Describe how the application of warfare in the Great War reflected the cultures of the belligerent
countries, with a minimum of 150 words and use of our course materials in support.
According to Ekstein the Allied forces wanted this war to be the “War to end all wars” and “the
war to make the world safe for democracy.” However as he goes on to say the Germans had other plans
their mood was more “apocalyptic” from onset. The Germans had weaponry of that of a apocalyptic
force. Whether it was the newest weapon in naval warfare the submarine, the machine gun, war planes
and ships; and of course the addition of chemical war fares with their uses of deadly gasses. Ekstein
points out their belligerence as he mentions they tried to deliver a “knockout blow.” (Eckstein 1989 pg
140-160). Their belligerence was vastly different then the effort put towards by the ally front. Although
Great Britain had a great navy they did not use it to enforce their will but to blockade the Germans on
the sea front. Where I do believe Germany may have been the most belligerent, we justify the allies uses
of their warfare because it was in the best interest of the future.
Choose your favorite poem from our readings and explicate it in terms of the writer’s views on the
Great War, with a minimum of 150 words and use of our course materials as support.
The poem I chose was Gone, Gone Again by Edward Thomas. Thomas first stanza points out how quickly
his life as gone by since the war. “Gone, gone again, May, June, July, And August gone, Again gone by,
Not memorable, Save that I saw them go, As past the empty quays The rivers flow.” Which is
understandable these men were young when the war started and their youth taken away from the
travesty’s of warfare. This even more evident when he states “As when I was young, and when the lost
one was here, And when the war began, to turn young men to dung”. They lost loved ones and friends
and their life became that of sorrow and lost. His poem in essence is the after math of war and its effect
on those in it. War changed them, war changed everything around them. Their lives were filled with
regret and time they will never get back.
Eksteins, Modris. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age. Boston: Houghton