3-2-1 Summary

3 Things I Learned

1. Germany was blamed for starting the war. However, Germany did not declare war first.
2. During World War I, there was a rise in militarism, alliances, imperialism and nationalism.
3. The war cost $338 billion, which is still an enormous amount of money even in today's society.

2 Things That Interested Me

1. From U.S.'s own Woodrow Wilson's Fourteenth Points, the League of Nations, an international peacekeeping organization was created. Although created by the U.S. president at the time, Woodrow Wilson, ironically the U.S. did not participate in the League of Nations in order to practice isolationism.
2. The creation of the new weapons of war such as poison gas, the machine guns, tanks, airplanes and the submarine amazes me. The fact that the first time all of these weapons were used was in the first World War, is simply amazing. Not only were they just created when they were used, but all of these inventions are less than 100 years old and created in the 20th century. These weapons are still relatively new and perhaps have yet to be perfected.

1 Question I Still Have

1. I still don't understand why Germany was blamed for the war. It seems like they received the short end of the stick in all of this. Germany wasn't the first country to declare war, so why are they to blame?

Spotlight On - Trench Warfare

By early 1915, armies on the Western Front (which later became known a "terrain of death") had dug miles of trenches in order to protect themselves from enemy fire. Known as trench warfare, in this type of fighting, soldiers fought each other in trenches. The spaces between the trenches were known as "No-Man's Land," and most of the soldiers died here. However, if one stayed in the trench, safety was not guaranteed. Life in trenches was extremely unsanitary. One soldier wrote, "The men slept in mud, washed in mud, ate in mud and dreamed in mud." Trenches also harbored rats and there was no fresh food. The air in the trenches eventually became unbreathable because of the artillery fire and living in the trenches became known as "a living hell."

U.S. Events During WWI

• Henry Ford was the American founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. He is credited with "Fordism", the mass production of large numbers of inexpensive automobiles using the assembly line. Ford coupled the assembly line with high wages for his workers which led to The Ford Motor Company announcing an eight hour work day and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor. Ford's intense commitment to lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations. Ford had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace.
• George Herman Ruth, Jr., best known as "Babe" Ruth, was an American Major League Baseball player from 1914–1935. Ruth originally broke into the major leagues in July 1914 with the Boston Red Sox as a starting pitcher, but after he was sold to the New York Yankees in 1919, he converted to a full-time right-fielder and became one of the league's best hitters. In 1935, Ruth retired. In 1936, Ruth became one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ruth has since become regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture Ruth was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season (1927).

People in the News

• Joseph Glidden was a farmer who patented barbed wire in 1874. Barbed wire covered the battlefields of World War I. During World War I, both sides laid barbed wire in front of trenches to slow enemy attacks. The wire was so effective at stopping troops that it gave defenders a great advantage in the war.
• John J. "Blackjack" Pershing was promoted to General of the Armies during World War I, the highest rank ever held in the United States Army. With nearly two million men under his command, Pershing was responsible for more troops than any commander in American history. Furthermore, he helped keep American forces independent, despite repeated European requests to put American troops under foreign command. Pershing's soldiers helped turn the tide of World War I to the Allies, and his refusal to allow American soldiers to enter the line before they were fully trained was credited with saving countless lives.
• Gavrilo Princip was a Serbian member of the Black Hand, a terrosist group that served as a catalyst for World War I when he assassinated Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The murder started a chain reaction that led to the beginning of World War One. Princip seized his opportunity when a wrong turn forced Ferdinand's car to stall right in front of him. Princip then shot the Archduke and his wife, Sophie, killing them both. At only nineteen years old, he was too young to face the death penalty and was sentenced instead to the maximum penalty, twenty years in prison and later died of tuberculosis.
  

World War One (Chapter 13)

Introduction

World War One proved to be an important part of global society. Between the growth of militarism, nationalism, imperialism and alliances such as the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance, many conflicts arose. Despite the conflicts, however, there were advances is weapon technology and attempts of long-lasting peace were made, such as Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. The results of the war were devastating in Europe. Although new nations were formed, the costs of war were EXTREME. About 8.5 billion soldiers died, not to mention the 21 million wounded and countless civilians wounded as a result of starvation, disease and slaughter. The war cost $338 billion and destroyed homes, towns, villages, farmlands and wiped out a whole generation of Europeans. Through the blog, my objective is to accomplish a full understanding of World War One and its time period. I hope to not only learn the basic information, but the extraneous and little-known information as well.

Art Pieces of World War One

Art Pieces of World War One

John Nash, Over the Top (1918)

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTnashJ.htm

On the outbreak of World War One, Nash joined the First Artist Rifles, a volunteer regiment of the British Army. During trench warfare, Nash was one of eighty men ordered to cross No-Man's Land at Marcoing near Cambrai. Of these, only Nash and eleven other men returned. Afterwards Nash painted Over the Top in memory of the attack.

Eric Kennington, Gassed and Wounded (1917)

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTkennington.htm

On the outbreak of the First World War, Kennington enlisted with the 13th London Regiment and fought on the Western Front but was badly wounded and and sent home. England's War Propaganda Bureau (WPB) concentrated on producing pamphlets and books on the war. However, the WPB realized that he needed pictures to help the war effort so they employed two army officers as photographers and were to be sent to the Western Front. In August, 1917, Kennington was employed by the War Propaganda Bureau to produce pictures of the Western Front.

George Leroux, Hell (1917)

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTleroux.htm

On the outbreak of the First World War George Leroux joined the French Army and served on the Western Front in France and Belgium. He later recalled how on one mission he saw "a group of French soldiers taking shelter in a great shell-hole full of water". That evening he made sketches of what he had seen and later painted L'Enfer (Hell). One critic remarked that the Leroux had "produced a work which attempts to represent as accurately as possible the unrepresentable reality of war".

John Singer Sargent, Gassed (1918)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTsargent.htm

In 1918 Sargent was told to paint a large painting to symbolize the cooperation between British and American forces during World War One. While in France, Sargent visited a casualty clearing station at Le Bac-de-Sud. While at the casualty station, he witnessed a group of soldiers that had been blinded by mustard gas, one of the new weapons of war.