WWI Study Guide and Discussion Questions

The Great War of 1914--1919 was a nearly global conflagration that included all the
major powers of Europe, their colonies, and overseas allies. The immediate
provocation was a relatively minor incident--the assassination of the heir to the
Austro-Hungarian empire--but the causes were long-standing and much more
complex. Pressure to seek war and resist compromise had been mounting in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fed by aggressive nationalism, ambitious
militarism, and complex national alliances. The war, when it came, was not what
anyone expected.

1. New kind of warfare. New technologies transformed the experience of war.

Offensive battle plans stalled in the trenches, where soldiers were pounded
by heavy artillery, trapped by machine-gun fire, and vulnerable to poisonous
gas. Casualties were counted in the hundreds of thousands, and victory was
measured in yards gained.
2. Total war. World War I engaged civilian populations to an unprecedented
degree. On the home front, women took up the work abandoned by recruits.
Governments took control of wartime production, and propaganda campaigns
demonized the enemy and glorified the war effort. Civilians were also targets
of war through aerial bombing and naval blockades.
3. The Russian Revolution. The revolution was triggered by the war but sprang
from the long-standing failure of the tsarist government to meet the needs of
the Russian people. For a while it seemed that a liberal democracy might
emerge, but within months the Bolshevik Party under the direction of Lenin
overthrew the provisional government.
4. Peace and unresolved questions. Armistice came in 1914, shortly after the
United States entered the war. At the Paris Peace Conference, the victors,
especially Britain and France, dictated harsh terms to the defeated Central
Powers, dismantled their colonial empires, and imposed economic penalties.
The bitterness engendered by the peace settlement virtually ensured that
another conflict would follow.

Questions for Discussion:

1. Why did Wilfred Owen call the line from Horace—“Dulce et decorum est pro
patria mori” (“It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country”)—an “old Lie?”
What does this line say about the role of nationalism in the war and the
experience of the common soldier?

2. Lenin wrote, “Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same
as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners.”
What does this commentmean? What are the foundations of Lenin’s
philosophy? How did it differ from that of Marx? How did World War I enter
into Lenin’s career and his philosophy?

3. Would the experiences of World War I soldiers be representative of all

soldiers in all wars? Was there something unique about the experiences of
these soldiers? What would their experiences say about warfare in the
twentieth century?

4. Compare and contrast the Treaties of Versailles and Brest Litovsk. Was one
more humane than the other? Relate this conclusion to the German sense of
betrayal after the war.
 5. Why were the Europeans so enthusiastic at the beginning of World War I?
What role would nationalism and propaganda play in this excitement? What
would happen to this enthusiasm after the soldiers came into contact with
the horrors of modern warfare?

6. Imagine that you are a common soldier at a World War I battle such as
Verdun or the Somme. What obstacles would you have faced? Why wouldn’t
your offensive assaults work? How would you have felt about the war and
your country in 1916 compared to 1914?

7. Why did former French prime minister Joseph Caillaux spend two years in
prison during World War I? What would governmental repression and
propaganda say about the nature of World War I? Relate this conclusion to
the concept of total war.

8. What were the fundamental mistakes of the negotiators at Paris who drew up
the Treaty of Versailles? Were they doomed from the start? Was World War
II inevitable?

9. Discuss the factors that led to the outbreak of World War I. What role did
the alliance system play in this process?

10. What role did nationalism and imperialism play in the road to World War I?
Would the goals that led to imperial expansion also lead to war? How might
a philosophy like social Darwinism make the situation worse?

11. Examine the role that the United States played in World War I. Why did the
United States enter the war in the first place? How was the United States
affected by the war? How did the United States shape the end of the war?

12. Examine the concept of total war. How was World War I different from
earlier wars? How important was the home front?

13. What role did women play in World War I? What effect would their
contribution to the war effort have on their lives both during and after the
war? How does this effect relate to concepts such as total war and the home
front?

14. Examine the course of World War I in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Why did
the war spread? How important were these centers of the war? How were
these areas influenced by the war?

15. What were the major consequences of World War I? How was the world
transformed by this bloody confrontation?

16. Examine the causes of the Russian Revolution. How was it tied to World War
I? What were Lenin’s main ideas? How did he transform Russia and the
world?

CRITICAL THINKING IDEAS

EVALUATING EVIDENCE (MAPS)

 17. Look at the map of Europe and southwest Asia on page 979. What were the
most important areas militarily? How would these areas by influenced by the
war?

18. Look at the maps on page 996. What were the major territorial changes?
Was the new map so unstable that another war was inevitable? Was the
mandate system any different than imperialism?

19. Study the map of southwest Asia on page 999. Why did one are turn out this
way? What was the mandate system?

EVALUATING EVIDENCE (ILLUSTRATIONS)

20. Look at the pictures of World War I posters on pages 977, 985, and 988.
What role did propaganda play in the war? Why was it eventually necessary
to “sell” the war?

21. Look at the picture on pages 978, 981, and 984. How did technology make
this war different from its predecessors? Why was it so destructive?

22. Look at the picture of women working on page 984. How did women
contribute to the war effort? How does this contribution relate to the
concepts of total war and the home front? What would be the status of
women after the war?

23. Study the picture of the Indian gun crew on page 986. How much of the
world did World War I cover? How and why did the different areas enter the
war?

24. Examine the picture of Lenin on page 990. What were the foundations of his
philosophy? Could it be argued that Lenin was a child of World War I?

25. Look at the picture of the Paris peace negotiators on page 994. What
problems did they face? What were the main flaws in the Treaty of
Versailles? Compare it to the Treaty of Brest Litovsk.