4º British: WWI propaganda material

Newsletters produced by the Allies and pamphlets designed to prepare conscripted soldiers for war are among a tranche of propaganda and recruitment papers now available online.

Adam Matthew Digital has uploaded 140,000 pages of rare First World War posters, cartoons, aerial leaflets, and government and military files, to a new digital portal titled Propaganda and Recruitment.

Designed to explore the conflict through themes including recruitment and training, dissension, and morale at home and on the front line, the new portal features primary sources, contextual essays and interactive maps.

To explore the portal find out more about the First World War collections, visit amdigital archives.

4º British: “Kosaken kommen!”

One of the biggest fears of Germany was the possibility of fighting on two fronts: the western front (against France and England) and the eastern front (against the "Russian steamroller").

Russia's strength lay in the large number of soldiers that could be mobilized (15 millions!). But that great human force was poorly prepared, poorly armed, poorly educated and wrong organized. A major problem was the high consumption of vodka (and excesses arising therefrom). The curious thing is that the sale of vodka was a state monopoly; with the prohibition of its consumption in the army, the Russian state lost out on a third of their taxes, causing new problems for supplies (weapons, transportation...) for war .

The Grand Duke Nicholas Romanov II, Supreme Commander of the Russian Imperial Army during the war, was aware of all those problems, that would cause severe losses (battles of Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes). So Russia suffered severe territorial, material and human losses (5 million dead soldiers) and finally the fall of Tsar Nicholas II in the Revolution of 1917.

3º British: Designing a Sustainable City

In your group of four, each group member will become one of the four Sustainability Experts:

Renewable Energy Consultant

Public Transportation Manager

Pollution Control Supervisor

Waste Management Officer

As a group, you must determine the route your community will take in becoming the most environmentally friendly and sustainable it can be!

The group as a whole must research and decide what you want your town to have in the four sustainability requirements: renewable energy sources, public transportation options, pollution control tactics, and waste management facilities. Then, each of you must research the specific sustainability criteria for your town that your expertise is in. For example, your group decides and researches that solar and wind energy are the best energy sources for your town. Then the group member who is the Renewable Energy Consultant will research the best ways to incorporate those energy sources into the town.

Communication, cooperation, collaboration and a bit of creativy are vital to making this research process a success!  

Fill this document with the info of your design (of course, you MUST include some pictures or plans) and them, as usual, send it to blogeducativo08@gmail.com when finish. This work will be part of the score at the end of the NEXT term. If you fail to finish them or you give it out of date (11 March), the mark will be a 0 for this work.

Here are some additional documents and links that can help you get started with your project design:

Transforming cities (several tips from Siemens)

What's a Sustainable City, Anyway? Article by James Elsen CEO of Sustain Lane

My Virtual City and Electro City 
If your group wants to design your sustainable community virtually, this website can help! But be careful! this are a real-time games, so you probably won’t have time to developed your city before the deadline...

Enjoy it! And... good luck!

4º British: Some Primary Sources for the Great War

Have you decided the historical character you will turn into for the twitter-activity? The war has just started! As a starting point, you can find many primary sources in the following webpages:

The Woodrow Wilson library (Speeches from the USA President for joining the war, and the resolution in the Peace Treaty)

The Churchill Centre (selected speechees and writings)

FourMinute Men: Volunteer Speeches During World War I

WWIDocument Archive (conventions, treaties, officials paper, Press notes, diaries and memorials). Here you can find, for example, extracts from Kaiser Wilhem II’s speeches...

A multimedia History of the IWW (choose the year in the small column on the right side, and them scroll the bar to see the list of documents avaible...)

Selectedwritings (in Spanish): speeches, treaties and analysis

FordhamUniversity

And, of course, remember the British National Archives.

4º British: The Great War in 140 characters strings

Today you will start a new historical activity, an experiment in History... twitter in class! Yes, you have read correctly: you will use Twitter with educational purposes.

You must create a twitter account (please do NOT use your personal one) as you were one of the participants in the Great War (a militar commander? A politician? A soldier? A war journalist?... there are many possibilities, remember to review the Tag: World War in this blog). With this “historical account” you become follower of @auladeadriana

During the next two weeks you have to create a minimum of 18 tweets (10 of them base on real primary sources) in the name of your chosen character. Try not to be independent, but “talk” with the others (a soldier complaining to his superiors? Soldiers talking about their life in the trenches? Politicians exchanging messages and speeches?...)

The deadline is Monday 10 March. This work is individual and mandatory and will be part of the score at the end of the term. If you fail to finish it, do it out of date, or just copy from a webpage, the mark will be a 0 for this work.

Be creative and enjoy it! J

4º British: Main characters of the Great War

We have talked about some individual characters (e.g. King Albert of Belgium), some war journalist (e.g. Sofía Casanova), and several less-known soldiers (e.g. Sidney Lewis). But, in case you want more ideas for the new activity, here you have a short list of other importants names of the IWW.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand: heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, the event that triggered I World War.

The German side:

Kaiser Wilhelm II: Emperor of Germany. Supporting the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Russia and France at same time.

Alexander Von Kluck: a major general in the German army. He led the attack on the Western Front and was particularly cruel to the Belgian civilians in retaliation for its resistance. As punishment for delaying the German advance, Von Kluck found necessary "the mass shooting of civilians and burning their homes".

The British side:

Lloyd George: British Prime Minister

Winston Churchill: He implemented emergency measures throughout the country, even though these actions were forbidden by the Cabinet. He was determined to maintain the balance of powers iin Europe, even if that means war. In fact, he finally informed that Britain would not allow German ships through the English Channel or the North Sea in order to attack France. 

Douglas Haig: Field Marshal, commander of the British forces on the Western Front since 1915. For some appeared to be insensitive to low, for others it was a dedicated professional soldier who insisted doggedly to the task of beating Germany in a war of annihilation.

The French side:

Raymond Poincaré: French President and Prime Minister

J. J. Joffre: French general who held the French at the Battle of Marné.

Ferdinand Foch: French general who defeated the Germans at the Battle of Somme.

The U.S.A.

Wondrow Wilson: U.S. President. Intervened in the war in support of Britain and France and led the subsequent peace process (proposed the famous "14 points of Wilson" and the creation of the League of Nations).

John Pershing: General who led the U.S. troops landed in Europe to fight in Great War.

4º British: Dorothy Lawrence, a woman in the trenches!

We have recently talked about a boy soldier, today we have another peculiar example of courage: Dorothy Lawrence was a British woman that decided to take active part in the war. She cut her hair, got male clothes, learned to walk and talk as a man, and joined (with the name of Tommy) the army.

She stayed several weeks in a trech during the Battle of the Somme, but she was forced to revealed her identity after a severe illness. 

Back to Britain, Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Suffragettes, invited Dorothy to lecture the growing ranks of women desperate to contribute to Britain’s war effort. But Dorothy was banned by the War Office from telling her inspirational story either through newspaper articles or talks until after the Armistice in 1918. You can read her full story in the Daily Mail.