Assignment in the descrition, how much to do it.

Writing Assignment – Art, Expression, & the Great War

Directions:

Essays should be doubled-spaced, size 12 font, with one-inch margins all around.

Essays must be a minimum of 1 page and should be a maximum of 3 pages.

All references from the textbook or documents must be cited parenthetically (Tindall, pg) or (Author).

All references to the art must be cited parenthetically by an abbreviated title and artist (Wounded, Dix).

All references to the memorials must be cited parenthetically by the title (Skeleton Memorial).

No bibliography is needed for your essays.

The required heading is only your name and a page number in the top right hand corner of each page.

Writing Assignment:

In the aftermath of the Great War the world changed in extremely dramatic ways. For example, the 19 th

Amendment gave women the right to vote which changed the role of women; the "Great Migration" and

Harlem Renaissance changed the lives of African-Americans; the advent of radio and the growth of Hollywood

shrank the country; and the birth of the age of the automobile made people more mobile and free. Your

weekly textbook reading will detail these changes and others during the 1920s and examine their effect on

society, while this week's writing assignment will look at the effect of WWI on individuals and society.

While the world changed around them, many individuals and cultures were trying to make sense of the pain,

suffering, death and destruction wrought by the years of war. Many soldiers expressed themselves during and

after the war through poetry, literature, art, and sculpture, and many societies expressed their grief in small

and large memorials and cemeteries. The following sources are a collection of several poems, excerpts from

literature, and images of works of art and memorials. Read the words and view the images, then write a

response paper based on the questions below!

Question:

Read the following poems, look at the works of art, and examine the memorials created by American, British,

Canadian, French, and German soldiers that fought on the Western Front throughout World War I. Discuss

how these expressions represent to the world and future generations the nature and impact of the Great War

on individuals and society. End your essay by answering the question: If you had to sum up the impact of the

Great War in one word, what would that word be?

Some of the questions to consider when writing your response are: What do the poems tell us about the

experiences of these soldiers? How do the works of art express what the soldiers experienced during the war

and how they are dealing with, or not dealing with, that experience? What differences can you see between

the European and American perspectives on the war? How do these men view the war and their role therein?

What strikes you when reading these poems?

You do not need to answer any or all of these specifically, but they might help give you ideas of what to

write. Your response should reference the documents and artwork, but not simply describe them to the

reader. Your answer should reflect that you examined the documents, artwork, and monuments.

Literature – Poems and Novels

In Flanders Field Lt. Col. John McCrea (1915), Canadian Army In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. Suicide in the Trenches 2

nd Lt. Siegfried Sassoon (1917), British Army

I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With cramps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you’ll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.

Dulce Et Decorum Est 2

nd Lt. Wilfred Owen (1917), British Army

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-- Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

I Have a Rendezvous with Death Alan Seeger (1917), American serving with the French Foreign Legion I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple blossoms fill the air-- I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my hand, And lead me into his dark land, And close my eyes and quench my breath-- It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow flowers appear. God knows 'twere better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear . . . But I've a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year; And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Prayer of a Soldier in France Sgt. Joyce Kilmer (1918), US Army

My shoulders ache beneath my pack

(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).

I march with feet that burn and smart

(Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart).

Men shout at me who may not speak

(They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek).

I may not lift a hand to clear

My eyes of salty drops that sear.

(Then shall my fickle soul forget

Thy Agony of Bloody Sweat?)

My rifle hand is stiff and numb

(From Thy pierced palm red rivers come).

Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me

Than all the hosts of land and sea.

So let me render back again

This millionth of Thy gift. Amen.

Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front The following is taken from Erich Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front (1929). Remarque was a veteran of the trenches and graphically describes the slaughter. His narrator is a young German soldier.

We wake up in the middle of the night. The earth booms. Heavy fire is falling on us. We crouch into corners. We distinguish shells of every caliber.

Each man lays hold of his things and looks again every minute to reassure himself that they are still there. The dug-out heaves, the night roars and flashes. We look at each other in the momentary flashes of light, and with pale faces and pressed lips shake our heads.

Every man is aware of the heavy shells tearing down the parapet, rooting up the embankment and demolishing the upper layers of concrete. When a shell lands in the trench we note bow the hollow, furious blast is like a blow from the paw of a raging beast of prey. Already by morning a few of the recruits are green and vomiting. They are too inexperienced….

The bombardment does not diminish. It is falling in the rear too. As far as one can see spout fountains of mud and iron. A wide belt is being raked.

The attack does not come, but the bombardment continues. We are gradually benumbed. Hardly a man speaks. We cannot make ourselves understood.

Our trench is almost gone. At many places it is only eighteen inches high, it is broken by holes, and craters, and mountains of earth. A shell lands square in front of our post. At once it is dark. We are buried and must dig ourselves out….

Towards morning, while it is still dark, there is some excitement. Through the entrance rushes in a swarm of fleeing rats that try to storm the walls. Torches light up the confusion. Everyone yells and curses and slaughters. The madness and despair of many hours unloads itself in this outburst. Faces are distorted, arms strike out, the beasts scream; we just stop in time to avoid attacking one another….

Suddenly it howls and flashes terrifically, the dug-out cracks in all its joints under a direct hit, fortunately only a light one that the concrete blocks are able to withstand. It rings metallically, the walls reel, rifles, helmets, earth, mud, and dust fly everywhere. Sulphur fumes pour in.

If we were in one of those light dug-outs that they have been building lately instead of this deeper one, none of us would be alive.

But the effect is bad enough even so. The recruit starts to rave again and two others follow suit. One jumps up and rushes out, we have trouble with the other two. I start after the one who escapes and wonder whether to shoot him in the leg-then it shrieks again, I fling myself down and when I stand up the wall of the trench is plastered with smoking splinters, lumps of flesh, and bits of uniform. I scramble back.

The first recruit seems actually to have gone insane. He butts his head against the wall like a goat. We must try to-night to take him to the rear. Meanwhile we bind him, but in such a way that in case of attack he can be released at once….

Suddenly the nearer explosions cease. The shelling continues but it has lifted and falls behind us, our trench is free. We seize the hand-grenades, pitch them out in front of the dug-out and jump after them. The bombardment has stopped and a heavy barrage now falls behind us. The attack has come.

No one would believe that in this howling waste there could still be men; but steel helmets now appear on all sides out of the trench, and fifty yards from us a machine-gun is already in position and barking.

The wire entanglements are torn to pieces. Yet they offer some obstacle. We see the storm-troops coming. Our artillery opens fire. Machine-guns rattle, rifles crack. The charge works its way across. Haie and Kropp begin with the hand-grenades. They throw as fast as they can, others pass them, the handles with the strings already pulled. Haie throws seventy-five yards, Kropp sixty, it has been measured, the distance is important. The enemy as they run cannot do much before they are within forty yards.

We recognize the smooth distorted faces, the helmets: they are French. They have already suffered heavily when they reach the remnants of the barbed wire entanglements. A whole line has gone down before our machine-guns; then we have a lot of stoppages and they come nearer.

I see one of them, his face upturned, fall into a wire cradle. His body collapses, his hands remain suspended as though he were praying. Then his body drops clean away and only his hands with the stumps of his arms, shot off, now hang in the wire.

The moment we are about to retreat three faces rise up from the ground in front of us. Under one of the helmets a dark pointed beard and two eyes that are fastened on me. I raise my hand, but I cannot throw into those strange eyes; for one mad moment the whole slaughter whirls like a circus round me, and these two eyes alone are motionless; then the head rises up, a hand, a movement, and my hand-grenade flies through the air and into him.

We make for the rear, pull wire cradles into the trench and leave bombs behind us with the strings pulled, which ensures us a fiery retreat. The machine-guns are already firing from the next position.

We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down-now, for the first time in three days we can see his face, now for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie helpless, waiting on the scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves, to save ourselves and to be revenged.

We crouch behind every corner, behind every barrier of barbed wire, and hurl heaps of explosives at the feet of the advancing enemy before we run. The blast of the hand-grenades impinges powerfully on our arms and legs; crouching like cats we run on, overwhelmed by this wave that bears us along, that fills us with ferocity, turns us into thugs, into murderers, into God only knows what devils; this wave that multiplies our strength with fear and madness and greed of life, seeking and fighting for nothing but our deliverance. If your own father came over with them you would not hesitate to fling a bomb at him.

The forward trenches have been abandoned. Are they still trenches? They are blown to pieces, annihilated- there are only broken bits of trenches, holes linked by cracks, nests of craters, that is all. But the enemy's casualties increase. They did not count on so much resistance.

_____________________________________

It is nearly noon. The sun blazes hotly, the sweat stings in our eyes, we wipe it off on our sleeves and often blood with it. At last we reach a trench that is in a somewhat better condition. It is manned and ready for the counter-attack, it receives us. Our guns open in full ~blast and cut off the enemy attack.

The lines behind us stop. They can advance no farther. The attack is crushed by our artillery. We watch. The fire lifts a hundred yards and we break forward. Beside me a lance corporal has his head torn off. He runs a few steps more while the blood spouts from his neck like a fountain.

It does not come quite to hand-to-hand lighting; they are driven back. We arrive once 7tgain at our shattered trench and pass on beyond it….

We have lost all feeling for one another. We can hardly control ourselves when our glance lights on the form of some other man. We are Insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and to kill.

A young Frenchman lags behind, he is overtaken, he puts up his hands, in one he still holds his revolver-does he mean to shoot or to give himself up!-a blow from a spade cleaves through his face. A second sees it and tries to run farther; a bayonet jabs into his back. He leaps in the air, his arms thrown wide, his mouth wide open, yelling; he staggers, in his back the bayonet quivers. A third throws away his rifle, cowers down with his hands before his eyes. He is left behind with a few other prisoners to carry off the wounded.

Suddenly in the pursuit we reach the enemy line.

We are so close on the heels of our retreating enemies that we reach it almost at the same time as they. In this way we suffer few casualties. A machine-gun barks, but is silenced with a bomb. Nevertheless, the couple of seconds has sufficed to give us five stomach wounds. With the butt of his rifle Kat smashes to pulp the face of one of the unwounded machine-gunners. We bayonet the others before they have time to get out their bombs. Then thirstily we drink the water they have for cooling the gun.

Everywhere wire-cutters are snapping, planks are thrown across the entanglements, we jump through the narrow entrances into the trenches. Haie strikes his spade into the neck of a gigantic Frenchman and throws the first hand-grenade; we duck behind a breast-work for a few seconds, then the straight bit of trench ahead of us is empty. The next throw whizzes obliquely over the corner and clears a passage; as we run past we toss handfuls down into the dug-outs, the earth shudders, it crashes, smokes and groans, we stumble over slippery lumps of flesh, over yielding bodies; I fall into an open belly on which lies a clean, new officer's cap.

The fight ceases. We lose touch with the enemy. We cannot stay here long but must retire under cover of our artillery to our own position. No sooner do we know this than we dive into the nearest dug-outs, and with the utmost haste seize on whatever provisions we can see, especially the tins of corned beef and butter, before we clear out.

We get back pretty well. There is no further attack by the enemy. We lie for an hour panting and resting before anyone speaks. We are so completely played out that in spite of our great hunger we do not think of the provisions. Then gradually we become something like men again

Artwork – Paintings and Drawings

Otto Dix paintings and etchings- Dix was a German soldier (1915-1918)

Right: War Triptych (1929) (Clockwise from top Left) Wounded Solider (1924); Stormtroopers Advancing Under Gas (1924); The War Cripples (1920); Mealtime in the Trenches (1924)

We Are Making a New World (1918) Wire (1917)

Paul Nash Postcard Paintings Nash was a British soldier (1917-1918)

Existence (1918) Spring in the Trenches, Ridge Wood (1917)

Memorials – Monuments and Cemeteries

The Skeleton Memorial at Mort-Homme - Verdun, France The inscription reads, "They Did Not Pass!"

Cloth Hall - Ypres, Belgium Anglo-Belgium War Memorial – Brussels, Belgium

Lisjenthoek Cemetery Ypres, Belgium

British Cemeteries

Taukkyan War Cemetery

Myanmar, Burma

World War I Memorial - Knoxville, TN

World War I Memorial - Washington D.C.

The Flanders Field American Cemetery Waregum, Belgium

Soldaten Friedhof Ohlsdorf Cemetery Langemark, Belgium Hamburg, Germany

German Cemeteries