The Guns of Autumn: World War I on the Eastern Front - Dennis Showalter

Dennis Showalter is Professor of History at Colorado College, where he has taught since 1969. He is past President of the Society for Military History, Joint Editor of War in History and has held visiting appointments at the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy. He specializes in modern military history.
The centennial of the Great War has inspired a predictable abundance of conferences, books, articles and speeches. Most are built on a familiar meme: soldiers and societies as victims of flawed intentions and defective methods, which in turn reflected inability or unwillingness to adapt to the spectrum of innovations, material, both intellectual and emotional, that made the Great War the first modern conflict. That perspective is reinforced by the war’s rechristening, backlit by a later and greater struggle, as World War I, which confers a preliminary, test-bed status. In point of fact, the defining aspect of World War I is its semi-modern character. The “classic” Great War, the war of myth, memory and image, could be waged only in a limited area: a narrow belt in Western Europe. War waged outside of the northwest European quadrilateral tended quite rapidly to follow a pattern of de-modernization. Peacetime armies and their cadres melted away in combat, were submerged by repeated infusions of unprepared conscripts, saw their support systems melt irretrievably away and saw their public and political support erode to critical points. Those developments began with the first salvoes of the Guns of August and, arguably, even earlier. This session examines and analyzes the processes that defined and shaped the Great War on the Eastern Front and heralded the disappearance of three empires.
Presented November 7, 2014 as part of the National World War I Museum and United States World War I Centennial Commission 2014 Symposium, "1914: Global War & American Neutrality."
The Symposium was held in association with The Western Front Association East Coast Branch and the World War I Historical Association. Sponsored by Colonel J's, the Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund and Verlag Militaria.
For more information about the National WWI Museum and Memorial visit theworldwar.org

[@chuckatillaone4876]

Excellent presentation. I highly recommend his books.

[@Blablablabla457]

Why are there not more videos available from this brilliant man?

[@huma474]

He passed away in December of 2019

[@NDRonin1401]

The comparison of numbers of victims of atrocities on the eastern front with those in France and Belgium around 33:00 ... Although the speaker said the numbers in the west are not to be bagatelised, that IS kind of what you do when you simply state that the victim numbers in the east were at least tenfold. I'm quite convinced that when you set off total victim numbers against total population and square miles of the area in which those numbers occured, you will find the atrocity victims in the west at least on par with the east, if not higher because of higher concentration of incidents. Anyhow, a very enjoyable presentation.

[@joehomer4421]

Title of lecture sounds very Tuchmanian. Interesting but I found some of this talk hard to follow due to technicalities. Acoustics were less than perfect.

[@AlexG-xl1cc]

He was very entertaining lol

[@michaelwutka9714]

An great,great, great,,great grandfather migrates to the U.S. of America from a region in what may have become Poland.That statehood does remain, whether as part of Russia, East Prussia to the many states part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.Dear Professor Showalter will bringing the baptismal certificate circa 1860's really be circumstance given a region so geographically changed still be a link to 1860 .But yes an flesh and blood relative but as in name alone and alive does measure hope with some name, passing through pages of time.So long ago the distant past doubtfully has little resemblance with today's idea of reality. May some face saving meaning remain when its impossible to assume that just as impossible and yet the odds are not counted totally out.Having zero odds is not a certainty so the certificate and the secret therein if any exists still points back to somewhere that can know the part to offer a piece of a puzzle.Did any forward thinking relative consider enough to remit the document to those left behind?

[@babusastry]

Just generalities without anecdotal examples make the speach knowledgeable but not interesting.