The great war

Main facts about the Great War

1. Germans were the first to use flamethrowers in WWI. Their flamethrowers could fire jets of
flame as far as 130 feet (40 m)
2. More than 65 million men from 30 countries fought in WWI. Nearly 10 million died. The Allies
(The Entente Powers) lost about 6 million soldiers. The Central Powers lost about 4 million.
3. There were over 35 million civilian and soldier casualties in WWI. Over 15 million died and 20
million were wounded.
4. Nearly 2/3 of military deaths in WWI were in battle. In previous conflicts, most deaths were
due to disease.
5. During WWI, the Spanish flu caused about 1/3 of total military deaths.
6. Russia mobilized 12 million troops during WWI, making it the largest army in the war. More
than 3/4 were killed, wounded, or went missing in action.
7. In August 1914, German troops shot and killed 150 civilians at Earshot. The killing was part of
war policy known as Schrecklichkeit (frightfulness). Its purpose was to terrify civilians in
occupied areas so that they would not rebel.
8. During WWI, British tanks were initially categorized into males and females. Male tanks
had cannons, while females had heavy machine guns

What woman did in the Great War

Inside a World War One factory
The wartime woman worker producing munitions for the front is among the most familiar visual
legacies of the war. But conditions were poor and the work was arduous.
War begins and women get to work
At the outbreak of World War One, life for Britains women was mainly tied to a life of
domesticity, their places still largely in the home. Some, like the Suffragettes, were campaigning
vocally for change, but the glass ceiling remained at ground level. Now, as Britain's men headed
abroad to fight, women took their place en masse in factories, shops and offices across the
country. And everything had the potential to change.
How did WW1 most change life for women?
The war changed womens lives, and in some ways for the better. They showed society that
they were able to do mens jobs and were intellectually more than capable of taking part in
society. However, those gains could not be completely consolidated after the war was over;
many women were forced from their jobs once the men returned and expected to go back
into domestic life. Many women had earned the right to vote, but such things as going to
university or standing as MPs were still overwhelmingly the preserve of men.

How many people were involved in the

Great War

At the outbreak of war in 1914, the British Army had 700,000 available men. Germanys
wartime army was over 3.7 million. When a campaign for volunteers was launched,
thousands answered the call to fight. Among them were 250,000 boys and young men under
the age of 19, the legal limit for armed service overseas.
Official government policy was that you had to be 18 to sign up and 19 to fight overseas. In
the early twentieth century most people didnt have birth certificates, so it was easy to lie
about your age.
Medical examination
The recruitment process included medical checks, to make sure a potential recruit was fit enough
to fight rather than if he was old enough. The minimum height requirement was five feet, three
inches, with a minimum chest size of 34 inches, so a strapping 16 year-old was very likely to be let
through.
Teachers, parents and more
But it wasnt just in recruitment offices. The whole of society seemed to be complicit in sending
these boys abroad to fight. Parents, headmasters, even MPs helped get underage lads into the
army.

The kind of fighting in the Great War

Men ordered to attack or go over the top had to climb out of their trenches, carrying their weapons and
heavy equipment, and move through the enemy's field of fire over complex networks of barbed wire, keeping
low to the ground for safety. The objective was to reach the enemy's front line, where the defending troops
would be sheltering in their own trenches, and use rifles or bayonets to attack them directly. Once the
defenders were eliminated, the attacking force seized the position at least in theory. In reality these tactics
were often unsuccessful and victorious attacks were rare. Casualties were extremely high, with many men
killed and wounded: attackers often suffered higher casualties than defenders. Wounded men were carried or
escorted back to field hospitals for treatment, while the dead could only be buried if there was a suitable break
in the fighting.

Life in the lines

Even before battle began, the experience of life in the lines could be overwhelming. Men were living
outside for days or weeks on end, with limited shelter from cold, wind, rain and snow in the winter or
from the heat and sun in summer. Artillery destroyed the familiar landscape, reducing trees and
buildings to desolate rubble and churning up endless mud in some areas. The incredible noise of
artillery and machine gun fire, both enemy and friendly, was often incessant. Yet soldiers spent a great
deal of time waiting around, and in some quiet sectors there was little real fighting and a kind of
informal truce could develop between the two sides. Even in more active parts of the front, battle was
rarely continuous and boredom was common among troops, with little of the heroism and excitement
many had imagined before the war. The Italian infantry officer Emilio Lussa wrote that life in the
trenches was grim and monotonous and that if there were no attacks, there was no war, only hard
work. The order to attack or news of an enemy assault changed everything.