Through portraits of Kaiser Wilhelm, II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas, II of Russia, students learn about the instability of the European monarchies and the diplomatic agreements that made war all but inevitable. Autobiographical accounts from ordinary citizens paint a vivid backdrop of the times including the labor movement and the fight in Britain over women's rights to vote. Students explore the conflicts between change and tradition that characterized life at this time and well into the 20th century. Students learn how nationalism and propaganda demonized enemies and prolonged conflict, and how new technologies that were supposed to shorten war instead created weapons that were immune to human suffering. Autobiographical accounts reveal how civilians responded to the call for more volunteers and how the reality of war clashed with human expectations about victory and heroism.
Archival photos show what life in the trenches was like and how men tried to adjust and cope.
Students learn how the war changed women's lives, how it changed government and law, and why factories and civilians become targets of military campaigns. Firsthand accounts from soldiers and civilians recount how new technologies, such as lethal gas and submarines, brought unrestricted warfare to everyone's lives and, with the sinking of the Lusitania, brought the U.S. and its citizens near to entering into the conflict. Plus, students learn how the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey, the first genocide of the 20th century, sets a precedent that Adolph Hitler chose to follow years later. In paintings of Otto Dix and the words of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, students explore the horror of war and the battle of attrition that left many soldiers in the trenches wondering why they were fighting. Autobiographical accounts from soldiers at Verdun, the Somme, and Passchendaele, plus letters and diary entries from civilians, relive the suffering and conflicting emotions of wartime.