WORLD WAR I

H OW D I D T H E F I R S T WO R L D WA R
TRANSFORM EUROPE?
NATIONALISM

Everyone thought their cause was just and

went enthusiastically to war.
Everyone thought it was going to be a
quick and easy war.
STALEMATE

Stalemate on the Western front-Battle of

the Marne stops German armies
Neither Germans nor French armies can
move forward, so they dig in.
No one expected this!
TRENCH WARFARE

The line of trenches were protected by

barbed wire, machine guns, and heavy
artillery.
Attempts to break through were futile
with millions of deaths
NEW WEAPONS

Zeppelins
U-boats
Poison Gas
Tanks
Airplanes
TOTAL WAR

How do you break a stalemate? Up the

ante!
Difference between civilian and soldier
becomes blurred.
Attacks on civiliansair raids by
Zeppelins
Women in the workforce (Britain grants
women the right to vote in 1918)
WAR OF ATTRITION

Offensive war becomes a long drawn out

defensive war.
Attempt to wear your enemy down
through constant attacks
Battle of Verdun (Germans try to wear
down French)
Battle of the Somme (Allies try to
wear down Germans)
Everyone fails
EX AMINING
PAINTINGS
H OW D I D A RT I S T S D E P I C T T H E I R
E X P E R I E N C E O F T H E WA R ?
ARTISTS AS SOLDIERS
Unlike previous wars that used
career soldiers , civilians from
every social class and occupation
participated
Among the millions of conscripts
sent to the war were artists
They painted from their
experience of the war

Otto Dix, Self-Portrait Wearing a Gunner's Helmet, 1914,

ink and watercolour on paper
S TA L E M AT E

Flix Vallotton, Verdun Interpreted

War Painting, Coloured Black, Red
and Blue Projections, Destroyed
Lands, Clouds of Gas, 1917, oil on
canvas
T R E N C H WA R FA R E
C. R. W. Nevinson, Machine-gun,
1915, oil on canvas
C. R. W. Nevinson, Returning to the
Trenches, 1914-15, oil on canvas,
Flix Vallotton, Les barbels (Barbed-
wire), 1916, woodcut,
NEW WEAPONS
Otto Dix, Assault under Gas, 1924,
watercolour,
William Roberts, The First German
Gas Attack at Ypres,
1918, oil on canvas
TOTA L WA R
C. R. W. Nevinson, A Taube, 1916-17,
oil on canvas
WA R O F
AT T R I T I O N
Georges Leroux, L'Enfer (Hell),
1917-18, oil on canvas
Frans Masereel, Arise,You Dead,
Infernal Resurrection, 1917, woodcut
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men Flix Vallotton, The Cemetery of Chlons sur Marne,
1917, oil on canvas
Otto Dix, Triptychon Der Krieg (War Triptych), 1929-32, tempera on wood
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men