-05T11:09:00-08:00&max-results=7&start=4&by-date=false
and then navigate to newer posts and read them in order. The titles are numbered and include the overarching title: "These Deeply Momentous Things," which is phrased used by Woodrow Wilson
You can also just navigate from this page:
https://twentiethcenturyviolence.blogspot.com/2016/12/
AND
Please also read this article on Randolph Bourne and his famous wartime essay, "The State," which included the phrase "War is the health of the state"

https://mises.org/library/bourne-war





Nov 2--The Other and the War: The Irish in the British War Effort; African Americans in the US War; India and the Empire's War

Watch this testimony of a veteran Irish soldier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCU_AHwaEK4


Watch this video by the Imperial War Museum in London, on the Indian role in the First World War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAETtC_ToEE&t=82s


Watch this short video by the History Channel on the Haarlem Hellfighters:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEuoAl1elLU


Nov 4--Passchendaele, the Italian Fronts and Other Fronts
Also some comments on loans and bankers and war finance
Read Tooley, "Merchants of Death Revisited: Armaments, Bankers, and the First World War," 2005
https://cdn.mises.org/19_1_4.pdf
replace with my lecture on Weapons and Bankers??????????


Nov 6--The Bolshevik Revolution--I
Tooley, pp. 179-202.


Powerpoint from Apr. 20  class. This one is without sound. Please go through it for the text, but we will also go through it in class.

 


Nov 9--The Bolshevik Revolution--II

Tooley Chapter 6, 202 to end of Chapter.


Nov 11--War in the Middle East, 1916 to 1918: the Ottomans and their enemies

https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Balfour_Declaration
https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Sykes-Picot_Agreement

and (Intro Only)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon%E2%80%93Hussein_Correspondence


Nov 13--No Class. The Inauguration of President Cantor takes place at 11am. I recommend you attend this

No readings, but be reading Tooley Chapter 7 for Nov. 18.


Third Paper due on Nov. 16, 5:00pm via Turnitin


Nov 16--The United States and the Allies: "LaFayette: We are Here!"

Either before or after class, please read the Wikipedia entry on the American Expeditionary Forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Forces

AND see this short documentary. It is a bit bombastic in spots, but the overview is pretty accurate for brief video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rg3a4EAfJQ


Nov 18--The Kaiser's Offensive and the Allied Hundred Days Offensives
Tooley, Chapter 7


Nov 20--Armistice

Read two somewhat longer entries from my more recent blog:  "Diktat 1919" and "On the Morning of November 11, 1918." (maybe read the Nov. 11 piece first
https://twentiethcenturyviolence.blogspot.com/

tentative--revision TBA


THANKSGIVING BREAK


Nov 30--Peacemaking at Versailles

Please read the first SEVEN entries in my old blog, Design of a Violent Century. The entries are each only 2 or 3 pages long. The first was posted on Jan. 39, 2009.
http://parispeace1919.blogspot.com/2009/01/

AND from my more recent blog on WWI, read "Diktat 1919"
https://twentiethcenturyviolence.blogspot.com/

Dec 2--More Peacemaking, and continued violence
Read Tooley, Chapter 8, all of it, please.


Dec 4-The Costs of War:  A Violent Century
(Ethnic Cleansing, concentration camps)

Tentative: Tooley on ethnic cleansing and WWI



NOTES
Do music or poetry each day. Try to list them all
If I die, english soil poem
Wilfred Owen
Sassoon, aftermath for last class
Channel Firing for first or second class
Fussell needs to go in here somewhere

ALSO ADD WAR MUSIC, BUT MAYBE DO IT BIT BY BIT AS WE GO ALONG---I THINK YES--maybe one piece of music weekly. or some paired songs.

fill in somehwere Gallipoli?????


Double check all links.

Don't forget the first page of the syllabus
Engines of destruction SOMEWHERE