the devastation of an industrialized war

The Devastation of an Industrialized War

An Overview of Topics

Objective

• Pick one or two topics from the following slide show and write down: – Why you think it is interesting,– And three more things you would like to learn

about it.

Before we begin…

• Raise your hands and tell me ANYTHING you know about combat during World War I.

• If you want to know more about something during the slide show, raise your hand and ASK or WRITE IT DOWN

Topic List

• Trench Warfare & No-Man’s-Land• “New Weapons”, such as poison gas, long-

range artillery, tanks, and machine guns• Aerial Combat• Shell Shock

Trench Warfare

The Trenches

Over the Top

Dogfighting in WWI

Comparison: A 19th Century Cannon

American 14 in., 30 mile gun.

• Artillery was responsible for 60% of all combat deaths during the war

Tanks

Machine gunners with gas masks

Poison Gas:designed to blind, choke, and kill

Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen, 1917

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hootsOf disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;But someone still was yelling out and stumblingAnd floundering like a man in fire or lime.—Dim, through the misty panes and thick green lightAs under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie: Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.

Shell Shock—a.k.a. mental breakdown

Now Take a Minute

• Write down the topic(s) you think are most interesting and THREE things you’d like to learn more about them.