WWI - The War of Attrition and the Homefront (Lesson)

The War of Attrition and the Homefront.

By 1915, each side on the Western Front had built a network of tunnels, shelters and trenches.

Photograph of a WWI trenchTrench Warfare:

  • Trenches stretched more than 600 miles from English Channel to Swiss border.
  • In between the trenches was an area known as no man's land.

 WWI was an industrialized war:

  • New weapons on land
    • Automatic machine gun
    • 1915 Poison gas used by the Germans
      • Mustard and chlorine gas
      • Unpredictable weapon as wind could change the flow of gas
      • Gas masks invented to counter the unpredictability
      • British began to use gas
    • 1916 Tanks invented by the British
      • First tanks were crude and often got stuck in the mud
      • Were used in the Eastern front as it was a more mobile war
  • New inventions in the air
    • Airplanes used for the first time
      • Mainly for scouting, photographers would be sent up to acquire information
      • Later both sides used to drop bombs, often by literally dropping them over the side of the plane, early pilots would also throw bricks at one another
      • Germans devised a way to mount a machine gun to the plane that would allow it to fire through the propeller which ushered in the "Age of the Dogfight"
  • New inventions on the sea
    • Great Britain used her navy to blockade the North Sea, hoping to keep supplies from getting to the Germans
    • Germans fought back with submarine or U-Boat (Unter den see or "Under the Sea")
    • U-boats attacked British ships carrying supplies to Britain

 

Total War.

WWI was fought as a total war meaning all countries put total assets into war.

This was the first real war not fought by professional soldiers. The vast majority of soldiers were men between the ages of 20 and 40 who were in military service for the duration of the war. With the men fighting, women took over their responsibilities in the factories in order to keep the giant war machine going. Prior to the war, many believed women to be incapable of handling certain jobs - the time spent in the factories proved otherwise and also led to women being granted the right to vote after the war. At the onset of the war, labor unions pledged not to strike so that vital needs could be met without interference. As the war continued with no end in sight, strikes did begin to occur, but the spirit of unity for the first two years was unprecedented in Europe.

During the war, the government took more control over the economy, determining what to produce and how much. Rationing was instituted in order to limit goods needed for the war effort. Germany created the War Raw Materials Board headed up by Walter Rathenau which catalogued and limited every possible substance that could be used.

The governments also controlled the news, issuing propaganda to keep citizens supportive of the war effort. Posters and movies told of evil enemies, designed to arouse hatred and invoke patriotism. Newspaper accounts spoke of how wonderful life at the front was with the soldiers experiencing "fresh air and exercise." But as the years dragged on and the death toll mounted, the horrors of war became inescapable.

 

 

WWI Propaganda

View propaganda posters from WWI in the activity below.

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.