The soldiers of WWI

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• Leerjaar 5

The first world war

1914-1918

"There is a link death cannot sever sweet memories will last forever."

"He died that we may live"

"Surely not in vain my substance from this common earth was taken."

CWGC

Commonwealth War Graves Commision

"We honour and care for the men and women of the Commonwealth who died in the First and Second World Wars, ensuring they will never be forgotten. Funded by six Member Governments, our work began more than a century ago building cemeteries at 23,000 locations all over the world."

www.cwgc.org

We're going to win!

Europe is excited to fight and each country is confident it will win! 

"We will be home by Christmas"

They are eager to show off their strength and might, but this war will be different than imagined...

Alliances (until 1917)

• The triple Entante: France, Great-Brittain, Russia, Serbia
  

• The triple alliance: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria

• Neutral countries: The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Switserland, Norway, Sweden

Von Schlieffenplan

• Germany was closed in by 2 enemies: France and Russia
• To prevent a two front war, Germany wanted to defeat France quickly in order to fully focus on Russia.
• So Germany planned to surprise France by attacking from Belgium

Trench warfare

• The Von Schlieffenplan failed: The German advances are stopped in Marne by the French and British.
• Both sides started to dig trenches to protect themselves from the shelling
• A long line of trenches stretched on the Western front

Trenches (1)

• The weapons became too powerful to fight war on an open field.

• Trenches helped soldiers to find cover against bombs

• The Western Front consisted of 40.000 km of trenches

Trenches (2)

• The trenches were in a zig-zag shape to prevent more casualties when a grenade hits

• To make a direct attack on trenches more difficult, millions km of barbed wire was used.

• Some trenches went quite deep with several levels of rooms/bunkers

Loopgraven (3)

• Generals believed that en masse attacks on the enemy trench was the most effective. They were wrong and many lost their lives in No mans land
  

• The No mans land is filled with barbed wire, bomb craters, dead animals, bodies and mud

Zandzakken waren gevuld met aarde en modder, en waren bedoeld om de soldaten te beschermen

In het begin van de oorlog waren de rantsoenen nog wel redelijk, maar naarmate de oorlog langer duurde, was er ook steeds minder (goed) eten.

Als de soldaten niet hoefden te vechten, speelden ze bijvoorbeeld met kaarten.

Behalve de vijand hadden de soldaten veel last van ongedierte, zoals ratten en vlooien. Sommige soldaten kwamen de tijd tussen de gevechten door met het doden van ratten.

Honden hielden de soldaten niet alleen gezelschap, ze bezorgden ook boodschappen tussen de verschillende loopgraven.

Soldaten konden vaak alleen maar overdag slapen, omdat 's nacht een goed moment was om de loopgraven van de vijanden te bespioneren. 

Met een periscoop konden de soldaten de vijand bekijken, zonder grote risico's te nemen. Een periscoop werkt met spiegels.

Er zijn duizenden brieven en dagboeken van soldaten uit de Eerste Wereldoorlog bewaard gebleven. Dit zijn tegenwoordig belangrijke en waardevolle bronnen.

Voor de veiligheid van de soldaten waren de loopgraven in zigzag-vorm.

Tussen de Noordzee en de Zwitserse grens (Westfront) wordt 40.000km aan loopgraven aangelegd.

Het gebied tussen de loopgraven wordt in vier jaar tijd compleet omgeploegd. Er ontstaat een niemandsland.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/0/ww1/

360˚ video van een loopgraaf

Tijdens de video kun je alle kanten opkijken! Probeer het maar eens uit!

Op wacht staan was één van de belangrijkste taken die je kon krijgen. Op het in slaap vallen tijdens de wacht stonden zeer zware straffen.

Behalve vechten en wacht houden, waren er nog genoeg andere vervelende klusjes in een loopgraaf, zoals zandzaken bijvullen, prikkeldraad repareren of het leegmaken van de latrines (wc's)

For four years you are looking out over the same piece of mud...

New Weapons

• In order to fight a trench war, new weapons were needed...

• Science played a large role in the war

• WWI is also called the war of scientists

Gas

• Gas would lead to panic and for soldiers to leave behind their trench
• Due to the invention and use of gasmasks, soldiers would be largerly protected, but still could suffer burns, blindness and lots of fear

Zeppelins

• Used for aerial view and pictures of enemy territory
• Used for dropping bombs on cities, like Antwerp

Planes

• Not used as much as later in WWII, but their start was WWI
• However, they are used for throwing bombs and some aerial fights

Flame thrower

• Used as a way to panic the enemy soldiers
• Burning fuel was spread for kilometers long on the battlefield

Tanks

• A new way of transportation that would be safer on No mans land
• Bigger fire power, but slow

U-boats

• U-boats weren't new, but were used plenty during the war
• Unlimited U-boat war (1915/1917) by Germany, with goal to zink everything around them

Consequences

• The new weapons leave soldiers with many visible and invisible wounds

• Men with lost limbs or destroyed faces
• And/or mental illness, described as Shellshock

Video

Shellshock

0

Vóór en ná:

om de verminkte mannen toch nog een leven te kunnen bieden...

...werd driftig geëxperimenteerd met plastische chirurgie en maskers

Trench Foot

• Soldiers using the same socks and boots for long periods of time in wet mud. Causing many infections
• Mostly, only amputation could save them

Died of Wounds

Siegfried Sassoon

Video

In Europa

1916 | Gruwelijke gezichten van WOI

Video

In Europa

1915 | De Eerste Wereldoorlog in België

Eerste Wereldoorlog

Tweede Wereldoorlog