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Introduction

The Open University — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 13:33:17 GMT

Welcome to this free course, First World War: trauma and memory. To start, watch the following video in which Annika Mombauer of The Open University introduces this week.

Download this video clip.Video player: ou_futurelearn_ww1_vid_1002.mp4 >

Please note that there is no sound in this video.

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ANNIKA MOMBAUER

Welcome to World War I, Trauma and Memory. I’m Annika Mombauer, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the Open University. And I’ll be your guide over the next three weeks. The First World War was a war of unprecedented scale and brutality. Over the next three weeks, you will discover just how devastating the effects of the war were. You’re going to study the subject of physical and mental trauma, such as shell shock, who was affected by it, and how was it treated. You will also examine the effect this had on civilian populations and how trauma has been represented in art and literature since. This week you will focus on physical and mental casualties of the war.

First of all, you will learn about physical casualties by looking at the death rates and overall casualty rates across the combatant nations. You will also consider issues such as facial disfigurement and loss of limbs, which were encountered on an unprecedented and unexpected scale and posed new challenges to medical professionals.

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After more than four years of fighting in the First World War, the enormous numbers of dead soldiers and civilians couldn’t be counted accurately. It was even more difficult to account for the many millions of injured, maimed and disfigured soldiers.

During the war, armies and medical professionals were pushed to their limits by the sheer scale of suffering. The types of injuries were not necessarily new, but they occurred on an unprecedented scale. New medical treatments became necessary to deal with wounds to bodies and minds. We often tend to reflect much more on those who died than on those who survived the fighting, but the survivors often had to contend with terrible and long-lasting injuries that continued to haunt them long after the fighting had finally ceased in November 1918. For millions, the suffering did not end with the armistice.

Before you continue reading, you might want to try to guess how many soldiers you think were wounded and killed in the First World War. Jot down your estimate of how many soldiers from the UK, Germany and Russia died. Could you speculate on which country may have had the highest numbers of casualties? Where do you think the highest numbers of civilian losses were sustained? You will look at the answers to these questions, and much more besides, as you explore the trauma and memory of the First World War.

The course is designed to run on desktops, tablets and mobile devices; however, some of the material is quite detailed and using a larger screen will enhance your experience. Materials are best viewed running the most up-to-date software available for your device and using the most recent version of the web browser.

Graphic content

Please be warned that this course contains graphic images of injuries sustained by victims of war.

1.1 Injuries of the First World War

The Open University — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 13:33:17 GMT

Start by watching a short video in which a historian of the medical history of the war explains the kinds of injuries a soldier might have sustained and the treatments available at the time. As you watch, note if there’s anything unexpected or surprising in what is being discussed.

Download this video clip.Video player: ou_futurelearn_ww1_vid_1004.mp4 >

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

MICHAEL PALIN

What sort of injuries were you seeing coming into Queen Mary’s at the very end of the war, the armistice time?

DR ANDREW BAMJI

I’ve got a set of notes here of a chap who was admitted here just before the armistice, in fact. And his name is Thomas, of the First Cheshires. And you can see that the whole of the side of the face has been literally just taken off.

MICHAEL PALIN

Just ripped out.

DR ANDREW BAMJI

Yes,

MICHAEL PALIN

And yet he was alive and conscious.

DR ANDREW BAMJI

He was still alive and conscious.

MICHAEL PALIN

I wouldn’t have thought that was possible, both alive and conscious.

DR ANDREW BAMJI

Well as long as it doesn’t take off a major artery, then he’s not going to bleed to death.

MICHAEL PALIN

When were these pictures taken? How soon after the injury?

DR ANDREW BAMJI

This was taken about two weeks after the injury. And this is actually dated the 6th of November. And so we knew he would have been here at the time of the armistice itself. And as you go through, looking at the reconstructions, then just watch the dates. We’re now in 1921. And a whole series of tubes and flaps are being raised. And then when we get to August 1922, we’ve recreated the upper lip, and then you bring down a last flap to recreate the nose. And the very end. This is what you end up with. Our guy is now presentable.

MICHAEL PALIN

Push his face back, right? It’s just …

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MICHAEL PALIN

What do you feel about the way the wounded and that side of the war is seen?

DR ANDREW BAMJI

It’s neglected. Perhaps one of the things that really bothers me about the way that we look at war, and perhaps even the First World War in particular, is we only focus on the glorious dead. And in a sense, we’re not allowed to see the people who have been disfigured in the way that Private Thomas was disfigured. And if we don’t look at that sort of thing, how can we possible understand what war was really about?

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Discussion of the First World War often highlights the appalling death toll. But there were many casualties, often horribly disfigured. Many of them led very reduced lives after the war and plastic surgery to make them look presentable was a process that could take years.

Even once the treatment was finished, the outcome was far from perfect. It is easy to understand why so many facially disfigured soldiers never lived a full life in society again, preferring to hide away with other similarly injured men.

1.1.1 Physical injuries

The Open University — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 13:33:17 GMT

Figure 1 is a powerful reminder of the terrible injuries that soldiers could sustain.

Figure _unit1.1.1 Figure 1 Before and after: facial reconstruction of a wounded soldier

Country	Military Deaths	Percentage of Men Mobilised	Civilian Deaths
France	1,327,000	16%	40,000–600,00
German Empire	2,037,000	15%	426,000–700,000
Russia	1,997,500	11%	1,500,000–2,000,000
Serbia	278,000	33%	300,000–650,000

RSS feed for The First World War: trauma and memory

Introduction

Transcript

Graphic content

1.1 Injuries of the First World War

Transcript

1.1.1 Physical injuries

1.1.2 Finding and interrogating historical data

Transcript

Books consulted in the video:

1.1.3 Search for yourself

Table _unit1.1.1 Table 1 Casualty rates for the First World War

1.1.4 Casualties summary

1.2 Introducing shell shock

1.2.1 Interview with Dr Fiona Reid

Transcript

1.2.2 Treatment of shell shock

Transcript

1.2.3 Discussing shell shock

1.3 Week 1 summary

Introduction

Transcript

2.1 Atrocities against civilians

2.1.1 The experience of invasion and occupation

2.1.2 The war from the air

2.1.3 The bombing of Hartlepool

2.1.4 Atrocities committed by other armies

2.1.5 Propaganda

2.2 Hunger

2.2.1 Turnips

Box _unit2.2.1

2.2.2 Hunger: a child’s perspective

2.2.3 The global consequences of the war: the ‘Spanish Flu’

2.3 Week 2 summary

Introduction

Transcript

3.1 Mourning the dead

3.1.1 Grief and mourning in literature and art

3.1.2 Vera Brittain

3.1.3 Awaiting a telegram

3.1.4 Reactions: trauma, grief and disgust in art

3.1.5 Siegfried Sassoon and shell shock

3.1.6 Great War poets and shell shock

Sassoon: Survivors (1917)

Wilfred Owen: Mental Cases (1917)

3.1.7 War poetry in the twentieth century

3.1.8 Shell shock in fiction: the example of Pat Barker

3.2 Developing medical attitudes to shell shock after the war

3.2.1 Shell shock since the First World War

3.2.2 Fiona Reid: shell shock

Transcript

3.2.3 War neurosis and post-traumatic stress disorder

3.3 Summary

Where next?

References

Further reading

Acknowledgements

Audio visual