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Your Smartass List of

WWI Specialist Terms

   

  

     

 Do you recognise the terms below?   Use them in your answers to impress the examiner!!!

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  •   outflank
    • In battle, to try to get round to attack the exposed/less-well-protected side of the enemy army
  •   ANZAC
    • Australia and New Zealand Army Corps
  •   Attrition
    • Wearing down
  •   Kaiserschlacht
    • ‘Kaiser’s Battle’ – German title for their Spring Campaign of 1918
  •   franc-tireurs
    • Belgian resistance fighters against the German army
  •   Schrecklichkeit
    • War crimes (‘frightfulness’) committed by German soldiers against Belgian civilians
  •   Plan 17
    • The French Plan of War – an offensive into Alsace-Lorraine
  •   Schlieffen School
    • Historiography – mainly retired German generals, notably Chief of Staff General Hermann von Kuhl – which revered the Schlieffen Plan and blamed Moltke for is failure
  •   Kriegshandwerk
    • Miitarism (‘war-craft’) - ass opposed to Staastskunst: Political statesmanship (‘state-skill’)
  •   parados
    • Mund of earth in front of a trench
  •   revetments
    • a barricade of sandbags supporting the trench wall
  •   A ‘better ‘ole’
    • When the machine guns opened up, every soldier dived into the nearest crater; the deeper the better for their protection. The idea of a ‘better hole’ was popularised by a November 1915 cartoon: "Well, if you knows of a better ‘ole, go to it". It was the title of a 1917 romantic music hall comedy, and a 1926 film.
  •   Funk hole
    • A small dugout, in which t hide during a bombardment (from ‘funk’: fear/depression)
  •   Section
    • The basic army unit, perhaps 10 men, led by a non-commissioned officer (a corporal or sergeant)
  •   Division
    • Three brigades (perhaps 15,000 soldiers), led by a Major-General
  •   R&R
    • rest and recuperation
  •   fascine
    • A bundle of poles, attached to the front of a tank, that could be dropped into a trench or stream to fill it in.
  •   interrupter gear
    • The mechanism on a plane’s machine gun which allowed synchronised firing through the propeller. First used in the German Fokker fighters, British airmen preferred wing-mounted guns.
  •   hurricane bombardments
    • Short, intense artillery bombardments before an attack – replaced the week-long (and useless) bombardments used at such as the Somme
  •   overhead barrage
    • Machine gun fire over the heads of advancing troops, to keep the enemy defenders pinned down.
  •   creeping barrage
    • Artillery fire which advanced just in front of advancing infantry
  •   box barrage
    • Artillery fire which fell all around an isolated British force, preventing the enemy from getting near them
  •   Jeffery/Nash Quad
    • US 40wheel-drive truck – revolutionised battlefield transport
  •   BF Trench Set
    • Army radio, introduced 1915, with valves after 1916!
  •   Châteaux
    • French country houses – where out-of-touch generals were rumoured to luxuriate whilst the men were dying in the trenches
  •   Bite and hold
    • A tactic, introduced by General Plumer In 1917 – making shorter advances and then consolidating with the help of artillery.
  •   combined arms
    • An attack plan which integrated all the combat arms (infantry, artillery, aircraft etc.)
  •   leap frog
    • The nickname for British ‘wave’ attacks , with a second and then third wave passing through and advancing beyond the previous wave when it faltered.
  •   infiltration tactics
    • Where an attack platoon would drive deep into weak points in enemy lines, by-passing heavily-defended enemy positions (which it left to ‘mopping up’ units to take. The Germans called this form of attack ‘blitzkrieg’, and the attack soldiers ‘stormtroopers’.
  •   Cher Ami
    • The name of the pigeon which won a medal for saving a stranded US division in 1918
  •   Social Darwinism
    • The idea of ‘survival of the fittest’ related to human beings/races – the foundation-concept of fascism.
  •   Materialschlact
    • ‘Materials battle’ – the idea that war became a conflict of weapons and technology, not of soldiers. The German word for ‘attrition warfare’.
  •   Unterseeboot
    • The German word for subramine – hence U-boat
  •   'Sussex Pledge'
    • The German undertaking in 1916 not to attack passenger ships, and to allow crews of merchant ships to abandon ship before sinking it.
  •   Q-ships
    • British warships disguised as merchant ships to lure U-boat to surface
  •   Type D
    • First effective death charge, 1916
  •   K-Brot
    • ‘Bread’ made in Germany in 1918 from dried potatoes, animal feed and even pulverised straw
  •   Preparedness Movement
    • Right-wing nationalist movement in the US which campaigned to enter WWI and set training camps to prepare men for war
  •   Operation Michael
    • First operation of the German Spring Offensive in 1918 – it was followed by Georgette, Blücher–Yorck, Gneisenau and Friedensturm.
  •   soviets
    • Workers’ governments, set up by Communists in Germany in 1918
  •   Compiègne
    • Where the Armistice was signed in 1918