Sigmund Freud - a Legacy of Embitterment

Sigmund freud in this passage describes how the optimism and uplifting nature of Europe was erased by WWI

"Science herself has lost her passionless impartiality"

• Science is now used for reasons of war
• "we had expected the great world-dominating nations of white race upon whom the leadership of the human species has fallen"
• races and people have been displaced
• Comments of the idealistic/uplifting nature before the war which were destroyed by WWI

Disillusionment of the war

Loughnan - Genteel Women in the Factories

In Genteel Women in the FActories, Loughnan comments on the poor working conditions in the munition factories as well as others during the war and describes the new social attitude toward classes and gender during the war.

Conditions of the the factories

• Air quality is poor and conducive of bad health
• dirty working conditions
• Hard work - from sheer lifting
• long shifts that are tiring

Women and gender conditions in the factories

• men look down on women, believe that they are unfit to work with the machine

Meshing of classes in the factories

• notices many lower class people doing "crude" things like swearing and other evils but still tries to befirend them

The Black Hand

Black hand was a terrorist organization trained in "fanatic nationalism"

• created in 1914 and had some 2,500 member

By-Laws of the Organization Union or Death

• Article 1 - org. is created for realizing national ideal - union of all Serbs
• Article 2 - prefers terrorist action
• Article 3 - bears the name Union or Death
• Article 4 - to fulfill its purpose: exercise influence on gov circles, organize rev action, beyond the frontiers of Serb, maintain amicable relations, assist nations and orgs that are fighting in their cause
• Article 24 - every member has a duty to recruit other members
• Article 25 - members of the org are forbidden to know each other personally
• Article 26 - org itself, the members are designated by numbers
• ARticle 27 - Members of the org must obey all commands
• Article 28 - Each member has a duty to communicate
• Article 29 - interest of the org stand above all interests
• Article 32 - each member must aid the org
• Article 33 - when the central committee of belgrade pronouces a death sentence, only importance is success of execution
• 
  

Wilson, "The Idealistic View"

Thesis: Woodrow Wilson encouraged a peace treaty that would be fair to all and that did not punish for the sake of retaliation, but rather only for wrongs done.

I. Land played a major role in almost all of peace talks – Wilson stressed that all land adjustments should be made in the interest of the people living in the territory

a. Colonies – people in the colonies should have equal say over what happens to them

b. French territory – all French land lost should be returned, including Alsace-Lorraine

c. Italy – borders should be established along clearly recognizable lines of nationality

d. Several new, independent states should be established, primarily in eastern Europe, but also Poland

II. Wilson thought that he could lead the world to almost eternal prosperity and happiness

a. Part of this was not pushing ridiculous reparations onto the German people

Wipe away the foundations that caused the war

von Salomon- The Brutalization of the Individual

Soldiers had been brainwashed by the violence -they did not smile of speak -blank, staring gazes -destroyed the spirits of our heros -turned our men into soldiers -had left everything about themselves on the battlefield -war was destroying the national spirit by destroying the spirit of individualism and morality

Zweig- The Rushing Feeling of Fraternity

In Austria, the war turned from something everyone wanted to avoid to a great celebration overnight. This was accomplished by the massive propaganda issued by the gov't -the propaganda is irresistable, even to one who knows the inept people behind it -even those who hated the war were prone to this celebration -people were making history, and wanted their country to be at the very center -classes and ranks disappeared -life seemed to have endless possibilities -fervor could be attributed to Freud's "primative human instincts" -great tool to instill confidence in new troops -these people didn't actually know what real war was -war seemed romantic and heroic, but the people were quickly disillusioned

All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque

• The excerpt is from All Quiet on the Western Front, the most famous literary work to emerge from WWI


• Remarque was a verteran of the trenches himself, and he graphically describes the slaughter that robbed Europe of its young men


• His narrator is a young German Soldier


• Describes the terrifying and horrible conditions in the trenches


• Depicts a long bombardment from the enemy, and its effects on the men


• An attack on them by French troops is detailed, the wholesale slaughter of hundereds of men is made apparent in the text


• "We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and kill"

Militarism...Impedes...Progress In Civilization, Liebknecht

• Militarism long oppossed by pacifist groups in Europe


• groups had predominantly middle class and politically left wing membership


• they caught public interest, but were of limited political influence


• Germany- Social Democratic Party established anti-militaristic movement in 1890's


• Marxists sharply differentiate themselves from pascifists in:


• belief of necessity to overthrow capitalist class by force


• appeal to the working class


• However, they were in agreement with the pascifists on the deploring effects of militarism on society


• Social Democratic spokesman for anti-militarism was Karl Liebknecht


• His books were confiscated by German authorities in 1907


• Convicted of high treason for injuring the morale of the army and advocating its abolition


• He served 18 months in prison


• WWI increased Liebknecht's radicalism


• Met a violent death in turmoil of post war Germany as the leader of the Sparticist Revolt

Valery - Disillusionment

Paul Valery, a prominent French writer, expressed the mood of disillusionment that he felt permeated the minds of many intellectuals in various writings. The following points are from a speech and writing both published in Variety, a collection of some of his works, that describe the emotions of men right after WWI:

· The wrecks of the past are of almost no concern to the people of the present, but if a great event happens in one’s lifetime – this tragedy seems much more real than one not experienced

· The storm (WWI) died away but the people are still uneasy and restless, and the affairs of men remain in uncertainty

· They fear the future without any sort of reason, and doubt and disorder are with them and in them

· He claims they are a very unfortunate generation, whose lot has been to see the moment of their passage while they deal with terrifying and horrible events that will echo throughout their entire lives.

· The fundamentals of the world have been affected by the war

· Among all things injured the most wounded is the MIND.

Sigmund Freud- A Legacy of Embitterment

Thesis: In his "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death", Sigmund Freud asserts that WWI destroyed the optimism and good feeling that had existed in pre-war Europe.

• Science is used to justify war
• Lots of people have been displaced
• Before the way people were idealistic, believed that problems could be settled without fighting
• Naive, idealistic belief system destroyed by WWI
• People thought that civilians would not be touched by the war
• War brought disillusionment, disregarded international law

Dada And Surrealism: Art Between The Wars

Thesis: Dadaism and Surrealism, two revolutionary new art movements in Europe and America in the early 1900's, sought to shock and defy common mindsets.

I. Dada

-founded in Zurich in 1916 by refugees from WWI

-named after nonsense word

-protested war

-main strategy to denounce and shock

-John Arp- one of the founders of Dada

<--Game of Chance

-Kurt Schwitters- created "merz", collages of non-art material to make art

II. Surrealism

-created two years after Dada, began as literary movement

-goes beyond the real, deliberately bizarre

-Miro- tried to banish reason- "Dutch Interior II"

-Ernst- employed ambiguous titles

<--Little Tear Gland That Says Tic Tac

-Dali- based his technique on his own neuroses

"The Idealistic View" by Woodrow Wilson

Wilson's thoughts from May 26, 1917 through January 25, 1919:

• We are fighting in the War for the liberty of all peoples
• Wrongs must be righted and safeguards must be put in place so that we may prevent wars in the future
• No people should be forced to live in a country where they do not want to live
• No territory may be acquired unless it is for liberty
• No indemnities shall be asked for except for those truly wrong
• No readjustments of power shall be made unless it benefits the people
• There must be a league of nations to act as an international mediator
• In the peace talks each decision must bring permanent peace
• no people will change from country to country like chattel
• Nationalities need to be grouped together in order to avoid future antagonism
• We will be fair to Germany and we will not hold a grudge against it
• We must reorganize the world and return it to its natural order without future wars

Excerpts from the Fourteen Points:

• National armaments must be reduced
• All colonial claims must be impartial
• All French territory should be freed and restored. The wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 must be settled
• A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should recognize lines of nationality
• The people of Austria-Hungary shall be placed into nations according to their nationalities
• The Ottoman Empire shall be partitioned and awarded autonomous development
• An independent Polish state shall be erected
• A League of Nations shall form

Thesis: Peace treaties after World War I were created in a way which enraged the German people, who accused peace conditions to unfairly burden Germany and unjustly break the German state apart.

x- German territory is stolen from them in the peace process

x- Even countries receiving these territories, such as Denmark, argue it is too much

x- Regions are separated without regard to ethnic unity or economic well being

x- German is denied the right to pursue colonialist objectives

x- Germany unfairly receives a non-falsifiable reparations figure with no legal justification

x- These breaks in German territory violate the resolve to promote self determination

All Quiet on the Western Front

Thesis: The terrors of the battlefields and front line fighting in World War I drove soldiers into both insanity and brute savagery as they struggled to fight for their lives.

x- Constant shelling forced insanity among recruits who were inexperienced

x- Terror and frustration comes out in the form of striking at other creatures, such as rats

x- Ineffective tactics cause massive slaughters of entire lines of troops as they suffer beneath machine guns

x- Fear of death drives the soldiers into a fight for survival

x- Brutality causes soldiers to slaughter even those who try to surrender

x- They become men once the fighting subsides

Erich Maria Remarque, "The Lost Generation"

• All of the WWI soldiers who have been injured rest in a hospital, classified by the places they've been wounded almost like broken toy soldiers or action figures shelved because they don't work properly anymore
• The whole building is filled with human waste and broken body parts - it's extremely gruesome.
• The soliders are essentially dehumanized
• There are hundereds of thousands of hospitals all over Germany, France, and Russia just like this one.
• The narrator is part of a lost generation because he is only twenty yet he knows "nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and the fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow" all because of the war - and his whole generation is experiencing the same thing.
• The narrator ponders what society could possibly want from them once the war is over because through they years the only thing they've known to do is kill - "our knowledge of life is limited to death." What will they do?

Wilfred Owen, "Disabled"

• Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) - british poet who volunteered for duty in 1915. Sustained shell shock at Battle of Somme and was sent to hospital in Britain. His powem Disabled portays the enduring misery of war
• First stanza depicts a wounded soldier, missing both legs and an arm, bound to a wheelchair as he listens to happy sounds of boys playing outside
• Second stanza describes how he would be out enjoying this particularly joyous time of year had he not "thrown away his knees."
• Third stanza explains how he only wanted to join because of the romantacism of war - he never imagined how bad it could be
• Fourth stanza ironically explains how although he appeared to be very heroic, women's eyes still pass "from him to the strong men that were whole."

The poem in general describes the irresponsible use of the romantacism of war and the ill effects they can have on people.

Georges Clemenceau: “French Demands for Security and Revenge”

Rob Edwards

Georges Clemenceau: “French Demands for Security and Revenge”

• France is really upset with Wilson's promised “new world,” because after being invaded by Germany in 1870 and 1914, France was completely in ruins

• France feels that the only way to get fair compensation and security is to cripple Germany

• Clemenceau argues that the Germans are entirely responsible for the events of 1914

• The war was entirely undertaken and instigated by the German people

• Germany's characteristic tendency to go to extremes showed itself here

• If the Germans had won the war, society would have relapsed into violence and bloodshed

• Europe should feel menaced by the “mad doctrine of universal Germanic supremacy over England, France, America, and every other country”

• Everyone, including Germany's most powerful aristocracy and smartest professors and thinkers of the time, bought into and supported the propaganda that the German people are superior to all men, and that the Kaiser is “the most eminent of living men”

• German officers were quoted as saying that they wanted to find a way of completely wiping out London, and that they would use it to save the life of even one German soldier

• Germany must be completely crippled if Europe wants to feel any sense of security whatsoever

"The Greatness of War" by Heinrich von Treitschke

Treitschke's beliefs of war:

• War is the remedy for an afflicted people
• During a crisis, the individual must forget himself and recognize the good of the whole and the state
• Nationalities must make a sacrifice for their own land
• It is foolish to try to abolish the heroism that comes out of wars
• The Bible and God agree that " the man in authority shall wield the sword"
• Everlasting peace is a foolish thought because the Aryan race is brave
• War is a "terrible medicine for humanity" and everlasting peace is foolishly reactionary
• "To banish war from history would be to banish all progress and becoming"

Magda Trott - Opposition to Female Employment

Trott describes the difficulties that women faced when replacing men’s jobs during WWI.

• Women were employed in virtually every job imaginable to replace men
• However, when offered the chance to move to higher positions within a company, women often failed, mostly due to the uncooperativeness of male coworkers who opposed the infiltration of women into traditionally male jobs
• Working men faced the risk of women replacing them, as women were only paid half of men
• Women were sometimes unprepared for more demanding jobs, and Trott calls for increased awareness and education for women to counteract this deficiency

Opposition to Female Employment

Magda Trott

Opposition to Female Employment

Thesis: Women in the workplace were ready to step up to the new positions provided for them by the men who left for the front but their success was hindered by their male colleagues who were afraid of competition with them in the workplace.

· In the second year of the war a German woman described the hostility faced by women in the work force.

· With men leaving the workplace to go to war women were urged not to waste the opportunities offered them by war and to continue their education so that they would be prepared to take on the position once held by a male colleague

· In the six months since the beginning of the war women began to enter into many fields where only men had been employed before

· All those who were certain that women would be completely successful were disappointed when many women resigned who were invited to step up to a higher position

· Enemies of women’s employment where delighted by this failure

· All women were ready to accept these new positions but it was evident even on the first day it was obvious that not everything would proceed as supposed.

· Women were seen as intruders who were taking the position of a colleague who was fighting on the front

· Women also received half the salary of the man filling the exact same position.

· Saving so much on salaries, it became feared that bosses would continue to draw on female personnel and a united male front was organized

· Women were helped in learning their new jobs and their appointed mentors let them fail on purpose

· If these women in the years before the war had learned their business and asks their colleagues question they would have been glad to answer.

· Magda Trott urges all women to use this time of war as a learning experience and keep their eyes open.