WWI Overview
The aggressive belief that your country is superior, often blinding citizens to the reality of their government's actions.
Nationalism
The terrifying, unoccupied wasteland between two opposing trenches filled with barbed wire and mud.
No Man's Land
The political theory that everyone is "equal" in a classless society with guaranteed basic necessities.
Communism
The colonial idea that subject peoples could earn rights or citizenship by sacrificing their lives for the empire.
The Blood Tax
The popular nickname for the fresh American troops who arrived on the Western Front in 1917.
Doughboys
A document, firsthand account, or physical object created by someone who directly experienced a historical event.
Primary Source
A painful, rotting infection of the feet caused by standing in cold, muddy, unsanitary water for weeks.
Trench Foot
The working class and peasants who hold zero power but do the labor and die in the wars.
The Proletariat
The suppression or prohibition of speech or communication deemed a threat to the security of the empire.
Censorship
This 1919 peace agreement officially ended World War I and included the "War Guilt Clause," which forced Germany to accept full responsibility for the conflict.
The Treaty of Versailles
Studying history by focusing on the lived experience of a single person or family rather than entire nations.
Microhistory
Severe psychological trauma and nervous breakdowns caused by the constant, deafening artillery bombardment.
Shell Shock
The wealthy owners, royals, and bosses who hold all the power and do no physical labor or fighting
The power of a colony (like India) to set up its own government while remaining part of an empire.
Home Rule
Name one of the two massive empires that completely collapsed and were erased from the map as a result of the war, leading to the creation of several new nations in Europe and the Middle East.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Ottoman Empire
Warfare powered by mass production, factories, and technology rather than human bravery or "fighting spirit".
Industrialized Warfare
A situation where neither side can make progress or win, resulting in a prolonged deadlock.
Stalemate
This leader of the Bolsheviks promised the starving Russian proletariat "Peace, Land, and Bread" to spark a revolution and pull Russia out of the war.
A person in a war zone whose officially assigned job does not involve fighting or carrying a weapon (for example: medics, cooks, or laborers).
Non-combatant
Following the "War Guilt Clause" of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forced to pay these massive sums of money—totaling roughly 132 billion gold marks—to compensate the Allied powers for the "loss and damage" caused by the conflict.
Reparations
The M.A.I.N. acronym represents the four long-term causes of WWI; specifically, what do the "A" and the "I" stand for?
Alliances and Imperialism (The full acronym is Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, and Nationalism).
To combat the infestation of "corpse rats" that spread disease and stole rations, soldiers often kept these small, agile dogs in the trenches to hunt and kill them.
Terriers
Germany’s failed strategy to quickly crush France before the massive Russian army could fully mobilize.
The Schleiffen Plan
The specific and haunting phrase used by West African soldiers to describe their role as a barrier for white troops: "A shield of _________"
Black Flesh
A territory once belonging to a defeated nation handed over to a victorious power to be "managed".
Mandate