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EDWARDIAN ERA AND WORLD WAR I
EDWARDIAN ERA
• The reign of Edward VII in England.
• From 1901-1910. Queen Victoria died in January 1901. King Edward VII died in 1910.
• Some historians say it lasted until World War I – 1914.
• Edward VII was fashionable and influential on the arts because he traveled a lot (the opposite of his mother).
EDWARDIAN ERA
• England led the world in trade, finance and shipping, and manufacturing and mining.
• It was a prosperous period of time.
EDWARDIAN ERA
• Common labor workers and women gained more rights during this period.
• Women’s rights activists wanted to get women jobs and an education.
EDWARDIAN ERA
• Literature started to develop into literature for the elite and popular novels.
• Newspapers also became important (mass produced).
EDWARDIAN ERA
• Second Boer War: War in South Africa. The British were divided regarding the war.
• Pro-War versus Anti-War.
• Labor Party won the 1906 election, but they were radicals.
• Conservative House of Lords would not support their reforms = stalemate
• Peers (titled nobility) were limited in their power in 1911.
WORLD WAR I
• Also called “The Great War” – in combination with World War II.
• A result of allies – the Allied Powers (Britain, France, Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary).
• On June 29, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo.
• As a result, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
• The allied powers were all drawn into the war.
WORLD WAR I
• Russia supported Serbia.
• In retaliation, Germany invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland (all neutral powers), heading toward France.
• As a result, Britain declared war on Germany.
• Allied versus Central Powers
WORLD WAR I
• War of Attrition (repeated violent attack head-on hoping to have the larger numbers and better resources to win).
• Trench Warfare = awful.
TRENCH WARFARE
• Trench system ran from the channel to the Alps
• The front-line system was made up of three parallel lines that were built in a dog-tooth shape
• The fire trench
• The travel trench at 20 yards
• The support trench (reinforcement in case of a raid)
• The trenches were four feet deep and built with a wall of sandbags as a parapet to allow men to stand upright. Duckboards covered the dirt floors.
TRENCH WARFARE
• The trenches were four feet deep and built with a wall of sandbags as a parapet to allow men to stand upright. Duckboards covered the dirt floors.
• The support line was rather more complex because there was less risk. There were kitchens, latrines, stores and mortar positions dug at the end of short lead-off trenches. Dugouts were the trademark of support. Fifteen-foot shafts led to caves about five paces square and six feet high. Shape would be kept by wooden beams and wire netting.
• To dig a front-line trench system took 450 men six hours per 250 yards, covered by marksmen, watching constantly for the arc of sparks which preceded a bursting start shell at night.
• Night was the most active time of the 24 hours, for war reversed the normal time sequence. Night was silence and isolation and fear. It could be violent activity in short spasms too. The tension which built up in the long periods of silent waiting added to the impact.
TRENCH WARFARE
• The soldiers in the trenches heard the enemy activity, louder in the night silence and more sinister for being unseen. These loud whispers reminded old hands of stalking in the African bush. They would overhear the hacking coughs and the snuffling soldiers with their head colds; they would hear feet on duckboards and the night wheel noise, like a river in flood grinding the boulders on its bed.
• Few of the men were shell casualties, for the front lines were too close together. The real killer was the sniper. Snipers worked in nests behind the front line, though a few were in camouflaged suits in no-man’s-land. The accuracy that snipers achieved was impressive. The only way to remove snipers was to get a rough bearing by sound and field of fire, then triangulate by using a helmet or dummy to draw fire.
• The real enemy was the weather and the side-effects of living rough.
• The cold weather was horrible. A man might wear long-johns, thick socks, wool vest and greyback, knitted cardigan and sheepskin jerkin, but still the cold seeped through. Though a man doubled his vests and added newspapers and oiled waistcoats, it seemed to make no difference. All winters were longer than city men could grasp and all nights colder just before the dawn than they would ever have guessed, judging by the physical distance from the south of England. During the winter of 1917, there were fifteen degrees of frost in Arras. Hot tea froze in minutes and bully beef became chunks of red ice. Bread acquired a sour taste and boots froze solid in second if they were taken off.
TRENCH WARFARE
• The cold weather was horrible. A man might wear long-johns, thick socks, wool vest and greyback, knitted cardigan and sheepskin jerkin, but still the cold seeped through. Though a man doubled his vests and added newspapers and oiled waistcoats, it seemed to make no difference. All winters were longer than city men could grasp and all nights colder just before the dawn than they would ever have guessed, judging by the physical distance from the south of England. During the winter of 1917, there were fifteen degrees of frost in Arras. Hot tea froze in minutes and bully beef became chunks of red ice. Bread acquired a sour taste and boots froze solid in second if they were taken off.
• The rain would cause the trenches to become dykes; icy water would rise as high as thigh deep, and long periods of immersion cause the men’s feet to swell until keep their boots on was torture, but taking the boots off produced worse results (they couldn’t be replaced). At night, their soaked clothes would freeze. Many men would drown in the mud, and many would get stuck in the mood for days, waiting to be pulled out.
TRENCH WARFARE
• Living next to the earth and the mud, vermin were inescapable. There were beetles, ants, caterpillars, greenfly and mosquitoes which could blow up a man’s face to the size of a football, but lice were the greatest tribulation. Lice fed 12 times daily and held onto clothing fibres as they drank blood; they laid five eggs per day on the seams of clothing and were hard to remove because they only needed to have one meal of blood every ten days and their eggs could resist the cold. On the western front, surplus food dropped drastically and dead bodies were everywhere, leading to an extraordinary growth in the population of rats. Horses on the front also produced 40 tons of manure daily, allowing an ideal breeding ground for flies. Men would count around 72 flies from shoulder to wrist. Only poison gas could keep away the rats and flies – temporarily.
• Gas – made of chlorine and mustard – was used to choke soldiers to death (it was first used by the Germans towards the end of April 1915). It was discharged from cylinders or artillery shells and trench mortar bombs. Later in 1915, the Germans also introduced the flamethrower.
TRENCH WARFARE
• The cold and wet, vermin and poor diet all combined to create greater numbers of sickness – diseases multiplied, but only the most severe cases (those collapsing) were admitted to the hospital. The others were given the number nine pill, and continued illness would be punished.
• British and Commonwealth soldiers suffering from what we now recognize as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) were executed for cowardice, desertion, and insubordination. 306 men, who had volunteered for the army, were executed by fire squad. These men were often not examined for Shell Shock, and thus were unfit for duty when sent back to the front in the first place.
• Food was a comfort the rations were scarce, and those rations were often contaminated in transport. The water and tea would be become undrinkable, while the bully and biscuits made the soldiers incredibly thirsty. Rum was given to the soldiers more reliably, however, and was considered medicinal.
• Usually only on the front line for a few days at a time.
