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Instructions
1. Choose a question to which you want to respond. Each question is attached as a post. Your post of 250-300 words goes as a "comment" to that post.
2. For your comment of 100-150 words, in the title put your name and to which student's post you are responding. For example, "Valerie commenting on Zlatka's Post". Put it in the section labeled "Comments to Question #__ ". Do NOT put your comments in the same section where you put your original posts.
ALSO... do NOT go back to previous questions. I will no longer look at those.
2. For your comment of 100-150 words, in the title put your name and to which student's post you are responding. For example, "Valerie commenting on Zlatka's Post". Put it in the section labeled "Comments to Question #__ ". Do NOT put your comments in the same section where you put your original posts.
ALSO... do NOT go back to previous questions. I will no longer look at those.
Grading Periods
6th six weeks...last set!
Choose ONE question (#13-15) to answer in a 250-300 work post. Due Friday May 24.
Choose ONE question (#13-15) to answer in a 250-300 work post. Due Friday May 24.
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ReplyDeleteThe most interesting thing I learned working on this WWI project was that following the start of the war, hundreds of Serbians living in Austria-Hungary were executed in the name of “National Security.” It was interesting to me because I thought this was a very nitwitted act committed by the Austro-Hungarian government. This act made the Serbians living in Austria-Hungary very mad. For this reason they didn’t support the Austro-Hungarian Army and thought of themselves more as Serbians than Austrians. They didn’t like Austria-Hungary fighting against Serbia and Russia because their loyalty was towards them and not towards Austria-Hungary. Because of similar reasons Czechs, Slovakians, and other nationalities didn’t want to fight against Russia and preferred to be captured by Russian troops. Czechoslovak Legion was then created. First it comprised of only Czech and Slovak volunteers but then later, Czech and Slovaks captured during the war also began to join the Legion. This legion grew by tens of thousands and fought with the Entente Powers during WWI. Austria-Hungary shouldn’t have upset its minorities because all of them during WWI revolted and asked for independence. This disunity contributed greatly to Austria’s failure, and led to civilian life in Austria-Hungary being a hodgepodge of constant turmoil and riots. This was very interesting because such a small blunder changed Austria-Hungary’s fate. This mistake of Austria-Hungary led to its size being reduced after WWI. Hungary became an Independent country, Bohemia, Moravia, Opava Silesia and the western part of Duchy of Cieszyn, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia formed the new Czechoslovakia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, Slovenia, and Vojvodina were joined with Serbia to form the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia, and Transylvania and Bukovina became parts of Romania. This is what I learned through this project and was very interested by it.
ReplyDeleteWord count: 297
Personally the most interesting part for me was knowing the different and very important roles woman played in the war because I noticed that many things would have not been possible by woman and in general all civilian that did not go to war. In Austria's case woman became conscious of what they had to do in order to keep their men in shape and "healthy" in terms of well being to the point where they where able to sustain with the basics, the Austrian woman even though from different ethnic backgrounds all Personally the most interesting part for me was knowing the different and very important roles woman played in the war because I noticed that many things would have not been possible by woman and in general all civilian that did not go to war. In Austria's case woman became conscious of what they had to do in order to keep their men in shape and id the same, they would cultivate raw materials and send the basic needs to the soldiers by transporting them to other woman who were near the home-front. What was very interesting was that at the time Austria had one of the most weak economies and but had one of the most supportive civilians in terms of emotional support and physical support.
ReplyDeleteEmotional support was established by propaganda that had been directed both toward the soldiers and civilians, for the soldiers; banners and posters stating to defeat other countries with cartoons, for the civilians there was banners and posters stating to support soldiers by helping grow crops and by doing agricultural labor. Woman became self-efficient and they became more passionate about what they did, they were beginning to consider them self’s’ self-efficient and sustainable. The questions that this brings to mind is; how long after WW1 did where woman considered the "equal" of men and what woman played a vital role for all woman's independence?
Word Cont: 303
The most interesting part I learned while creating the project for WWI was the influence propaganda had on British culture. Propaganda was used to affect the way people thought and felt about the situation. It affected their values and priorities. Many different forms of propaganda were affected by the war. Book publishing was affected creating sales of books to increase during the war. And writers were also affected since many saw the events or were involved in the fighting.
ReplyDeleteAfter the outbreak of the war Germany created a Propaganda Agency, which pushed Britain to do the same since they saw it could have an impact on the War. As the British government saw this they assigned the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George to set up the British War Propaganda Bureau.
The purpose of the British War Propaganda Bureau was to give the people an impression that Britain was in control of the War. The group consisted of some of the best British authors and commercial companies. There were pamphlets, commercials, magazines, and posters taking propaganda to a higher level. When it came to propaganda for the benefit of Britain the government even allowed taking pictures of the Western Front. The idea of having photos taken was to help Britain portray the effort of brave and successful soldier to encourage other men. A tactic used against enemies was to drop leaflets proclaiming ideas and beliefs that were usually false information. Propaganda not only affected the enemies but was a way of recruiting soldiers by showing them as a prospective force.
During the war propaganda was seen as a new medium that increased as war continued. Propaganda was used in large numbers and showed many different aspects of civilization to make an impact on British civilians. It was interesting to see how propaganda changed due to the war.
Word Count:300
I personally found that the most interesting thing that I learned from doing my project were the issues that Germany faced due to a blockade put in place by the Allied Powers. This really stuck out to me, because of the effects that it had on the civilian life found in Germany. Due to the blockade, there were food shortages that got worse as the war continued, since they were unable to import the same amount of food that they had been able to import before the war started. This caused wide spread hunger and the standard of living to decrease.
ReplyDeleteThe German Board of Health in 1918 stated that 763,000 German civilians died from starvation and disease caused by the blockade. When I read this I was shocked and intrigued at the same time, I wanted to know what the civilian’s reaction was to this situation, because there had been much enthusiasm for participating in the war at the beginning. This enthusiasm decreased because the people had first thought that the war would be short, but it wasn't and then when they began to see the effects of the war on the people (such as starvation), they became angry and disgruntled.
There is a pattern that occurs in most wars, where the people are very happy and supportive of the war, but later dislike/hate being involved because they see the destruction and deaths that are occurring because of it. This aspect of war can be compared to the Honeymoon period that occurs after the U.S president has been elected; everyone loved them but after a few months in power their approval ratings drop. This cycle is one that adds to the complexities of war and one that really affected the people in Germany during World War I
(Jacquelinne Tobar, 298 words)
The most interesting thing that I learned while creating my project for World War I was that Oskar Potiorek, an Austrian general who was also the Austro-Hungarian governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was in charge of protecting Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Before doing this project, I had never really thought about the people that were with him when he died. I learned more about how he was assassinated. A Serbian nationalist threw a grenade at the Archduke’s car, but it bounced off of his car and injured the people in the car behind him. The Archduke wanted to visit the injured people in the hospital, so Potiorek suggested they take an alternate route, so that the nationalists would not know which way they were going. The driver did not take the alternate route and Potiorek told him to turn around and go the other way, but it was too late, Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, were shot and killed. I thought that this was very interesting because while reading it, I could visualize the scene and actually had names and faces to put on the people who were involved in the incident. The assassination of the Archduke and the spark that started World War I were more real to me.
ReplyDeleteI also learned that Franz Baron Rohr von Denta was the last commander of the Austro- Hungarian First Army, as it was disbanded due to a peace treaty with Romania in April 1918. The Austro-Hungarian First Army earned the first Austro-Hungarian victory of World War I by defeating the Russian Fourth Army at the Battle of Krasnik in August of 1914. The First Army continued to fight on the Eastern Front.
Word Count: 280
What I found most interesting from my project was the civilian life in Russia. Civilian life in Russia involved the usual men being sent off to war, food rationing, and women taking an active role in industry, but what stood out the most about civilian life in Russia which is unlike other countries is the lack of enthusiasm for the war. Of course, lack of enthusiasm is understandable, especially when Russia lost terribly to the Japanese in 1906 during the Russo-Japanese War, but it was really surprising that this lack of enthusiasm for the war is main cause as to why Russia pulled out of the war early in 1917.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Provisional Government forced Nicholas II to abdicate the throne, it promised a more liberal Russia with free speech, election of a Constituent Assembly, and abolition of classes. Unfortunately the Provisional Government still continued with the war which displeased many people, including soldiers, many who deserted their positions. It also didn't help that the Provisional Government was unorganized with the constant internal disagreements. Two examples of disorganization and the weak state of the Provisional Government can be seen from the July Days and the Kornilov Affair.
During the July Days the people were rioting in Petrograd, and when soldiers were sent to mediate the situation, they ended up joining the people in the riots. During the Kornilov Affiar where an army officer named Lavr Kornilov wanted to punish the communists more harshly and so he gathered troops to Petrograd to do so and he was met with people who deserted the army and 20,000 Red Guards and failed.
It really is impressive is the fact that all of these events that branched off from people who were unenthusiastic about WWI and led to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.
Word Count: 299
The most interesting thing that was learned while creating the project for WWI was the willingness of the British people to change their Prime Ministers in the midst of the fighting. This is primarily due to the fact that there are many potential consequences that can arise from doing so, such as the enemies taking advantage of the momentary lapse of power within the government and striking with as much possible force as they can to quickly take down one of their allies.
ReplyDeleteThe starting Prime Minister of WWI was Herbert Henry Asquith of the Liberal Party. His wartime cabinet was deemed unbeneficial to the British people, and was brought down in May 1915. This was because of a crisis that had occurred involving artillery shell production, where not enough was created to meet the demands for the battle fronts, and the failed Gallipoli Campaign in the Dardanelles. Asquith, however, was not un-appointed as he created a new coalition government on May 25, 1915 to try and please the British people.
Unfortunately, this coalition failed as well due to his growing lack of support from both the Conservative party and his own party after the Battle of the Somme. The growing lack of support from even those within his party were interesting as it showed that his perspective and methods on fighting the war did not meet the standards of many of the British people. Along with this, it was fascinating to discover that members of both the Conservative and Liberal party worked together to unappoint Prime Minister Asquith, and appoint a new minister without much problems.
Although it is understandable as to why Britain would wish to switch their Prime Ministers during WWI, it feels as though there was still grave dangers that could have arose from doing so.
Word Count: 300
I found many interesting things that I learned from doing my project. I learned the different circumstances issues Germany face. The different effects in the civilian life also interest me as well as the different effects propaganda brought. Due to the blockade the standard of living decreased.
ReplyDeleteGerman civilians life were also really important.
Propaganda was also interesting since it changed what people thought toward certain situations.Propaganda was affected by war.
After the outbreak of the war Germany created a Propaganda Agency which had an impact in war. Propaganda came in magazines,pamphlets,posters,etc.. it came with photographs and illustration which would encourage people to be involved in war as well as change their perspective.
Propaganda had an affected on enemies. Propaganda was beneficial up to a point.Propaganda showed aspects of civilization.It was really interesting to see the different changes propaganda brought to people and the civilian life due to war.
The different complexities of war really affected the people in Germany during World War One.
Seeing the different causes and effects and the before and after and all the different influences Germany went through really stood out to me. The people who led were also important.
But to me the most important was propaganda,the battles and the civilian life.
While looking through the various important battles on the western front that France was involved in, a part of my WWI project, I found out just how close Germany came to taking over Paris. This is interesting to me because Paris is where I was born, and the area that Germany had to go through to get to it is the region where my father’s family is from. In 1916, Germany attempted to capture the city of Verdun, but the French was fixed on defending it. This resulted in the Battle of Verdun. It was significant in that if Germany had been able to take over the city, they would have had a strategic edge in capturing Paris. Not only was this one of the longest and costliest (both financially and in casualties) in WWI but also in the history of warfare. Fortunately for France, her army was able to hold off the German troops and kept them from capturing the city. This battle happened very close to the city of Saint-Avold and Metz, where my grandpa currently lives. I was lucky enough to have visited a massive cemetery dedicated to soldiers who fought in this battle among others. The second battle which got my attention was the Battle of Amie, in which the U.S. stepped in to help France and Britain. Germans were in the midst of an offensive to capture Paris when U.S. stepped in and essentially saved the city of Paris. I consider myself both French and American so I look back on this moment with pride in seeing a strong and powerful relationship between the two countries most important to me.
ReplyDeleteword count: 275
The most interesting thing that I learned through the creation of my project is that the Russian offensive strategy on the Eastern front was greatly affected by personal sentiments held by the generals of different Russian armies. The conflict most affected by this was the Battle of Tannenburg. The personal sentiments that were held by the generals towards one another can best be described as hatred. The two generals who carried these spiteful feelings were, in this particular battle, Alexander Samsonov and Paul von Rennenkampf. Before the Battle of Tannenburg these generals were in little contact and therefore their feelings meant very little because feelings don't matter if they aren't expressed. But once Samsonov leading the Russian Second Army left for his attack against the German Eighth Army the situation could been seen as hopeless. The plan was for Samsonov to attack the Eighth Army from the rear while Rennenkampf assaulted from the front, but there occurred a miscommunication of lack of communication in general and when Rennenkampf was supposed to be in position for the attack he was instead stationed in Gumbinnen. His absence made it easy for the Eighth Army to encircle the Second Army in the forested area of their attack zone. At that point it was just a matter of time before the Second Army would surrender, but this could have been avoided if Rennenkampf and the First Army were to come to the rescue of his Russian colleague. However, Rennenkampf stayed put. He did not immediately send forth his troops to the aid of Samsonov nor did he attempt to. This is for one particular reason. Rennenkampf hated Samsonov so why would he ever assist him. The fact that feelings played any role in the leading of these regimes is very interesting.
ReplyDeleteWord Count- 299
The thing I found most interesting while during my project was all the social changes that happened in Britain. Throughout the war there was a shortage of "man-power" due to the fact that there were fighting. So women had to step in and take on the male role. Especially in the factories. The number of women increased from 33,000 (in 1911) to over 102,000 (in 1921). 23% of the women in the industry were doing actual men jobs.
ReplyDeleteThe government knew that women would be a big help, that's why they targeted them early on in the war. In 1916 groups had been set up to help women grow in agriculture. Women had also managed to get in the war in a non-combatant role. By the end of the war 80,000 women had joined the armed forces being either a nurse or a cook. The women from Britain also helped refugees from Belgian by improving recruiting rates amongst men. "Order of the White Feather" was found by Admiral Charles Fitzgerald with support of Mary Ward and Emma Orczy. This encouraged women to give out white feathers to young men who had not joined the British Army.
I never knew that they had accomplished so much. I always knew that in America women had proven to be equally as good as the men. But to see it in other countries is truly amazing. I think that the English used their women citizens to their advantage by using them in the work force, propaganda, and the armed forces. The British government used everything they could to win this war. Although something’s didn't always go as they had planned and they could have improved certain things. They did for one thing take advantage of the citizens at home.
word count:295
Andrea Mackey
The most interesting thing that I learned from the project was that there was a lack of change in strategy among the generals during WWI. There were all these new innovations for what generals could have soldiers do to the opposing enemy. Mow the enemy down with machine guns, blast them out of bunkers using tanks, and push them out by throwing mortar into bunkers. In the past all the soldiers really had were rifles and cannons as weaponry with the only true factors of winning battles were how good your weaponry was and the amount of soldiers that were firing them. Now with a larger array of much more devastating weaponry the soldiers could do much more than blindly run into enemy fire, they could form proper strategy to quickly subdue enemies. Unfortunately this wasn't really done such as in the First Battle of Champagne where the French were defeated for running straight into the enemy fire. Plan XVII and the Schlieffen Plan were both just general ideas of what each country would do in the event of war and lacked the specific military strategy for the soldiers to follow which gave flexibility, but did not tell what they would actually do to reach their plan goals. Also some of the lack of strategy was caused by deficiency of communication in between different generals. During The Spring Offensive where British and French soldiers were controlled separately from each other, the generals had no idea what the other was planning or doing until they actually met on the battle ground, many times too late or just in time to prevent great amounts of failure. Had the generals of the war followed a properly planned strategy between themselves there could have been much more success in the battles.
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 297
The most interesting thing that I learned during the development of my groups WWI project was how the different military leaders of France believed that they could win the war after winning one battle. French citizens were lead to believe that they could win the war in less than a couple of months as the military leaders proclaimed that they could indeed win. Even after the replacement of French after French leaders of the military army, the ideology remained but there were more failures than wins.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of WWI Joseph Joffre was held responsible for the development of Plan XVII. The plan basically called for a run in at Germany in order to get Alsace Loraine. The plans ultimate fail came due to the Germans Schliffen Plan which surprised the French as the Germans came in through Belgium. Joffre's win during the First Battle of the Marne made him a "saviour" in the short run, but eventually the loses afterwards proved otherwise. Afterwards the next military leader, Robert Nivelle, that replaced Joffre also believed that he could end the war in 48 hours by using his creeping barrage attacks. His idea was politically popular but was a major failure during the Nivelle Offensive. I found interesting that Nivelle was really aggressive tactics during his leadership which was coincidentally similar to Plan XVII.
I also found interesting how French's Plan XVII wasn't looked over for any kind of weak point. Although there were some changes later on during the war by Ferdinand Foch, during the early years of WWI it lead to the German occupation in Paris and making the French concentrate their armies in Paris. If Plan XVII would've been analyzed in depth, the war in the eastern front in France would've been a completely different situation.
Word Count: 299
The most important thing I discovered during my research on Russia in World War One was the fact that it was extremely offensive in the war, a tactic that had previously never been done by Russia.
ReplyDeleteTypically Russia exploited the harsh conditions of their own nation, luring their opponents in to Russian lands and starving their supply lines once they’ve been lured inside. This tactic was sort of a one time only thing, despite being the main plan for Russian defensives. The reason it was one time only is because the opponents would wise up to reinforce their supply lines whenever attempting to go into Russia a second time.
However, in World War One, all of Russia’s battles were fought outside of its home land. This aggressive policy seemed to start earlier with the Russo-Japanese War, wherein Russia attacked Japan flat out. Despite the failure of this strategy, it was used again in WWI. At first this failed on a grand scale in the Battle of Tannenburg in 1914. However, the mass offensive strategy is best demonstrated by- and incidentally most successful during- the Brusilov Offensive. Created by Aleksei Brusilov, this offensive used Russia’s enormous army to swarm the entirety of the Eastern Front
This is important because Russia’s style of warfare would dictate its actions throughout WWI. If Russia had taken a more defensive approach to the war, it would’ve suffered less losses as a whole. However Russia also in a way needed to be aggressive, due to the fact that Germany was focused on attacking France and would not waste more resources on fighting a two front offensive war.
Word Count:271
In all honesty if you would have originally asked me, what is World War 1 and the countries that participated in it, I would be clueless and basically say Germany and the United States, and that’s it. From doing my project let alone, I found out what World War 1 was – which was basically a war fought between the major powers of the world, what countries participated in the war – all the major European Powers including the United States, as well as the original reasoning as to why World War 1 was initiated – the death of Franz Ferdinand the Archduke of Austria, and much more. What I found most interesting though was how well Germany was actually prepared, and potentially could have won the war if it had not been backing Austria-Hungary the whole time. In reality, Germany was one of the most prepared and powerful European powers at that time, thus the people of Germany were prepared. Not only were they building a bigger and better army, at the same time they were improving their technology, improving their communication and actually working together as a country to prepare for war. Especially how the German government was able to persuade the German people to work together, having one common focus – which was to help prepare for war and ration food as well as win the war was essential to keeping the German people focused. The only downfall was Germany helping Austria-Hungary try to win its battles, at this time Austria-Hungary is one of the most ill equipped European power at this time, not only with technology but as well inside the central government – especially with communication; basically Germany, should’ve stuck by herself – from there she would’ve won the war. But she didn’t, Germany and Austria-Hungary lost. This is what I learned.
ReplyDeleteBtw, my response was exactly 300 words.
ReplyDeleteIn doing this WWI project, I felt one of the most important and interesting things I learned was the manner in which society was altered by the war in more or less every aspect, ranging from how the families of men who joined the military dealt with jobs, or by the propaganda that influenced certain behaviors and ideas. During the time that many left to join the war, women were often forced to take over the role of the breadwinner and as a result, many of them would do jobs in the workplace that were normally attributed to men, while their children would also be exposed to a more active role in the household. These practices began to introduce a number of changes in which the way people in Britain would function as a culture, because it was proven that women could take on the same jobs as men successfully, and it began to shift the concept of gender roles in the workplace. Propaganda also played a large part in influencing the mindset of society, as there were two main recurring themes regarding the posters that were often created on the subject of WWI. One of these was the general urging of men to join the army and fight for their nation’s integrity, and this reinforced nationalistic views as well as a need to defend Great Britain from attacks or possible threats. Another theme was the depiction of Germany as an enemy, which fired up negative feelings towards Germans as a means to motivate the British against them while also establishing the importance of being ready to fight. Ultimately, WWI caused British society to change in ways that affected the nation not only during the course of the war, but also to a significant degree after it had been over.
ReplyDeleteWord count: 300
I personally found that the most interesting thing that was learned while creating the project was the failure of the Gallipoli campaign and how it directly affected British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. The Battle of Gallipoli occurred from 1915 to 1916 in what was the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). A Western multi-national army that consisted of British, French, Australian, New Zealand troops landed on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli in order to get Germany’s ally, Turkey, out of the war and gain control of the surrounding straits.
ReplyDeleteHowever due to the lack of intelligence, knowledge of the terrain, and lack of coordination between the naval and land forces, Turkey successfully defended its territory. Eventually, the western troops withdrew out of the battle nine months later after suffering over 46,000 dead and 250,000 causalities. This campaign was considered as one of the major failures by the Allies, especially Britain.
Britain's prime minister, Winston Churchill planned this attack on Turkey because he argued that the British Navy was powerful enough to defeat it. He planned to capture the Dardanelles Straits and the capital Istanbul in order to weaken Turkey. Although this idea succeeded, it catalyzed a series of micro-battles and painful losses. Despite the simple yet detailed plan, Churchill underestimated the enemy and had to withdraw.
The series of battles that have occurred throughout the campaign ruined Churchill's political reputation and high office position. He was highly criticized for his actions and his intentions regarding the battle. Seeing how the failure of a campaign that had little impact on the war significantly affected a popular and well respected political leader really intrigued me. It made me acknowledge that one mistake can significantly alter a country's political standpoints and leadership positions.
(Alejandra Perez, Word Count :287)
The most interesting thing I learned about in my project was the important role the French women played in the war effort. My initial interest stemmed from the fact that I didn’t know women had much prominence in wars until World War 2, since I had heard a lot more about the role that women played in the Second World War. This was because of how publicized information was about them. The portrayal of women like Rosie the Riveter, the flexing woman on American propaganda posters, is just one example of how prominent women were in World War 2. That’s what lead to my initial interest in the role of French women: my initial misconception that they hadn’t played a very large role.
ReplyDeleteThe next factor that fueled my interest was learning about what they specifically did in order to support the war effort. Since women tend to be built physically weaker than men, I assumed that they’d just do lightweight work, such as working in factories with machines that were fairly rudimentary to operate; but my initial perception was wrong. The largest role that French women had towards the war effort was helping to dig trenches. Although this seemed strange to me at first, since women tended to be built weaker than men, after some careful analysis of where the battles were taking place, it began to make a lot of sense.
The fighting was on the French home front, since Germany had invaded and occupied France at the start of the war. Because of this, it was easy for women to get to the fighting, making these trenches accessible. The accessibility of the nearby fighting on the home front allowed women to contribute to digging trenches, even though they were physically weaker than men.
Word Count: 296
The most interesting thing that I learned in this project – or, at least, the thing that I found most interesting – was the relationship between the Tsar and Tsarina and Rasputin, and the effects of that relationship on the government. Rasputin technically was not a government leader of Russia – but he became so involved in Russian governmental affairs he was as good as one. When Tsar Nicholas II went to command the armies during WWI, Rasputin was given much power and freedom by Tsarina Alexandra. It could be said that Nicholas did not do so great a job as a leader while he was simply the leader – and it is most definitely true that he did much worse as the commander of armed forced than as the Tsar of Russia; his failures in leadership of the war led to the downfall of the Romanovs. But, it is not only that for which they fell; Rasputin had a hand in it too. He was considered “holy” – he could supposedly heal the royal couple’s son, who had hemophilia – or, if not heal, at least ease the suffering of. This is mainly why Rasputin was in such good standing with Tsarina Alexandra. When Rasputin took to leading Russia alongside her with Nicholas away commanding the army, he led the good life; he was not really too concerned with the state of the Russian people, it seems. The people did not take to kindly to this view of them supposedly held by the royalty of Russia; it certainly caused some unrest. Unrest enough to get Rasputin killed eventually (after much effort and variety of assassination methods: the man seemed to be extremely hard to kill.)
ReplyDeleteWord count: 280
Eric Alexander's post:
ReplyDeletePerhaps, one of the most interesting things I discovered during performing my research over Germany was one of its most peculiar titles given during the winter of 1916. Called the "Tirnup Winter" the Germans faced a tragic period of supply deficiency and irritability.
During the war, Germany had a strong defensive and technological advantage over its enemies, but lacked a stable resource transit. This was caused by Britain’s overall control over the seas, making it difficult for Germany to receive any imports. Such restriction massively startled German resources since imports were a major contributor to German supplies. On another front, much of the domestic German resources were falling in numbers as well. Meat and potatoes, which were a significant part of their diet, were becoming scarce due to several factors. A combination of bad autumn rains and the transportation itself left the potatoes rottener, and the mere fact that many of the farmers were being drafted didn't help in potatoes populations either. These factors then brought out the season known as "Turnip Winter."
The name was derived from the surplus of turnips that then replaced the once bountiful meats and potatoes. This devastating winter of turnip based foods became an omen upon the German civilians, and even bread was being made up of grinded turnips. It was with this that Germany suffered casualties outside the war zone, and struggled through death by malnutrition. In all, this ultimately led to cutting rations in the army, civilians disliking the few remaining farmers for whom they believed were keeping food for themselves, and a decrease in Germany's momentum and moral.
Word count: 267