“The First World War cut deep into the consciousness of Modern man. It reshaped the political order in Europe. It memorials stand in every town and village. ……. My aim has been to see the war in historical perspective. I have tried to explain what the war was about; particularly, to resolve the paradox that men were passionately engaged in the war and hated it at the same time. Each country fought ostensibly to defend itself yet sought also to conquer and to make great gains.” 1966. Too many people still believe the greatness of their nations over others, of course most people love their own country too. Before the start of the Iraq War in 2003, a patriotic friend called me from the US and ask me “Are you not afraid of the coming Iraq war?”, with her rather blinding enthusiasm for the invasion. I did not answer her. Unknown to her, I was marching against the Iraq war. It was the biggest protest march I have ever seen. On that day, 1 million people marched in London to voice their opposition to the war. At least there were 1 million people who did not believed that Iraq had the Weapon of Mass Destruction neither were they able to stop the war, in an otherwise democratic country. The Myths of Victory and Failure. German commander Erich Ludendorff suffered a mental collapse before he called for an armistice to end the war, and when he recovered and discovered the terms he had signed onto, he insisted Germany refuse them, claiming the army could fight on. But the new civilian government overruled him, as once peace had been established there was no way to keep the army fighting. The civilian leaders who overruled Ludendorff became scapegoats for both the army and Ludendorff himself.

1. First created 2 Jan 2015. Version 1.2, 9 Nov 2021. Daperro. London.
The First World
War
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Available free for non-commercial, Educational and personal use.
The War to Ends All Wars

2. Germany was united under Otto von Bismarck of Prussia, into the “Second Reich”, with territories stretching from the
border of Russia, through Poland, to the border with France, in the late 19C. By the early years of the 20C, Germany
became the industrial powerhouse of Europe and also the dominant power in central Europe, challenging the supremacy of
France and Britain.
Rising German
Industry

3. Territorial expansions in
Germany & Serbia
led to rising nationalism

4. During the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 the Ottoman Empire was defeated. Serbian nationalism was on the rise, as its territory
expanded, while the Ottoman Empire crumbled. Above - Anti-aircraft field gun near Belgrade July-August 1915.
Rising Serbia and the Declining Ottoman Empire

5. The naval Arms Race between
Germany and Britain

6. The new British Dreadnought battleship

7. The German battle fleet challenge

8. Interlocking Alliances

9. A series of treaties and alliances between European powers, dragged the whole of Europe into a continental war. Of the
five main antagonists, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia were effectively ruled by monarchy. France and Britain were
ruled by democratic elected governments.

10. Autocratic monarchs

11. Czar Nicholas at the Front - Russian Czar Nicholas II at the Front along with the six-foot-six tall Russian Army Commander-in-Chief
Grand Duke Nicholas (standing in car) and Count Dobrinsky. Although the Czar had no military aptitude, he relieved the Grand Duke
in September 1915 and took personal command of the world's largest army, with 16 million men mobilized - an army sprawled across
the gigantic Eastern Front. The Czar's preoccupation with military matters and his extended absence from the home front led to a
worsening of Russia's internal political situation, weakening his power and helping to pave the way for revolution.
Autocratic monarchs

12. The Assassination

13. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne and his Wife leaving the Town Hall in Sarajevo, Bosnia,
June 28, 1914. A bomb was thrown at their car but missed. Undaunted, they continued their visit only to be shot and
killed a short time later by a lone assassin.
Serbia Nationalism vs Autocratic Austrian Monarchy

14. War Began

15. Austria-Hungarian soldiers executing Serbian women
Serbia invaded

16. Germany went to war

17. Mobilization &
Blind Enthusiasm

18. The British Lord Kitchener recruitment poster and Canadian Grenadier Guards recruitment poster of WWI.

19. 1916-17 US Uncle Sam recruitment poster and Russian recruitment poster.

20. 1916 French poster “Courage we shall get them”. Design by
Jules Abel Faivre (1867-1945).
1919 German Recruiting Poster for the Reichswehr.

21. Adolf Hitler in crowd outside the Odeonplatz during the mobilization of the German army for WWI.Munich,
Germany, August 2, 1914

22. “Wake Up America Day”
“Wake Up America Day” parade in New York, 19 April 1917.

23. The first “People’s War”
Nations after nations their entire population were involved in the war efforts.

25. The First World War substantially increased the numbers of women in paid work and the range of jobs that they undertook. The
majority of women supported the war effort by working in industry.

26. Cheerful German reserve-division marches to the front at Verdun. Their aim was to 'bleed the French to death'. Deployed in this war
of attrition only a few of these soldiers returned alive. Picture made in the summer of 1915.

27. Turkey was Invaded
Gallipoli landing

30. Technological War

31. French soldiers camouflaging a 370 mm
railway gun - Picture made by an official
photographer of the French army on
September 5th, 1917, near the village of
Heenkerke in Flanders, Belgium. The deep
roar of these enormous guns was terrifying.
Conversation was impossible. To speak to a
man beside him a soldier had to shout.
Though the ears of the gunners were stuffed
with cotton they ached and throbbed.

32. British Introduced Tanks - The British secret weapon deceptively described by them as a motorized water tank - a name that stuck
in part. The first tanks in the war were seen at Delville Wood in the Somme and were met with incredulous looks from the Allied
soldiers they were meant to protect and from the Germans, some of whom called them "monsters."

33. Giant listening horns used to listen for approaching aircraft during WWI.

34. Poison Gas - Unexploded shells, containing deadly mustard gas, are piling up in the Belgian Houthulst Forest. Every day duds are
found on the former battlefields of the Western Front. These shells never exploded because when they hit the ground they just
disappeared into the muddy clay of Flanders. Getting rid of these rusting and often leaking shells is an enormous problem for
Belgium.

37. Chemical Warfare

39. Gas casualties of the British 55th (West Lancashire) Division, awaiting treatment at an Advanced Dressing Station near Bethune, in
France. This is one of the most famous pictures showing the effects of gas warfare. It was made by the official army photographer
Second Lieutenant T.L. Aitke on April 10, 1918, during the Battle of Estaires, which was a part of the German spring offensive.

40. Artist at War
One of the most powerful image of war, a painting by the American artist John Singer Sargent.

41. This is a French medical picture, made on March 31, 1918. The dead man is a French soldier of the 99th Infantry Regt., who was
killed by German mustard gas. The gas not only burned his lungs and intoxicated him, but also tore his skin apart.

42. Armenian Massacre

43. Picture showing Armenians killed during the Armenian Genocide. Image taken from Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, written by
Henry Morgenthau, Sr. and published in 1918. "Those who fell by the wayside. Scenes like this were common all over the Armenian
provinces, in the spring and summer months of 1915. Death in its several forms - massacre, starvation, exhaustion---destroyed the
larger part of the refugees. The Turkish policy was that of extermination under the guise of deportation"

44. Turkish official teases starving Armenian children by showing them a piece of bread during the Armenian Genocide in 1915.

45. A global conflict

49. Trench warfare and stalemate

52. Horrors of War

53. French picture made in 1916 in a trench near Verdun, Northern France. The Battle of Verdun was the longest and one of the
bloodiest engagements of World War I. Two million men were engaged. The Germans began the battle on February 21, 1916. In
December of that year the French had regained most of the ground lost. The Germans intended a battle of attrition in which they
hoped to bleed the French army white. In the end they sustained almost as many casualties as the French: an estimated 328,000 to
the French 348,000. The real figures are unknown. Nowadays Verdun stands for everything that is cruel and savage in warfare.
Soldiers on both sides lost their sense of humanity.

54. Shot at dawn. Belgian soldier and war-volunteer Aloïs Walput (21) is tied to a pole and shot by his fellow-men. This execution took
place on 3rd June 1918 in the dunes near the Flemish village of Oostduinkerke. The picture was made a few seconds after the
soldier died: two soldiers cut the body loose, an officer (the medical doctor?) takes the exact time, the spurred commander of the
firing-squad looks on. After the war all armies made their files on their executions top-secret. In a few cases the truth leaked through.

55. On May 7, 1917 a French
army photographer took
this photo of a horrible
scene along a railway,
somewhere in Northern
France.

56. Humanity in War

57. British soldier gave water to a wounded German prisoner-of-war.
Although the picture is probably staged, friendly gestures like this
actually happened. In World War One most soldiers did not really
hate their enemies. They saw each other as victims of the same
incomprehensible world-politics. However, captured snipers and
flamethrower-operators did not get much compassion.

58. An American Cigar - American Army chaplain offered a cigar to a young German prisoner-of-war. As Germany in 1918 ran out of
cannon fodder, the Kaiser and his generals committed very young soldiers to battle.

59. British and German football game
On Christmas 1914 the war was stopped and an unofficial truce negotiated on the Western Front. British and German soldiers
crossed trenches to exchange greetings and food. A football game was also arranged to be played between the British and
the German team.

60. British and German soldiers exchanged
cigarettes, gifts, and addresses during
Christmas Truce, 1914.
British and German
football game

61. War ended

63. Armistice day celebrations, London, 11 November 1918

64. American entered the war in April 1917. Photo shows American soldiers returning home after the war.

65. The Treaty of Versailles and
its consequences

66. A full meeting of the Paris Peace Conference inside the ornate French Foreign Ministry building at the Quai d'Orsay. Representatives
from the twenty-seven Allied nations met along with others. The Germans were excluded but kept a close eye on press reports about
the proceedings. Allied indecision over what to do about the Russian Bolsheviks kept Russia from being invited.

67. The European boundaries were redrawn. We saw the return of the Baltic states and Poland. Yugoslavia was created.
Germany shifted westward and mostly at the expanse of the Austria-Hungary Empire.
European map redrawn

68. Russian Czar in Captivity
Nicholas Romanov, who once sat
upon the throne as absolute ruler
of Russia, now seated on a tree
stump following his abdication,
subsequent arrest and
imprisonment in the Urals by
Bolshevik Red Guards, three of
whom are seen in the background.
All the
ruling
monarchs
lost their
power

69. Reparations bankrupted Germany

70. Germany colonies were taken away
In Africa, Germany colonies were shared among the victorious powers. German concessions in China were given to
the Japanese, which created a sense of injustice among the Chinese. This led the May Fourth intellectual movement
and also the introduction of Marxism in China.
Photo of released students, detained by the authority, after taking part on the May Fourth march in 1919

71. Other consequences
of the war

72. Bloody Picnic
Corpse of a French soldier blown into a tree
Human
costs
Total killed 15m to 18m including
civilians and military personnel. Total
wounded between 22m and 23m.

73. Maimed Young disabled
soldiers at the Fourth
London General
Hospital.
Total wounded between 22m and 23m.

74. Unimaginable Destruction

75. Daughters of Flanders' Slain. As Belgium was a major battleground in WW 1. Orphans were common. WWI left some 3 million
widows and as many as 10 million orphans. Photo shows an orphanage in Northern France, in the summer of 1917, by an unknown
American photographer. The picture was published in the National Geographic magazine..

76. Women emancipation

77. Woman Emancipation in Russia
A pre-revolutionary Russian war woman
worker..

78. Group of women working on an automobile engine re shortage of men during World War I. United Kingdom 1916
Society became less rigid and
more open

79. Optimisms and Hopes
The creation of the League of Nations

80. He cloned the phrase “The war to end all wars”. He was behind the creation of the
League of Nations

81. The irony is that the US never joined the League of Nations, a forerunner of the UN today
Members of the League of Nations

82. Rise of Communism
and Fascism

83. Hitler salutes to a crowd of soldiers at a Nazi rally in 1938. Fascist parties were formed in Italy and Spain.

84. Lenin giving a speech in Moscow in 1917. Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921 only a few years after the
Russian Revolution. There was also strong left wing movements in Germany after WW I.

85. The people in the photos had long
been dead. The wounds had been
healed. But has the lesson been
learned? Not by all.

86. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler departs Landsberg prison in December 1924 after serving just nine months for his role in the failed Beer Hall
Putsch. Sensational news coverage surrounding his trial helped little - known Hitler gain a national following in Germany. After his
release from prison, Hitler began to painstakingly rebuild his movement with the goal of getting Nazis elected to the national
legislature to destroy Germany's democracy from within and establish a dictatorship, leading up to the Second World War.

87. It is easy to forget the lesson
learned a century ago.
Nationalism is making a come
back in many parts of the world.

88. “The First World War cut deep into the consciousness of
Modern man. It reshaped the political order in Europe. It
memorials stand in every town and village. ……. My aim has
been to see the war in historical perspective. I have tried to
explain what the war was about; particularly, to resolve the
paradox that men were passionately engaged in the war and
hated it at the same time. Each country fought ostensibly to
defend itself yet sought also to conquer and to make great
gains.” AJP Taylor 1966.
The Seed of Nationalism
A special Armistice Day Release 11 Nov 2021

89. An old soldier planted one of the 888,246 porcelain roses on the lawn of the Tower of London to commemorated the British
fallen soldiers in WW I, one hundred years later on the beginning of the First World War.
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.” Ode of Remembrance by Laurence Binyon, published in 1914.
All rights reserved. Rights belong to their respective owners.
Available free for non-commercial and personal use.
The
End
Music – Sad Romance, composed by Thao
Nguyen Xanh and played by Ji Pyeong Keyon

90. On History