History in Focus: The End of the First World War

Londoners celebrating the end of the war

November 11 2018 will mark 100 years since the end of the First World War. Within four years 9,911,000 soldiers had been killed on top of millions more civilians through war, famine, disease, and genocide. The First World War drastically changed the world we live in and is seen as a break in particularly European history - Eric Hobsbawm characterised 1914-1918 as the end of the 'Long Nineteenth Century' and the start of the 'Short Twentieth Century', or 'the Age of Extremes'. Today we'll be looking at how this bloody conflict came to an end, but first we have to understand the origins of the war, and the early fighting. Due to the sheer size of the end of the war, not to mention the war as a whole, we cannot mention everything so if I do omit something important please do mention and I will do an edit to add the points you mention.

The War: 1914-1916

A painting of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand

The origins of the First World War are complicated and hotly contested - both over whether we should consider long term or short term causes, and who started the war. The late-nineteenth century saw the world's power shift: Japan's rapid industrialisation and victory over Russia in 1905 had placed it on the world stage, the Ottoman Empire had started declining thanks to foreign debts and nationalist movements which they tried to counteract with the Tanzimat reforms, and German unification, and defeat of France in 1871, had tipped the balance of power in Europe. Through various treaties two military alliances soon emerged by 1914: the Entente comprising of France, Britain, and Russia, and the Central Powers comprising of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. However, these military alliances were not exactly set in stone. Various international scandals made a possible European wide war appear on the horizon - in a German War Council meeting in 1912 General von Moltke said 'I consider a war inevitable - the sooner, the better.' In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia upsetting its neighbours and especially Slavic nationalists. On June 28 1914 heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his pregnant wife, Sophie, were assassinated by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip of Mlada Bosna. Austria blamed Serbia and sent them an ultimatum with Germany backing Austria - Austria would invade if Serbia did not acquiesce to Austrian demands which would have virtually removed all of Serbia's autonomy. Russia started backing Serbia as it saw itself as 'the protector of Slavs' as nations started mobilising. Due to an alliance with Russia France started mobilising, also they feared German power. By the end of July/ start of August Austria, Germany, France, and Russia were at war. Years beforehand Germany had developed the Schlieffen Plan - the aim was to cross over Belgium which would bypass the French lines allowing Germany to quickly knock out France so they could focus on Russia. Belgium refused to allow Germany to pass through its borders so Germany declared war, however, Britain had been guaranteeing Belgium independence since 1839. Thanks to this, and a fear that German victory would threaten British economic interests, Britain entered the war. The First World War had begun. Thanks to diplomacy of the 1800s the British king, German kaiser, and Russian tsar all happened to be cousins - in the case of Germany and Britain first cousins.

War was largely welcomed in 1914. People eagerly signed up to fight, Britain did not need to introduce conscription until 1916 there was so much popular support for the war. Britain's colonies eagerly entered the war where the Indian National Congress supported it hoping that this support would allow greater autonomy to India after the war. However, support for the war was not total - the German far-left, such as Rosa Luxemburg, were arrested for their opposition; the Afrikaners of South Africa and French of Canada saw their country being dragged unwillingly into war by the Anglo-population; and the Bolsheviks in Russia virulently opposed a 'bourgeois war'. It should be noted in the early days war had widespread support. Despite having European origins, and being ostensibly a European conflict, it soon became a world war. Britain and Germany fought first in Togoland and Kamerun (modern Togo and Cameroon) before they met in France; Australia and New Zealand soon took over what is now northern Papua New Guinea; New Zealand took German Samoa; British and German ships fought around the Falklands; and Japan soon entered to seize German possessions in Asia and the Pacific. Other nations soon entered the war. The Ottoman Empire hoping to regain its hold over former territories lost to Britain, France, and Russia with its army initially being led by one of the Ottoman's leaders, Enver Pasha. In 1915 Bulgaria joined the war on the side of the Central Powers and Italy did so on the side of the Entente. Italy's treaties with Austria and Germany were defensive so as the two other powers had officially sent to declaration of war it gave them a blank check to opt out of the war. The Entente sent secret feelers out to Italy hoping it could divide the Austrian army, and wanting to limit Austrian power in the north Italy accepted.

Entente troops at Gallipoli

Fighting was brutal. Britain used its navy to blockade Germany so the German navy throughout the war made attempts to break this blockade. The Battle of Jutland in May/June 1916 involved the German navy hoping to lure the British into the sea around Jutland to destroy parts of it - this would make it easier for the German navy to challenge its British counterpart. Both sides claimed victory - Germany sank more ships but it was not enough to challenge the naval blockade. By the end of the war this blockade would cost thousands of German civilian lives and wreck the economy. Germany knew that France and Britain would rely heavily on their global empires, and resources from the America, so tried to threaten Entente sea lanes. German U-boats threatened to sink ships carrying arms and supplies to the Entente, May 1 1915 a German submarine sank an American merchant ship called the Gunflight off the coast of Sicily. Most famously a few days later the U-boat U-20 sank the Lusitania causing 1,198 peoples to drown, of which 128 were American. The conservative paper Kolnische Volkszeitung praised it saying: 'With joyful pride we contemplate this latest deed of our Navy. It will not be the last. The English wish to abandon the German people to death by starvation. We are more humane. We simple sank an English ship with passengers, who, at their own risk and responsibility, entered the zone of occupation'. On the continent the war was bloody. After Italian entry into the war Austria faced foes on three borders, in 1914 alone they only could use a third of their military to fight Serbia and faced large casualties taking Belgrade. Russia made large gains initially in Austria and Germany taking huge areas of Galicia, however, their under-equipped army soon were roundly trounced by Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the Battle of Tannenburg. By May 1915 Germany had managed to push into Russian Poland capturing Warsaw. In the Western Front trench warfare took root in northern France. Heavily fortified trenches defended by barbed wire, artillery and machine gun nests meant that thousands could potentially be killed or injured taking small strips of land. When not going 'over the top' soldiers had to wait out in unhygienic and squalid conditions. Bad weather turned the trenches to mud causing soldiers to contract 'trench foot' due to the damp. Under Enver Pasha the Ottoman army managed to threaten Russia's southern border but his own irresponsible leadership caused many casualties and the Russians pushed the Ottomans back at Erzurum. The Entente hoped to quickly knock out the Ottomans to free up Russia's southern flank, so Britain's Winston Churchill devised the Gallipoli Campaign - using ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand) and other Commonwealth troops the Entente would go through the Dardanelles before pushing up to take the capital of Constantinople (Istanbul). However, poor planning and communication allowed the Ottomans to counterattack, heavily reliant on their Arab troops, leading to trench warfare on the Gallipoli peninsula; disease and the heat devastated the Entente forces leading to the Campaign to be abandoned in January 1916.

Atrocities were commonplace in the war. Germany was willing to execute thousands of French and Belgian civilians on the suspicion that they would threaten the German war effort. This soon became a major component of Entente propaganda, and the German High Command, OHL, tried to suppress reports of it. Germany did not have a monopoly on war crimes. British ship HMS Baralong became infamous for killing surrendered German sailors, or ramming lifeboats, and since the Battle of Ypres in 1915 all sides readily adopted poison gas against their opponents. During the Russian invasion of Galicia the Ukrainian and Jewish populations faced intense censorship, deportation, massacres, and for Jews the banning of their language. To the south genocide happened. The Ottoman government had long distrusted its Armenian population, and despite Armenians supporting the Ottoman war effort as Armenian nationalists operated from Russia it was seen that all Armenians were a threat. The same day that the Gallipoli Campaign began the Ottoman government passed a law which uprooted the Armenia, as well as the Greek and Assyrian, population from Anatolia to march them to Syria. Given little food, water, medicine, or rest the aim was for the elements to wipe out the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, but abuse from their guards sped up the process. Upon arrival in Syria they were kept in concentration camps. Communities were also massacred by the military, or a massacre offered a prelude to the death march. It is believed that around 1.5 million people were killed, something the Turkish government continues to deny. 

1916

Russian cavalry during the Brusilov Offensive

1916 was perhaps one of the worst years of the war; the football game between British and German troops on Christmas Day, 1914 was now unthinkable. Peace overtures failed as neither side were willing to accept the offered peace as they felt they needed more out of it. Across all sides dissatisfaction with the war effort was rising - in Germany the British blockade was leaving thousands of families starving, stalemates greatly affected the morals in each front, and the injured returning home scarred, missing limbs, and mentally broken with 'shell-shock' showed the public just how destructive modern warfare could be. Austria-Hungary's multi-ethnic population including Czechs, Slovaks, Bosnians, and Croats were angry that they were being sent to die for an empire which they had little say in. For example, most of the war in the Balkans were using Slovenes, Croats, and Bosnians against fellow Slavs. Exploiting this the Entente would form Czechoslovakian Legions (1914 in Russia, 1917 in France, and 1918 in Italy) under the leadership of Czechoslovakian nationalists like Tomas Masaryck. By the end of the war 10,000 had fought for these Legions. In November the emperor, Franz Joseph, did the unthinkable: he died. Ruling since 1848 he had ensured that Austria-Hungary remained a conservative state resisting socialism, liberalism, and nationalism. His successor, Karl I, had to balance waging a war against Russia and Italy while also keeping the empire together. Russia was facing similar problems. Mostly rural the Russian army was reliant of the skill of its generals and its size. Ludendorff's presence in the Baltics made Russia focus instead on Germany over Austria. Alexei Brusilov intended to split the army and make numerous blows with minimal warning along the Central Powers' lines to help their ally Romania. Using gas attacks and howitzer bombardment Brusilov managed to overtake the Austrian lines; they had underestimated Russia's fighting ability leaving their best units on the Italian front and two-thirds of the Eastern front troops were on the front line. The Czech troops surrendered and reserves arrived too late. Thus, Brusilov created a twenty kilometre wide breach in the Austrian line. By the end of the Brusilov Offensive 400,000 Austrian troops were captured and 600,000 were killed destroying half of the Austrian army on the Eastern front. As we shall later see this was not enough to save Russia.

A Vickers machine gun crew wearing gas masks at the Somme

Meanwhile, at the same time in the West two of the worst battles in human history were being fought. German general Erich von Falkenhayn hoped to capture a key defensive region for France, Verdun, to potentially fracture Entente defences. Launched in January 1916 in lasted until December when Falkenhayn removed his troops thanks a collapse in his defence, although David Stevenson has placed great emphasis on the Brusilov Offensive as well. The Battle of Verdun was particularly costly thanks to heavy fire, bad weather, and low moral as French and German troops (as well as colonial troops) fought for 303 days. A French lieutenant wrote: 'Humanity is mad. It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre! What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible. Men are mad!' Shell-shock and desertions were widespread, when some French soldiers hoped to flee to France they were executed. It is believed that 70,000 casualties a month happened due to the battle. In July the Battle of the Somme began which turned out to be one of the bloodiest battles in world history. During this battle we saw the first use of air power and the tank but as they weren't used effectively it did little to relieve the suffering. British, Commonwealth, and French troops hoped to push the Germans back from the River Somme leaving one million wounded or killed. Making matters worse the battle was inconclusive giving the impression to soldiers that all their suffering had been for nothing. Bad weather and poor planning cost both sides a lot. The British hoped to bombard German lines which would destroy their barbed wire and as the bombs were dropping the Entente would go over the top. Thanks to the weather, and bad communication, the bombs failed to destroy German defences so soldiers were caught on barbed wire leaving them exposed to enemy machine guns. 

Arab soldiers at Yanbu during the Arab Revolt

The Ottomans were facing their own issues. Despite Enver Pasha's early victories, and their victory at Gallipoli, the Ottomans were hard pressed. The sultan's calls for a jihad to cause uprisings in British India, Egypt, and French Africa found little response. The Arab population had remained loyal to the empire, but the ruling government, the CUP, still distrusted them. Jamal Pasha arrived in Damascus in 1914 to oversee the war effort and was initially welcomed. His failed attack on Suez changed that. He felt that Arab leaders had conspired against him arresting Arab notables in 1915 publicly hanging 11 in Beirut in August, and 21 more were hanged in Beirut and Damascus in May 1916. Arab society was shocked, those killed (including politicians and journalists) became martyrs for Arabism, and Jamal earned the name al-Saffah, the Blood Shredder. In June 1916 the Arab Revolt began. Arabism, unity of the Arabic peoples in an independent state, had been growing and the Sharif Husayn ibn Ali, the amir of Mecca, took notice. Egypt's High Commissioner, Sir Henry McMahon, had reached out to Husayn to revolt in June 1915 debating about said revolt. Husayn wasn't an Arabist; like most early nationalist movements Arabism had secular and socialist streaks which the conservative Husayn opposed. Instead he was a pragmatist wanting to build a large dynastic state. On June 10 with the aid of his son Faysal the Ottoman garrison at Mecca was attacked. Britain helped fund the Arab Revolt, despite having imperial ambitions for most of the Ottoman's Arabic lands, sending T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, to help Husayn.

Australia voted, twice, about whether to introduce conscription producing pro and anti posters

Domestically the war was taking its toll on the public. States which had yet to impose conscription started doing so, such as Britain in 1916. Britain still ruled Ireland and the question of giving increased sovereignty to Ireland, or independence, had been postponed by the government to focus on the war. Things came to ahead in April 1916 when nationalist, republican, and socialist rebels launched a uprising in Dublin which was brutally crushed by the British with most of the leaders being executed. With the imposition of conscription to Ireland the following year Ireland became a hotbed. Germany even became a quasi-military state with Hindenburg and Ludendorff taking over more responsibility from the civilian government. Many young men were also returning home shell-shocked, crippled, or horribly disfigured by the effects of the fighting creating a crisis of identity. In a society where men were expected to be strong, physically and mentally, now that they were injured they were seemingly neglected. Plastic surgery started developing during this period to help those who had been badly scarred thanks to shrapnel. The position of women changed as well. As men went off to fight this left many jobs vacant so women moved in to fill the positions, especially in Britain, Germany, and Russia. Suffragette groups like the WSPU in Britain put aside their protests hoping that by getting behind the war effort this could bring about suffrage by showing women could do 'men's work'. Women were also instrumental in drumming up support for the war; young women gave white feathers to conscientious objectors in Britain to shame them for not enlisting. As wounded men returned this caused friction; public arguments were not uncommon when injured men were given feathers.

1917- Russia Leaves, America Enters

It is believed that in 1917 the Central Powers could have possibly won the war. France faced large scale mutinies with 554 being executed for doing so. Despite the biting blockade the Central Powers managed to lead a crushing offensive into north Italy, so bad did they fair against the Austrians and Germans at Caporetto that Italy implemented conscription. Russia also collapsed. Mass mutinies began and the cities starved; grain production had dropped and what was harvested was redirected to the army. In the end this led to the February Revolution, which you can read about here. The poor were starving and the wealthier were angered at the tsar's rule - everything from the poor management of the war, to the influence of Rasputin, to stalemate in the war. On March 8 (February 23 in Russia which used the old calendar) women waiting in lines in Petrograd for bread rations were handed leaflets by the left-wing Social Democrats. These leaflets read:

The government is guilty; it started the war and cannot end it. It is destroying the country and your starving is their fault. The capitalists are guilty; for their profit the war goes on. It's about time to tell them loud: Enough! Down with the criminal government and all its gang of thieves and murderers. Long live peace!

The women started protesting and soon industrial workers joined them. For several days the protests waged and the army joined the protesters leaving the tsar helpless. With little choice Nicholas II abdicated and on March 15 Russia was made a republic. However, the new Provisional Government was incredibly weak. It was heavily divided between the liberal Kadets wanting a more liberal version of the old tsarist system, royalists wanting a possible return of the tsar, and socialists wanting greater change. During the February Revolution workers' councils called soviets were formed and aided in the overthrow of the tsar, however, the Provisional Government had started to distance themselves from the soviets. It also lost great support for continuing the war having to resort to executing deserters and removing more grain from the cities. Wanting to further destabilise Russia, and fearing having to fight Russia and the US simultaneously, Germany smuggled revolutionary communist Vladimir Lenin from Switzerland. The Bolsheviks had opposed the war seeing it as a bourgeois war slaughtering the working classes. Lenin's April Theses criticising the February Revolution for neglecting the working class were widely distributed. Between April and July anti-war protests erupted in Petrograd which the Bolsheviks took part in with their slogan of 'Peace, Bread, Land', and the June protests were brutally crushed. In July the government's leader, Alexander Kerensky, asked general Lavr Kerensky to help keep order; instead he decided to crush left-wing protests and install himself in power. Kerensky released the imprisoned Bolsheviks to stop the coup. However, by this time the Bolsheviks' actions, and their ideas, had made them popular so on October 25 (of the Old Calendar) the Bolsheviks took over. Germany wanted to make sure that Russia left the war, however, Kaiser Wilhelm also wanted to carve up eastern Europe into client states. They also feared the Bolsheviks - Ludendorff was willing to use 50 divisions in 1918 to possibly fight the Bolsheviks and restore the Romanovs. If the Bolsheviks had rejected their demands at Brest-Litovsk Germany and Austria-Hungary were more than willing to invade. In March 1918 the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk handing over large areas of land to Germany and Austria as the former Russian Empire descended into civil war.

Lenin during the October Revolution

The Entente always hoped the US would intervene - America was rich and had resources. Britain ensured that a hyperbolic version of Germany's atrocities in Belgium reached American ears making them sympathetic to the Entente. However, support for intervening was low. The European blockades angered US business interests; Americans were unwilling to fight in a European conflict; Irish-Americans were hostile to aiding Britain who was subjugating Ireland; and the US had a large and influential German population. German-Americans were heavily divided on religious and political lines which did actually have an affect on their influence. The sinking of the Lusitania did anger Americans but it was not enough to tempt the US public, or president Woodrow Wilson, into intervening, only a few Americans wanted to intervene, like former president Theodore Roosevelt. Wilson was in favour of negotiating a peace deal which fell on deaf ears. Instead two other events influenced US entry. After the Battle of Jutland Germany started unrestricted submarine warfare - any ship going to the UK or France would be a target. Naturally, this angered the US as it threatened their economic interests. Secondly, the Zimmerman Telegram was leaked just as chancellor Theobald Bethmann was negotiating with the US over the submarine warfare. This was a telegram from Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman to the Mexican ambassador offering an alliance: if Mexico intervened in the war Germany would help Mexico retake Texas, Arizona and New Mexico which it lost to the US in 1848. I have seen this plan widely mocked but, as argued by David Stevenson, the US was scared of this plan. Although Mexico instantly rejected the plan as the US had repeatedly intervened during Mexico's revolutions and civil war, and had occupied many parts of the north, people feared that Mexico would eagerly seek revenge. Bearing in mind for three years they had been receiving Entente propaganda about the German military. Also, it was believed that Zimmerman hoped to use Mexico to get Japan to swap sides which would threaten US possessions in Asia and the Pacific. These two events combined generated enough support for the US to enter the war.

The Central Powers Collapse

After the hubris of knocking out the Russians the Central Powers hoped to defeat the remaining powers before the US could formally enter the war with its resources. In March 1918 Germany began the Ludendorff Offensive which Stevenson argues resulted in the early defeat of the Central Powers - if it had not happened the war could have possibly lasted another year or ended in a stalemate. Using the divisions freed from the Eastern front Ludendorff hoped to push through Allied lines, flank the British at the Somme, trap Britain's continental army, and leave France exposed. Similarly to what happened with the Blitzkrieg campaign of the Second World War German stormtroopers managed to make great gains at the expense of securing their supply lines. Soon enough the stormtroopers ran low on supplies with heavy casualties all for land of little value and hard to defend by April. In Italy the Austrians failed to break Italian lines and their navy was destroyed in November by the Italian navy. Austria-Hungary was being torn apart. Karl's reforms had done nothing to abate nationalist demands and in January Hungary started implementing policies granting it further autonomy, so much so that Hungary almost became an independent state. Hungary even started demanding its own army. The Ottomans also saw their empire collapse. The major port city of Aqaba was captured by Husayn's forces allowing increased British aid. His son, Faysal, aimed at neutralising supply lines and communications instead of pitched battles which allowed the Arab forces to slowly strangle Ottoman lines. On October 1 1918 Faysal and Lawrence marched into Damascus sealing the Ottoman's fate. 

A tank from the Battle of Amiens

As the US entered the war with their resources the German war effort collapsed. A paper called Hunger wrote: 'The moral sense was in many cases deadened by the animal fight for existence. The feelings of physical pain, hunger, and thirst, physical exhaustion and enervation, dominated nearly all sensations, and often influenced desire and action.'  The US brought its racial issue with it: African-Americans had to fight with French colonial troops. Similarly to what happened in Europe the US arrested anti-war protesters, such as the socialist Eugene V. Debs. Beginning with the Battle of Amiens in April the Entente began the 100 Days Offensive to push back the Central Powers using 400 tanks and 120,000 troops. At the end of October sailors at Kiel mutinied causing the kaiser to dismiss Ludendorff. Shortly after the German government sent peace overtures to Wilson hoping his influence would dampen the harshness of a French or British peace. He wanted Germany to be a constitutional monarchy along British lines, instead a republic was declared. Several armistices were declared, Bulgaria was the first quickly followed by the Ottomans. At 11 am on November 11 Germany signed an armistice bringing an end to the fighting.

The train where the armistice was signed

Aftermath

Germany was torn apart by uprisings that were put down through various means - the earlier mentioned Rosa Luxemburg was murdered by the far-right militia the Freikorps, with the aid of the new government, for leading the Marxist influenced Spartacist Uprising. Several peace treaties were created - the Treaty of Versailles being the most famous. Austria-Hungary was divided and a reactionary government under former admiral Horthy took power in Hungary after a socialist uprising was crushed. Today right-wing Hungarians demand the return of former land. The Russian Civil War tore apart the state until 1921, and the Entente even sent troops to fight the Bolsheviks. Arabic lands, to Arabist dismay, was divided between Husayn, Britain and France, and Anatolia was occupied. That is until a military commander Mustafa Kemal Ataturk led a revolt driving out the occupying powers and forming Turkey. People around the world were affected by the war's aftermath. Returning soldiers faced widespread unemployment and economic downturn, as well as disease. The 'Spanish flu' epidemic devastated the planet's population and killed more people than the war itself. In Britain and Germany, and technically the US, the war allowed the expansion of the electorate to include women for their involvement in the war effort. However, this wasn't expanded to the colonies. Despite fighting for the empire Indians were disappointed as they were still barred from ruling themselves - in 1919 Indian nationalists were massacred by British troops. Across the world we hear of the 'lost generation'. Almost every family lost a son or husband - the British aristocracy was badly affected by this which caused the decline of their power in post-war politics - leaving a sense of lost potential. The classic All Quiet on the Western Front perfectly shows this view, and J.R.R. Tolkein's anti-industrial views in The Lord of the Rings was inspired by his trauma fighting in the Somme. This view was not universally shared - it took until the Putin government for the war to be commemorated in Russia and France remembers the war quite positively as it was seen as finally repaying Germany for 1871.

William Orpen's famous painting of those who signed the Treaty of Versailles

Woodrow Wilson hoped to restructure the world, only for it to fail. The League of Nations was formed at his request to mediate global issues, but the US Congress blocked US entry fearing it would replace the Constitution. Japan was angered as well. It had pushed for a racial equality clause as Wilson had called for 'freedom for peoples'. This freedom was only for whites as France and Britain feared that it would threaten their colonies; Wilson was very racist (he played a movie glorifying the KKK in the White House) so feared this clause would allow the League to intervene in the USA's treatment of African-Americans. Japan was also angered by how it was not allowed to keep all of the colonies seized from Germany; this and economic downturn caused large riots in 1919. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919, formally creating peace with Germany, also caused issues. Thanks to German propaganda, and as Germany still occupied foreign lands, the German people had thought that Germany was close to winning the war. It wasn't helped by Hindenburg and Ludendorff declaring that democratic parties had 'betrayed' the German people - the politicians were given the nickname the 'November Criminals'. Germany was also forced to accept a clause stating that it had started the war; it lost its colonies to Britain, France, Belgium, and Japan; lost control of the industrial Rhineland; and had to pay reparations 112 billion marks (US$26.3 billion). Doing show destroyed the German economy, and they only paid it fully back in 2010. A destroyed economy, national shame, weak political system, and unpopular politicians allowed Adolf Hitler to utilise these resentments, with added antisemitism and racism, in order to rise to power. Hitler did use his veteran credentials and links to Ludendorff to rise as well.

Conclusion

100 years on and the First World War still offers a trauma for those who fought. The poppy, which grew on the Somme following the battle, has become a symbol of remembrance. Former RAF pilot, author, and social activist Harry Leslie Smith recently wrote: 'Instead of wearing a poppy for #Remembrance2018 we should wear our shame because as a human race we've learned nothing since 1918.' Despite the bloodshed the world went through during the First World War we continued to fight and kill. Hardly twenty years after 1918 the world was plunged into another destructive world war. Since the massacres of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks in 1915 we have seen other genocides with the Holocaust, the Balkans, Rwanda, and Yemen to unfortunately name a few. The First World War should have been an ugly and final blot on human history; instead it was just the first of the contemporary world.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-David Stevenson, 1914-1918: The History of the First World War, (London: Penguin, 2004)

-Martin Gilbert, First World War, (London: Harper Collins, 1995)

-Gordon Craig, Germany, 1866-1945, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978)

-William Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, Sixth Edition, (Boulder: Westview Press, 2016)

-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, 1914-1991, (London: Abacus, 1994)

Thank you for reading. If I have omitted anything please let me know. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.