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Activities: Context Activities The War to End All Wars: The Impact of World War I  Back to Context Activities
Considered by contemporary observers to be "the war to end all wars," World War I radically shifted the way people thought about the world and the relationships between different nations. Beginning as a localized conflict between Austria and Serbia, the war escalated through a series of complex treaties and agreements among thirty-two nations of Europe, all of whom would eventually become involved in the war. Technological innovations had changed the face of warfare, which was now fought from a distance with bombs and poison gas. Opposing armies dug trenches on either side of contested areas of land, and soldiers found they could do little but wait for attack. The unimaginable horror of trench warfare--with the incredibly destructive bombs and deadly gas falling on soldiers waiting in wet and rat-infested holes--left a lasting impression on the soldiers lucky enough to return from the war. A new postwar condition emerged called "shell-shock"; many men returning home found themselves angry, depressed, confused, and haunted by nightmares of what they had seen on Europe's battlefields. Casualties reached staggeringly high numbers; it seemed that an entire generation of young men had died in the gruesome battles fought over mere yards of muddy ground. Ten million died in battle and twenty million more died of disease and hunger as a result of the war. Following the war, a severe flu epidemic spread around the globe as men returned home, and twenty million people died from complications associated with the flu. In America, World War I had a lesser impact, though its effects were certainly felt. The American poet E. E. Cummings claimed that "World War I was the experience of my generation." Led by President Woodrow Wilson, the United States tried to maintain its isolation from the distant battles of European nations, believing America should not embroil itself in European squabbles. By 1917 the devastation that Europe had suffered along with the building pressure to protect U.S. economic interests in Europe swayed public opinion to support the war and "make the world safe for democracy." Despite patriotic propaganda, however, only 73,000 men volunteered to fill the million-man quota, and Congress called for a draft. Support for America's late entrance into the European war was hardly unified: in response to the criticism leveled at the government by numerous socialists, intellectuals, pacifists, and isolationists, the Espionage Act of 1917 made it a criminal offense to speak out against the war. The hypocritical patriotism promoted by the government angered dissenters, who claimed that the war was yet another opportunity for big business to protect and expand itself at the expense of common soldiers who went to die on distant battlefields. Socialist agitator Charles Schenck distributed leaflets protesting the war and calling the draft "involuntary servitude" against which the Constitution was supposed to protect Americans. He called the draft "a monstrous deed against humanity in the interests of the financiers of Wall Street" (Zinn 356). The Espionage Act denied rights to free speech protected by the Constitution, but the Supreme Court nonetheless upheld the act, and objectors were jailed. Historian Howard Zinn describes the war as a powerful unifying tool for a country split by class conflict and racial tensions; both before and after the war, the country seemed to many on the brink of revolution. (See Unit 12 for more on socialism and unions in the early twentieth century.) In contrast, many of the writers covered in this unit felt strongly about service to countries struggling to defend themselves, and some participated in the war even before the United States entered it: Hemingway, Stein, and Dos Passos all volunteered to drive ambulances in Europe, and Fitzgerald enlisted in the U.S. army in 1917. Novelist Edith Wharton, then residing in France, also worked to help war refugees, for which she was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government. Fifty thousand American soldiers died in what became known as "The Great War" and those who returned home shared the disillusionment of their European counterparts. Many wrote about the war in the years following. It seemed proof positive that the frightening trends of modernization, advances in science and technology in particular, had terrifying and unimaginably destructive consequences. T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land depicts the world as a place devoid of life or meaning, a waste land not unlike the stretches of ground that separated opposing armies, over which they meaninglessly fought and refought, moving a few yards forward, only to be driven back, move forward, and be driven back again. Reporting in Europe generally neglected to mention the carnage on the battlefields, and the public was largely unaware of the extent of the destruction and the comparatively small gains made in return for the thousands of lives lost in each battle. At the end of the war, the triumphant Allies--chief among them England, France, and the United States--demanded reparations from the defeated countries, especially Germany. Unable to make the reparation payments, Germany's economy collapsed. The harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 set the stage for Germany's aggressions leading up to what would become World War II. Both during and after World War I, European and American writers expressed disillusionment with the lofty ideals that had led them into battle. In Britain a number of young writers such as Wilfred Owen and Sigfried Sassoon wrote poetry in response to what they had seen on the battlefields of France. E. E. Cummings--who, like Hemingway, Dos Passos, and Anderson, served as an ambulance driver in France--wrote "next to of course god america i," which questions the blind patriotism that young men like himself had been encouraged to feel. Their ideals shattered, young writers returning from war appeared to Gertrude Stein a "lost generation," a generation whose worldview had been radically altered by the most horrifying and destructive war anyone had yet experienced. The work these writers produced demonstrates their belief in the world as an uncertain and often illogical place, and their fiction and poetry often employ a similarly disorienting structure. By breaking with traditions of narrative and poetic form, these authors attempted to capture in the very fabric of their writing the confusion and dislocation fostered by modernity. Questions
[6115] Charles Gustrine, True Sons of Freedom (1918), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZC4-2426]. Photograph of segregated African American regiment during World War I. African American soldiers often worked for civil rights both during and after their military service. [6556] Vincent Aderente, Columbia Calls (1916), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZC4-8315]. Propaganda poster calling for Americans to enlist to fight in World War I. [6963] American Lovers of Italy, Ambulances in Italy, 1917 (1917), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZC4-7387]. Many modernist writers, including John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway, served as ambulance drivers or in other capacities during World War I. [6965] Committee on Public Information, Under Four Flags, Third United States Official War Picture (1918), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZC4-947]. Poster for U.S. World War I propaganda film. The U.S. government tried to sway public opinion in favor of fighting with the Allied powers. [6966] James Montgomery Flagg, The Navy Needs You! Don't Read American History -- Make It! (1917), courtesy of the Library of Congress [2001700115]. Recruitment poster showing businessman, sailor, and female figure with American flag. Reversing its previous policy of isolationism, the government solicited volunteers for World War I. [6971] Underwood and Underwood, Learning of German Retreat from Her District, French Woman Returns to Find Her Home a Heap of Ruins (1917), courtesy of Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-115012]. Photograph of seated woman looking at the ruins of her home in the Somme region. Bombing damaged and destroyed many buildings in Europe. Images such as this illustrated the dangers of technology and modernization. [6972] National Photo Company, Tank Ploughing Its Way through a Trench and Starting toward the German Line, during World War I, near Saint Michel, France (c. 1918), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-115011]. Black-and-white photograph of a tank on a World War I battlefield. Devastation amplified by mechanized weapons and the horror of trench warfare created a sense of disillusionment in many modernist writers. [6973] Central News Photo Service, Another Sort of War Ruin--After Several Days in the Trenches (1918), courtesy of the Library of Congress [LC-USZ62-115013]. Photograph of badly wounded soldier, assisted by comrade. Although many Americans approached World War I with optimism, their experiences with brutal trench warfare and mechanized weaponry were disillusioning. [7669] William Allen Rogers, Buy a Liberty Bond To-day! (1918), courtesy of the Library of Congress [CAI-Rogers, no. 232]. War bonds were an important way to rally nationalism as well as raise money for war efforts. Here the artist uses a melting pot motif to enlist the aid of recent immigrants. Originally published in the New York Herald, May 1, 1918, p. 5. [7803] Pancho Savery, Interview: "The Lost Generation Writing on World War I and Alienation" (2001), courtesy of Annenberg Media. Savery, of Reed College, discusses modernist writers' loss of innocence when faced with the brutal warfare of World War I and suggests that this disillusionment marks a break between the modern and Victorian eras. [8246] George M. Cohan, Over There! [title page] (1917), courtesy of the Digital Scriptorium Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University. Title page for the sheet music to the song that rallied the nation to take action in World War I. Cohan also composed "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Give My Regards to Broadway." |
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