 Hello, for the second lecture, we're going to look at World War I, sometimes called the Great War. The war had a tremendous impact upon all of Europe, of course, and the United States became involved about halfway through the end of the war. However, for England, the war meant something. It's often called the Great War, and it changed the way England saw itself and its relation to its neighbors in Europe. If we look at some of the causes of World War I, we have to look at the secret alliances, and these were alliances various European nations made with each other. We talked last lecture about some of these types of alliances between England and France against Germany, but there were many secret alliances that had kind of held the peace, but they were called secret alliances because not everybody knew about them. There was also this concept of nationalism, is that our nation or my nation was greater than everybody else's, and nation at all expense, this idea of the nation coming first. And of course, that appeals to patriotism, but it's also a little bit of saber rattling, willing to go to war to defend the nation at any price of the slightest provocation. And the ideas of imperialism were closely aligned, this idea that we have to build a strong empire, and we have to protect that empire and defend that empire. And it also ties into industrialism because that often was the funder of imperialism and nationalism. We have to look at what was going on in the tiny nation of Serbia, and this idea of nationalism in this alliance system that had caught up much of Europe. The Serbs, what's today Croatia, were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And in 1914, on June 28th, Prince Sip, the assassin, was able to kill Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire by bombing his car and by shooting him in Sarajevo. And this is going to lead to the Austro-Hungarian Empire seeking ultimatums from Serbia. This is going to draw in Russia and Germany and Austro-Hungarian Empire and others into this war. And so by the end of 1914, you had war plans being drawn up and Great Britain declaring war on Germany. The Von Schifrin Plan was a military plan that called for Germans to attack quickly and defeat France while the Russian army was mobilizing. And they were going to come through the low countries, and that's Belgium, Holland, the Netherlands in other words, and to come through into France. And so this develops the so-called Western Front, which was a system of trenches that ran between the North Sea all the way down to Switzerland in the map you see the Western Front highlighted in dark blue just north of Paris and west of Brussels. And this pitted Germany against Belgium, France, Great Britain, and the United States. Early on in the war, because of trench warfare, there were stalemates. They were so embedded that they could not really attack without suffering heavy losses and the armies couldn't move. And there was also blockades around various places in the sea. And, of course, with the sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania off the Irish coast, which incensed the United States. Then at the same time that was going on, Russia, who had been an ally, has a revolution of their own, and they declare a peace treaty at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to kind of keep themselves out of the war. This is a diagram of what it was like in trench warfare. And I'll give you just a minute to look at this. You can see that they dug deep, deep trenches that stretched on from miles and miles that provided great protection because they really couldn't bomb them. Airplanes were kind of very primitive at the time. So they were dropping small bombs, but the trenches were able to protect against the real problem, which was machine gun fire. Because you could just drop down below the trenches. In 1918, the United States entered the war. And so the US General, John Jay Pershing, spent much of the year trying to get troops ready. In September of 1918, they wanted to move into the Argonne Forest and penetrate in there the Mies Argonne Offensive. And military leaders in Germany began asking for a peace. And on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, and the guns went silent. And so the war was over, but the results were deep and heavy. It led to a growth in military. And there were millions of casualties. In fact, in the summer of 1916, at the Battle of the Somme, some of the worst losses ever for British troops. For the cost of the war, if you look at the millions who died, Germany lost the most. Great Britain lost less than a million. And so as far as the European powers were concerned, it didn't lose as many as others. But it still was a considerable sum, especially you compare it to the 112,000 that Americans lost. At the Paris peace talks, the United States sent Colonel Edward House to negotiate and also prepare the way for President Woodrow Wilson, who came in as a hero. Wilson led the US delegation to the Paris peace treaty. And the big four, this was England, the United States. Italy and France all wanted to punish Germany. Wilson had brought in the so-called 14 points that would have led to peace as he saw it. But most of these points were simply ignored. They were negotiated away. What the big four wanted to do is strip Germany of its territory. They wanted to dismantle their military. And they forced Germany to sign a war guilt clause and agree to pay $33 billion in reparations. One of the things about the war was that it left a lasting imprint upon British memory. Because of the people who were lost, because of the generations that were lost, because of the devastation the war caused. And so one of the most famous poems was written by a Britain, actually a Canadian named John McCrae, who was a doctor. And he wrote this poem, very famous, called In Flanders Fields. This painting, which is almost a life-size painting, it's very small in this picture, of course, by John Singer Sargent Gas. And you see these men who had been blinded by mustard gas on Brighton Beach in southern England. It was a resort area. And you see them lying, the blind being led by orderlies. And in the backgrounds, you see the beach houses and people playing volleyball. And it's contrast of pain and sorrow and suffering. Another thing that England began erecting following World War I were memorials. And this one, the cenotaph, the empty tomb in downtown London is an example. But there was also poetry and literature, artists, and just the very idea of remembrance. Luton's Cenotaph there was dedicated to Our Glorious Dead by David Lloyd George. And you can see the inscription there on the side. Here is another by Charles Sargent Jager. This is in the Tate Museum, and it's called No Man's Land. It's a bronze relief of the trenches. And you see there people on the right and on the left over the barbed wire, bodies hung over, and people still mining machine guns, although many of them are dead all around. And people coming up out of the trenches and firing and shooting. You also see other monuments, even to animals in London, that animals, especially in all war, is up until World War I. And through World War I, animals were often used as beasts of burden. And so there's a monument there. And so they had no choice on the other side of this monument. World War I also led to political changes. The Liberal Party falls in 1918. And it had been led by Asquith. And his government fell. David Lloyd George and a conservative labor coalition formed a new government. Lloyd George was elected prime minister in December of 1916. And he moved to reduce the war cabinet to become more effective. Also, you see increased roles for women in new jobs, in the service, domestic services. But the question is, did the numbers really change? You do see a increase in women being able to vote. And this was done by the suffragettes, the National Union of Women's Suffragette Societies. There were more radical women's social and political union. And you do see representation of women on the People's Acts in 1918 and 1928. As a result of the war, the economy experienced a boom. Wages went up. Also, likewise, food prices went up. And trade and shipping was hurt by the war. However, the unions did benefit. And as a result of the wage increases that made people be paid more as a result of World War I. In 1914, Great Britain passed the Home Rule Act. This was another result of the war years. It partitioned Ireland into two parts. The war interrupted the whole process. And in 1916, you have the Easter Rising. Republicans in Ireland seized key points throughout the country. These were people dedicated to home rule. And although the British government put down the rebellions fairly quickly, the Easter Rising became a turning point. And it began the Irish War of Independence in 1920. The government of Ireland Act was passed. And the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 went into effect with the country divided. And so that shows you the great changes politically within the empire, within how people worked, and within wages that England saw as a result of World War I.