Lecture 22: The Great War - S1:E22

History 5 - Spring 2008: The Making of Modern Europe, 1453 to the Present

Intro: The paradoxes of sovereignty. The Schlieffen Plan – and Belgium as a symbol. Why the military stalemate? The search for new allies. War is democratized and industrialized. “War by Revolution”: Germany sends Lenin to Russia, Roger Casement to Ireland; Britain sends T.E. Lawrence to Arabia. In France, paranoia turns inward, and even talking about the possibility of defeat or a compromise becomes a capital crime; in Russia, ethnic minorities are treated as enemies – producing forced “removals” and six million internal refugees; in the Ottoman Empire, deportations, despoliation, and genocide of Armenians and Assyrian Christians. Propaganda 1914-1945 = advertisements for war.  What made it end? Casualties and Consequences.