"The Real Face of War"
Chemin des Dames, France 1918
WAR SLANG
The following words were first used in the trenches of WWI, and are still used today!
Over the Top, Trench Coat, Ace, Buddy, Pushing up the Daisies, Red Tape, Zoom, Sniper, Washout, Cootie,
Tune Up, In the Pink, Zero Hour, Zoom, Busted , Guy
Ticked Off, Put a Sock in it, Hit the Deck, Washout, Rookie, Coffin nail, Seconds, Fed Up, Rise & Shine, Pipe down, Mess up, Get knocked off, Hike, Gadget,
Kick the Bucket, Rank & File, Chow Down, Bull, Cushy, Scrounge, Shot(inoculation), Humdinger, Missed the Bus, Basket Case
World War I ….setting the tone for T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Introduction World War I was an international conflict primarily
involving European nations that was fought between 1914 and 1918. The United
States did not enter the conflict until April 1917, but its entry was the
decisive event of the war, enabling the Allies (Great Britain, France, Italy,
and Russia) to defeat the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and
Bulgaria). The leadership of President Woodrow Wilson led to both the conclusion
of hostilities and the creation of the League of Nations, an international
organization dedicated to resolving disputes without war
How Did The United
States Become Involved In World War I? When World War I (1914–18) broke out in Europe in
August 1914, Americans opposed sending U.S. troops into the conflict. U.S.
President Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) heeded public opinion and declared the
country's neutrality (not favoring either side). As warfare continued and
German tactics threatened civilian lives in Europe, however, Americans began
siding with the Allies (Serbia, France, Great Britain, Russia, and twenty other
nations).
After sinking the British passenger liner SS Lusitania, Germany adopted restricted submarine warfare. Early in 1917 the German navy began attacking American cargo boats, trying to provoke the United States into entering the war. Meanwhile, in an effort to force Britain to surrender, German U-boats (submarines) were positioning to cut off shipping to and from Britain. Tensions between the United States and Germany peaked when the British intercepted, decoded, and turned over to Wilson the "Zimmermann note," a telegram Germany had sent to its ambassador in Mexico. Originating in the office of German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann (1864–1940), the telegram urged German officials in Mexico to persuade the Mexican government to go to war with the United States. Mexico's motive would be to regain lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The message was published in the United States in early March. On April 6, 1917, the U.S. Congress declared war on Germany after Wilson had asserted that "the world must be made safe for democracy."
1. During the summer and fall of 1914, France lost as many men on the battlefield as the U.S.Army would lose in all of the 20th century!
2. Russia's losses were never actually counted. It is estimated that over 6 million Russian soldiers were killed in WWI.
3. During World War One, 230 soldiers perished for each hour of the four and a quarter years it continued.
4. The world's worst train accident occurred in France, in December 1917 with the deaths of over 600 soldiers.
5. There were 70,000,000 men and women in uniform of that number one-half were either killed, wounded or became prisoners of war.
6. In Great Britain at the end of the war there were 250,000 wounded soldiers who suffered total or partial amputation.
7. The Spanish Influenza of 1918 killed 51 million people worldwide!
8. The U.S. was in the war in actual combat for only seven and a half months. During this time 116,000 were killed and 204,000 were wounded.
9. In 1916 in the Italian Alps a winter avalanche killed 10,000 men. In four years of conflict on the Italian Alpine Front 50,000 soldiers killed by avalanches.
10. The Italian Front 1915-1918 was the site of the largest scale mountain warfare in history.
11. During the course of the Great War 11% of Frances's entire population was killed or wounded.
12. The site of the Battle of Verdun is remembered as the battlefield with the highest density of dead per square yard.
13. The biggest naval battle in history occurred off the coast of Jutland in the afternoon of May 31, 1916. More than 200 warships and 100,000 men of the rival navies were involved. The British "Grand Fleet" lost 14 ships. The German "High Seas Fleet" lost 11 ships.
14. Half of the dead of Great War have no known grave.
15. The largest man made explosion occurred at Halifax Harbor, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1917 with the collision of 2 ammo ships.
16. The 10 month Battle of Verdun, 1916 caused over a million casualties.
17. At the end of the war in France the 650,000 war widows became a powerful voting bloc.
18. On the Italian Front 60,000 Alpine troops would freeze to death in the "high mountains" (Dolomiti Adamello ranges) during 3 years of war.
19. Over 100,000 Chinese laborers were used by the British Army to dig trenches on the Western Front.
20. The winter of 1917 was the coldest winter on record.
21. On a 10 mile front in Flanders Field, Belgium in 1917 over
5,000,000 artillery shells were fired in 3 day period
WORLD WAR ONE FIRSTS
1. First war to be fought on 3 continents.
2. First industrialized conflict.
3. First use of
chlorine & mustard gas.
4. First use of the flame thrower.
5. First tank battle.
6. First use of
mass airplanes.
7. First use of x-ray in the military.
8. First use of a blood bank.
9. First use of guide dogs by blinded soldiers.
10. First four-star general, General John J. Pershing
11. First use of
trillion in estimating war costs.
12. First commissioning of war art for propaganda.
13. First use of the IQ Test given to Doughboys of 1917.
14. First U.S. president to visit a European country
while in office was Woodrow Wilson on 12/04/18.
while in office was Woodrow Wilson on 12/04/18.
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| A Friendly Call by William Merritt Chase |
In class: quick write on the poem.
Today and tomorrow we are breaking down the poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. Part of this project is to practice efficient note-taking, a skill that you most definitely need to master in order to be successful in college.
Please note the format below. I'll be handing you out paper that is correctly formatted. Your homework this evening is to go over your notes, which you will have taken on the left hand side of the paper and write comments, questions, connections and other observations on the left hand side that correspond to these. See model in the blog below. In addition, you will write a couple of summary sentences that pertain specifically to the material covered in class. Make your notes and reflections copious (that means lots), as this is the only material you will have access to for an in class writing project next week. I will check them for a homework grade first thing tomorrow.
There is no one right way to take notes in class. One effective note-taking system is called The Cornell System, which was designed by Walter Pauk, emeritus, at Cornell University. To use this system you will need a large loose-leaf notebook. This allows you to insert class handouts, rearrange notes easily, or remove notes to spread them out and study. To learn more about this note-taking framework read Chapter 5 in Pauk's book, How to Study in College, 5th Edition.
Page Layout
The distinguishing feature of the Cornell system is the layout of the page on which you take your notes. The page layout includes large margins on the left and bottom of the page. A picture of this layout (not to scale), with dimensions, is shown below.
Cue (Recall) Column
The space to the left of the vertical margin should be reserved for a cue (or recall) column. You should not write in this area during the lecture, while you are taking notes. The cue column is not created until you review your notes (which, ideally, you do as soon after the lecture as possible, and certainly before the next lecture). As you study the material in your notes, you should devise questions which the notes answer (think "Jeopardy"). These questions are the "cues" that should be written in the cue column. By writing questions, you are forced to think about the lecture material in a way that clarifies meaning, reveals relationships, establishes continuity, strengthens memory, and attempts to predict test and exam items.
The Summaries
The area below the horizontal margin near the bottom of the page should be reserved for a summary of the notes on that page. A summary is brief -- at most, only a few sentences. The page summary provides a concise review of the important material on the page. More importantly, in writing a summary, you are forced to view the material in a way that allows you to see how it all fits together, in a general sense. The summary should be written in your own words... helping you to own the information.
Note-Taking Area
The space to the right of the vertical margin is where you actually record your notes during the lecture. Pick a note-taking format with which you are comfortable -- there are no hard-and-fast rules for this aspect of the Cornell system. However, you should not attempt to transcribe verbatim every word spoken by the instructor. It is usually not difficult to separate the essential material from the non-essential. For instance, if information is written on the blackboard, it is probably important enough to include in your notes. To avoid missing information during the lecture, you should develop a system of abbreviations you understand, and you should write in telegraphic sentences (where you only include enough words to carry the essential meaning) or similar shorthand that is often used in cell phone text messages. As you take notes, realize that your emphasis should be on the key ideas, rather than the actual words used to convey those ideas.
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