World War I World War I (WWI or WW1), also known as the First World War, or the Great War, was a global war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. Over 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians died as a result of the war (including the victims of a number of genocides), a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and the tactical stalemate caused by trench warfare, a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Prelude
Last Post (poem) "Last Post" is a poem written by Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, in 2009. It was commissioned by the BBC to mark the deaths of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, two of the last three surviving British veterans from the First World War, and was first broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 programme Today on 30 July 2009, the date of Allingham's funeral. The poem, named after the "Last Post" (the bugle call used at British ceremonies remembering those killed in war), makes explicit references to Wilfred Owen's poem from the First World War Dulce et Decorum Est. It imagines what would happen if time ran backwards and those killed in the war came back to life; their lives would still be full of possibilities and filled with "love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food. The poem takes its title from the bugle call used at British ceremonies remembering those killed in war, the "Last Post". The poem received a generally favourable critical reaction.
Exit wounds: Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy commissions war poetry for today Poets, from ancient times, have written about war. It is the poet's obligation, wrote Plato, to bear witness. In modern times, the young soldiers of the first world war turned the horrors they endured and witnessed in trench combat - which slaughtered them in their millions - into a vividly new kind of poetry, and most of us, when we think of "war poetry" will find the names of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon coming first to our lips, with Ivor Gurney, Isaac Rosenberg, Rupert Brooke ... What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? ... There's some corner of a foreign field ... British poets in our early 21st century do not go to war, as Keith Douglas did and Edward Thomas before him. In Times of Peace by John Agard That finger - index to be exact -so used to a trigger's warmthhow will it begin to deal with skinthat threatens only to embrace? Those feet, so at home in heavy bootsand stepping over bodies -how will they cope with a bubble bathwhen foam is all there is for ambush? Listen
Radiohead: Harry Patch (In Memory of) | Review Radiohead's Thom Yorke ... a desolate lament for the late war veteran Harry Patch. Photograph: Mark Allan Those who tuned into Radio 4 this morning (Wednesday 5 August), received a nice surprise. At five to nine, Radiohead premiered their brand new song, a tribute to the late Harry Patch, the first world war veteran who died last month. The simply titled Harry Patch (In Memory of) was aired just days after the band finished recording it. It begins with Thom Yorke offering a desolate lament over bleak, circling strings that build as the song progresses. The final line comes from an interview given by a frail Patch to the Today programme in 2005: "The next world war will be chemical, but they will never learn." Considering the solemnity of the subject, the song finds Radiohead at their most understated and serene, a respectful and ceremonial contrast to the fury of Harrowdown Hill, the song Yorke wrote in tribute to Dr David Kelly.
World War I in art and literature Art[edit] The years of warfare were the backdrop for art which is now preserved and displayed in such institutions as the Imperial War Museum in London, the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Official war artists were commissioned by the British Ministry of Information and the authorities of other countries. After 1914, avant-garde artists began to consider and investigate many things that had once seemed unimaginable. As Marc Chagall later remarked, "The war was another plastic work that totally absorbed us, which reformed our forms, destroyed the lines, and gave a new look to the universe. Some artists responded positively to the changes wrought by war. The commissions related to the official war artists programmes insisted on the recording of scenes of war. The Cubist vocabulary itself was adapted and modified by the Royal Navy during "the Great War." The most popular painting in the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1917 was Frank O. Painting[edit]
Lost Generation The "Lost Generation" was the generation that came of age during World War I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to Gertrude Stein, who was then his mentor and patron. In A Moveable Feast, published after Hemingway and Stein's death, Hemingway claims that Stein heard the phrase from a garage owner who serviced Stein's car. When a young mechanic failed to repair the car quickly enough, the garage owner shouted at the boy, "You are all a "génération perdue. In literature[edit] This term originated with Gertrude Stein who, after being unimpressed by the skills of a young car mechanic, asked the garage owner where the young man had been trained. 'Lost means not vanished but disoriented, wandering, directionless — a recognition that there was great confusion and aimlessness among the war's survivors in the early post-war years Other uses[edit]
Prose & Poetry - Literary Ambulance Drivers A remarkable number of well known authors were ambulance drivers during World War I. Among them were Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and Somerset Maugham. Robert Service, the writer of Yukon poetry including The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and Charles Nordhoff, co-author of Mutiny On the Bounty, drove ambulances in the Great War. At least 23 well known literary figures drove ambulances in the First World War. If the list were expanded to include those working in medically related fields during the war, such names as Gertrude Stein, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and E.M. The concentration of famous writers as ambulance drivers is unique to the First World War. This raises several questions: Why did numerous future literary figures volunteer for ambulance work in the First World War? The answers to these questions tend to shed light on the times in which these writers lived and the changes which occurred in American society during the period of the First World War. The Dismal Past
Battles - The Battle of Jutland, 1916 The greatest naval battle of the First World War. Jutland had all the ingredients to be a great British naval victory, but in the event the result was much less clear-cut. The recently appointed commander of the German High Seas Fleet, Reinhard Scheer, had returned to the policy of making sorties against the British coast, confident that his codes were secure, and thus that the main British battle fleet, at Scapa Flow in the north of Scotland could not intervene. At the end of May, Scheer sortied with the entire High Seas Fleet, expected that the only serious threat he would meet was Admiral Beatty's battle cruiser squadron based on the Forth. Both fleets sailed in a similar formation, with a scouting squadron of battle cruisers sailing ahead of the main battle fleets. The second phase saw Beatty flee north, pursued by the German Dreadnoughts. Jutland was the last, and largest, of the great battleship battles. Photographs courtesy of Photos of the Great War website
American Music Goes to War The pace of life in the second decade of the 20th century was one that was decidedly faster than those before. The automobile was already an established part of life and the airplane was finding a place in transportation beyond that of a novelty. Motion pictures were becoming competitive with the stage and advertising was becoming more inclined to send out modern, go get 'em messages. Popular music stayed right in step with this speed increase, Ragtime leading the way with syncopated, more complex rhythms and new musical directions that led to jazz and swing. In spite of that, we were still a relatively naive and simple society. Of course, the war began in August of 1914 as a result of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Heir to the imperial throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenburg. By this time, American composers began to think about the war and a few songs began to appear that referred to the war. In 1914, Chas. November, 2000
EDSITEment - Lesson Plan Activity 1. Motives for the Treaty: the Trauma of World War I Begin by sharing with your students the enormous and unprecedented human costs of the Great War. This will give them a context for considering the motivations of the allied powers in imposing the Treaty of Versailles, and for judging whether or not the terms of the Treaty were justified. By comparing the numbers of casualties and total troops mobilized, students will also have a basis for understanding the differing positions taken by the countries that drew up the Treaty. Begin by examining death and casualty tolls from France and the United States, respectively. Activity 2. Next have students read excerpts from President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points speech to Congress from the Great War Primary Documents Archive. Activity 3. Have students write out a list, based on their knowledge, of what they believe would be the most important respective postwar goals for France, Germany, and the United States. Activity 4.