World War I and the Birth of Modernism

The World in 1916

Beginnings and Escalations

• Gavrilo Princep assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarjevo, capital city of Bosnia, on June 28, 1914.

• The Austria-Hungarian Empire demanded action from Serbia (which controlled Bosnia). Then the Empire declared war when action didn’t come quickly enough.

Treaties, Pacts, and SecretsEntente Powers

• Russia backed Serbia because of alliance

• Britain had alliance with Serbia

• As did France• Also, Luxembourg and

Belgium• Enter the British Empire—

South Africa, New Zealand, Mesopotamia, Australia, Canada, Palestine, Egypt, and India

Central Powers• Austria-Hungarian Empire

declared war on July 28, 1914

• Germany, because of a treaty with AHE, declared war on Serbia’s allies—France on August 3 and Britain on August 4 and invades Luxembourg and Belgium

• Enter the German colonies—Togo land, German Samoa, New Guinea, Micronesia, Chinese Colonies

More Escalation and Expansion• Enter other

Europeans countries with alliances with either Britain or France—Italy, Montenegro, and Greece

• Finally, in 1917, enter the United States because of solidarity with Britain

• Enter the Ottoman Empire (Turkey)

• Enter other European countries with alliances with one of the empires—Bulgaria and Romania

The War Itself• Entente Powers

– The British Empire (United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa)

– France– Belgium– Italy– Japan– Russia– Greece– Portugal– Romania– Serbia– United States

• Central Powers– Germany– Austria-Hungary– Bulgaria– Ottoman Empire

New Weapons• Aircraft—planes, zeppelins,

hot-air balloons• Tanks• Machine guns• Chemical weapons—mustard

gas• Submarines

Old Tactics• Marching in ranks• Attacking across fields• Weapons were too efficient, needed

stopgaps—hence, trenches and barbed wire

Combat Photographs--Trenches

It’s Called a World War for a Reason

• There were battles in Europe, of course, particularly France, Belgium, Italy, and the Caucuses, as well as major sea battles in the Atlantic

• But, there were also major campaigns and massive casualties in these places:– Russia– Turkey (Gallipoli)– Egypt (the Suez Canal)– Palestine (including a siege of and battle for Jerusalem)-- Mesopotamia (Iraq)– Africa– South America (the Faulkland Islands)– India– Samoa and Micronesia

Treaty of Versailles—11:00, 11/11/18

• Major Points of the Treaty• Germany agreed to cede of overseas territory, including colonies in Africa and Asia

and some of their own territories in Europe• Germany agreed to admit guilt for starting and escalating the war• Germany agreed to these military terms-- the air force was disbanded, the army was limited to

100,000 men and the navy was limited to 15,000 sailors, six battleships and no submarines • Germany also had to pay reparations for damages ensued by the war. This meant having to pay

£6600 million (about $3 billion) in compensation. However, the land that Germany lost included 10% of its industry and 15% of its agricultural land. Therefore, this made the reparations extremely difficult for Germany to pay. In 1923, in order to collect their own compensation, the French occupied the Ruhr region in Germany – the biggest industrial area in the country. This made it even more difficult for Germany to pay other Allies the reparations.

• Formation of the League of Nations, which all combatants except the United States agreed to join

Consequences of World War I• Deaths of approximately 60,000,000 people, largely in

Europe and Russia• Destruction of the Austria-Hungarian Empire• Destruction of the Ottoman Empire• Destruction of the Russian Empire• Financial devastation to many European nations, most

specifically Germany—leading almost directly to World War II

• And, especially valid for students of the arts—including art, music, and literature—after-effects on those who participated in combat, served in war zones, or simply survived the absolute destruction

Casualties? (Doesn’t Count victims of the “Spanish Lady”)

• Military dead—15,416,509*

• Wounded—34, 050,456*

• Total—59,612,895• Civilian deaths--

12,544,005*• Total deaths—

27,960,514*• Missing, presumed

dead--11,872,009*

*All are best estimates

Spanish Influenza

• Known as the “Spanish Lady,” the flu pandemic of 1918

• Victims were not counted as casualties in World War I figures

• Death estimates vary from 50-100 million people killed

• 2.5 to 5 percent of the world population killed

• Infection rate of 50 percent in some areas

Post-War Art and ArtistsThe Movements

Abstract– Cubism– Neo-Plasticism

Dada

Surrealism

Abstract

Cubism--Picasso Neo-Plasticism--Mondrian

Dada—Alternate Reality

Surrealism—Bending Reality

Andre Masson Yves Tanguy

Rene Magritte

Salvador Dali

The Gibson Girl—1880-1920

The Flapper—Welcome to the 1920’s

Wave of the Future—Fashion Changes

A Cornucopia of SoundsIn America, then Europe, Music Changes

• African-American music goes mainstream with Ragtime

• Jazz comes upriver from New Orleans• Blues comes by train from the Deep South• Immigrants add their own melodies and

rhythms—Russian and Jewish immigrants combine with American composers to form Tin Pan Alley

Ragtime

• Scott Joplin begins the ragtime revolution and popularizes a new kind of music

• Sound evolves from limited employment opportunities for African-American musicians who play largely in honky tonks, jukes, and brothels, as well as demeaning minstrel shows

• Ragtime hits the big time, selling millions of pieces of sheet music, beginning in 1890’s

Jazz

Music coming out of New Orleans’ red-light district, Storyville, begins to mutate, adding elements found in string bands, horn bands, marching bands, stride piano, and every other influence in the city

Prohibition and the speakeasies demand entertainment—musicians move north by boat and by train. What we know of jazz begins to coalesce with King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong

The Blues• Began as the “field holler” songs of slaves sung as they

worked• Add to that the melodies of spirituals, the call-and-

response music of the fields and churches, the rhythms and instruments of African music, and the adoption of the guitar as the major instrument

• Finally, “the blues” comes from “blue devils” or down spirits, depression, and sadness

• roots of jazz, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, heavy metal, hip hop, and other popular music forms, including…

• Add the blues to the Scots-Irish folk music of the Appalachians and Smokey Mountains---country music is born

Tin Pan Alley• Prior to the early 1900’s,

money was generated by sales of sheet music

• Name of an area of New York—an alley on Fourteenth Street near Third Avenue-- where composers, lyricists, and song pluggers worked in a number of buildings to sell music to song publishers

• Later began synonymous with composers of post-World War I era, including the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George M. Cohan,and dozens of others

“The Center Cannot Hold”Writers of “The Great War” and After

Poets• Yeats, Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Millay,

Houseman, Hardy, and othersProse• Ford, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Huxley,

Kipling, Lawrence, Woolf, and others

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

The Second Coming (1921)

Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand.The Second Coming! Hardly are those words outWhen a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desertA shape with lion body and the head of a man,A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,Is moving its slow thighs, while all about itReel shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again; but now I knowThat twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

What, then, is Modernism

• In short—the old ways drove us into this war. Let’s try something new.

• Lack of formality, changes in style, adoption of or adaptations of one art form in another