NationStates Jolt Archive

You are to identify and explain 3 transformations (changes) the young soldiers experienced during their military service in WW1. You may discuss any three of the following area regarding the transformations the young men went thru" the development of maturity/responsibility: the unexpected horrors of war" the changes in their ideas/beliefs about war: the changes in their family relationships: OR transformation the soldiers experienced as a result of their military service.

I just need help in finding sources.

BTW let us also make this thread, about facts about World War 1...

I mean really was WW1, such a Great War? Who coined that term up anyways?

I mean really was WW1, such a Great War? Who coined that term up anyways?

To quote the Simpsons: "great meaning large or immense, we used it in the pejorative sense"

My understanding, as an amateur know-it-all, is that WWI was called "The Great War" because it involved most of the continent in some form or fashion. I believe everyone also felt that this was going to be the war to determine which nation(s) would be the prime mover(s) in European politics for decades to come. When it turned into a four-year-long orgy of death, they kept calling it "The Great War" because they didn't know what else to call it.

To quote the Simpsons: "great meaning large or immense, we used it in the pejorative sense"

Well thanx for ruining the joke.... -.-

I just need help in finding sources.

BTW let us also make this thread, about facts about World War 1...

I mean really was WW1, such a Great War? Who coined that term up anyways?

Try 1915: The Death of Innocence, by Lyn Macdonald
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801864437/103-4123389-0769417?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance

Read "Im Western, Nichts Neues" a.k.a "All Quiet on the Western Front". That should really help.

Well thanx for ruining the joke.... -.-

Oh, sorry. I'm just used to dumb people asking the question seriously...

Bah...i hate books, that means i gotta start googling big time!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ww1

a good place to start?
including:

Memoirs of the Great War (http://www.archive.org/details/memogw/) - a personal account in diary format of one mans experiences throughout the great war.

World War I Document Archive (http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/)

World War One forum (http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/)

the unexpected horrors of war:

The trenches were a bad place, if you peep, machine guns might get you, and they occasionally used the dead as extra protection.

Mustard Gas sucks if you inhale. It's also painful.

Machine gun causalties were the highest. The machine gun mowed down the British untill they stopped the slow march or whatever it was called when they charged with bayonets.

U-boats destroyed ships, and were incredibly hard to detect. It helped the Germans damage the british navy and supplies, and attacked civilian boats, like the luisitannia.

All I could think of off the top of my head. Maybe add in something about the tank, and how unreliable it was, but imprortant.

it affected most of the world, hence a world war

some south american countries were involved (brazil), japan was an allied power, there was a lot of fighting in africa, there were naval battles between commerce raiders and convoys.

Bah...i hate books, that means i gotta start googling big time!

In my day, the Internet was called, "books". And the word for "Google" was "Library".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ww1

a good place to start?
including:

Memoirs of the Great War (http://www.archive.org/details/memogw/) - a personal account in diary format of one mans experiences throughout the great war.

World War I Document Archive (http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/)

World War One forum (http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/)

Your last site is....not in english. oO

In my day, the Internet was called, "books". And the word for "Google" was "Library".

Wow...i feel sorry for you, Thank G-d for technology eh?

www.firstworldwar.com

A truely great site for Info.

Well, the war was the first one to be completely mechanised, so it was a massive culture shock to everyone in the military, to discover that they were being butchered by machines, not men. Also, the numbers involved and firepower were a big shock to the system too. Most of the large colonial era battles would have mere regiments committed to the field, and with the exception of a few set-piece battles in the Napoleonic Wars and the Crimea (I speak of the British and French here*), casualties would be a gradual matter. The imperial agenda was often adequately served by intimidation alone, such was European technological supremacy over the rest of the world. Having entire divisions annihilated in a matter of days was a novel experience. It was a paradigm shift, and I would imagine the psychological effect was akin to experiencing Blitzkrieg in 1940, or a nuclear bomb in 1945.

* Own research: See if a valid equivalent example exists for early Germany in the 1871 war.

It is easy to see how this leads to the next point - how attitudes to war changed. In the British and French military traditions, there was an unquestioned belief that life and death in the service of your country and its overseas interests, is a noble thing. Not even the Boer War put much of a dent into that attitude in Britain, which is why in 1914 a million men volunteered for service, and conscription did not have to be introduced until two years later - for two years voluntary recruitment kept pace with the bloodbath that by then had killed hundreds of thousands. After the Somme in 1916, too much had been sacrificed to make a withdrawal or settlement possible, and the allies pursued the remainder of the war with resignation rather than enthusiasm. After the war's end, with millions dead and crippled and cities ruined, Europe's attitude for further conflict was diminished - that whole generation had simply lost the will to fight again. This is one reason I believe the League of Nations failed, it is not a simple matter of indecisive governments, the whole culture had shifted, rather like the relative isolationism the US experienced after Vietnam. The appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s was inevitable really, because even if war had been declared the moment he came to power, the allied armies were still too much of a shambles, the elites too psychologically wounded by the past to make the decision. Indeed it's a miracle the British and French Empires remained intact.

You would have thought that colonial experience with the machinegun, even the more crude Gardner and Gatling guns of the pre-Maxim era, would have convinced the British that machineguns are bad news.

And you would have thought that the Boer War would teach that you don't stand up in an area where men with rifles firing smokeless powder cartridges are waiting. It's suicide.

And yet, we still had idiots like General Sir Douglas Haig, who kept the horse cavalry in reserve "in case of a breakthrough". Even Lloyd George, a civilian, was not that damn stupid.

Your last site is....not in english. oO

bah, i didn't go to all the effort of actually checking em :P

but the first one looks as though it could be useful

And yet, we still had idiots like General Sir Douglas Haig, who kept the horse cavalry in reserve "in case of a breakthrough". Even Lloyd George, a civilian, was not that damn stupid.
Well, those were the days when promotion depended on the 'old boy network', ie homosexual favours, rather than competence. A look at the war memorials in Oxford and Cambridge colleges shows that the sons of the upper classes were automatically given commissions, sometimes with absurd levels of responsibility, without any experience, wheras the poor were sent to their deaths as common soldiers irrespective of their years of military service. :rolleyes:

Well, those were the days when promotion depended on the 'old boy network', ie homosexual favours, rather than competence. A look at the war memorials in Oxford and Cambridge colleges shows that the sons of the upper classes were automatically given commissions, sometimes with absurd levels of responsibility, without any experience, wheras the poor were sent to their deaths as common soldiers irrespective of their years of military service. :rolleyes:

Yeah, which is why the British army was called "Lions led by donkeys" - the actual soilders were extremely professional, at least the infantry, but a good proportion of the officers were just such idiots.

Well you can try several things, current research is defining the corelation of PTSD with different factors found in areas of Conflict, one being that battle may have some health protective benifits while captivity, or peace keeping operations may be detrimental to soldiers mental health. You can also try a book called "On Killing" by Lcol Dave Grossman. However my bigest suggestion to you would be to narrow down your question to something a little more specific e.g. what was the psychological affect of the introduction of the tank to the german infantry in the trenches. Otherwise you are going to have a whole mess of random reading to do. http://www.springerlink.com/(4mecau45fzy0chezindbr1yv)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,17;journal,22,36;linkingpublicationresults,1:404759,1

Well you can try several things, current research is defining the corelation of PTSD with different factors found in areas of Conflict, one being that battle may have some health protective benifits while captivity, or peace keeping operations may be detrimental to soldiers mental health. You can also try a book called "On Killing" by Lcol Dave Grossman. However my bigest suggestion to you would be to narrow down your question to something a little more specific e.g. what was the psychological affect of the introduction of the tank to the german infantry in the trenches. Otherwise you are going to have a whole mess of random reading to do. http://www.springerlink.com/(4mecau45fzy0chezindbr1yv)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,17;journal,22,36;linkingpublicationresults,1:404759,1

The Face of War, by John Keegan, is a quick read.