Tuesdays from 2:00-4:50 P.M. in Wooten Hall 314

-History 5240.001

WORLD WAR I

Tuesdays from 2:00-4:50 p.m. in Wooten Hall 314

Dr. Geoffrey Wawro General Barsanti Professor of Military History University of North Texas, History Dept.

WH 341

Office phone – 940-891-6940

Office hours – Tuesdays 1:00-2:00 p.m. [email protected]

DISABILITY STATEMENT: Any student with special circumstances covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act should register with the Office of Disability Accommodation (ODA), Suite 322, University Union Building, and also inform the instructor of the class. Reasonable adjustments will be made to accommodate the special needs of students with disabilities where such adjustments are necessary to provide equality of educational access.

Students who have registered with the ODA should make an appointment to discuss their disabilities accommodation requests with the instructor. The ADA liaison for the Department of History is Dr. Clark Pomerleau.

Required Reading

Geoffrey Wawro, Warfare and Society in Europe, 1792-1914. David Fromkin, Europe’s Last Summer. James Joll and Gordon Martel. The Origins of the First World War, 3rd edition. Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War: Explaining World War I. David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy. Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-18. Eric Dorn Brose, The Kaiser’s Army: The Politics of Military Technology in Germany during the Machine Age, 1870-1918. Tim Travers, The Killing Ground: the British Army, the Western Front, and the Emergence of Modern War 1900-1918. Alexander Watson, Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914-18, Cambridge, 978-0521123082.

1 Frederick R. Dickinson, War and National Reinvention: Japan and the Great War 1914- 1919. Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914-17. Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, Passchendaele: the Untold Story, 2nd edition. Brian Bond, The Unquiet Western Front.

Course Description

This course is a thorough exploration of the Great War in its global setting. The war was centered in Europe, so is the course. We focus on the military rivalries that led to war and shaped the fighting, but also consider the social, political, cultural and economic factors that tipped Europe into war, and then enabled exhausted, decimated societies to hold on through four years of savage attritional warfare. What lessons does the Great War teach about the behavior of states, and the role of militaries, populations, economics, politics, and social forces in great conflicts? How did the Great War affect Europe and the world? What is its legacy? How does its “modern memory” compare with its reality?

Requirements

Regular, informed, intelligent, relevant participation in EVERY class – this is a studies course that will work ONLY if you read, speak and debate with your colleagues EVERY week – and a 20-30 page research paper or bibliographic essay on a topic to be discussed and agreed upon with me in advance. All paper topics must be decided upon by Feb. 16.

Week 1, 1/19/10 – Intro

Week 2, 1/26/10 – Warfare, 1792-1914, Wawro, entire. . Week 3, 2/02/10 – Origins. Joll and Martel, entire. Stevenson 3-35.

Week 4, 2/9/10 – Origins. Fromkin, entire. Ferguson, xix-211.

Week 5, 2/16/10 – The Politics of Technological Change. Brose, 3-182. Travers, xvii- 123.

Week 6, 2/23/10 – The Changing Nature of War. Chickering/Forester, 57-152. Stevenson 37-160. Brose, 183-225. Stone, 7-91.

Week 7, 3/02/10 – Men and Morale. Watson, entire. Stevenson, 161-77.

Week 8, 3/09/10 – War against Noncombatants. Blockade, starvation, deprivation, atrocities. Chickering 153-246.

2 Week 9, 3/16/10 – SPRING BREAK

Week 10, 3/23/10 – Eastern Front. Stone, 92-301. Liulevicius, entire,

Week 11, 3/30/10 – The Somme and Passchendaele. Travers, 127-219. Prior and Wilson, entire.

Week 12, 4/6/10 -- Politicians, Soldiers and the Problems of Unlimited Warfare – Chickering 19-56, 247-348. Stevenson 179-98, 215-39. Ferguson, 174-211. 282-317. 339-94.

Week 13, 4/13/10 – Mobilizing Societies, Economies and Finance for War, Chickering 349-518. Stevenson 179-98, 215-39. Ferguson, 212-81, 318-38.

Week 14, 4/20/10 – The Great War in East Asia; the impact on Japan. Dickinson, xv- 260.

Week 15, 4/27/10 – German defeat, Versailles and legacy. Stevenson, 243-488. Ferguson, 395-462.

Week 16, 5/04/10 --The History of Memory. Brian Bond, The Unquiet Western Front, entire.

Paper due Tues May 11 by noon; hard copy to me personally or under my office door, soft copy to [email protected] . BE SURE TO DELIVER BOTH HARD AND SOFT (i.e. e-mailed) COPIES TO ME, NOT JUST ONE OR THE OTHER. I require BOTH.