We’re doing something a little different this week. Listener Brent has interviewed me, about the podcast and about me personally. We hope this will answer many of the questions you may have wanted to ask yourself. If it doesn’t, no worries! Post your question in the comments below, and I’ll answer it if I can.
There will be no new episode of The History of the Twentieth Century this week. If you find yourself with nothing to listen to, here is a full, HD video of a Great War centenary performance of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem. Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” comes in at 6:38.
The fourth and last episode in our series on the Great War in 1916 looks at Brusilov’s Offensive and the Battle of the Somme. We pause to contemplate the mind-numbing bloodshed of the Great War, and look at some of its most famous poems.
Sonatina No. 5
Composed in 1919 by Ferrucio Busoni. Public domain.
Performed by Peter McKenzie Armstrong, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.
German fire sinks HMS Invincible at the Battle of Jutland.
The third of four episodes on the Great War in 1916 examines the Austrian offensive in the Alps, more Russian planning for a new offensive, and the Battle of Jutland.
The Wand of Youth
Composed in 1908 by Edward Elgar. Public domain.
Performed by Steve’s Bedroom Band, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.
The second of four episodes on the Great War in 1916 examines Russian planning for a new offensive and the German sinking of the passenger ferry Sussex.
Goyescas (Piano Suite)
Composed in 1911 by Enrique Granados. Public domain.
Performed by Ruben Lorenzo, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.
This 2005 photograph of one of the battlefields at Verdun reveals how the scars of the artillery bombardments still show on the landscape a century later.
The year 1916 begins with a new German offensive on the French fortifications at Verdun.
Pictures at an Exhibition
Composed in 1874 by Modest Mussorgsky; orchestral arrangement by Maurice Ravel. Public domain.
Performed by The Skidmore College Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.
This week’s episode catches us up on developments on the Italian front, the Caucasus front, and the Mesopotamian front, where a British force was besieged and forced to surrender, but even as that was unfolding, the British and the French were negotiating a secret agreement on how to divide the post-war Middle East.
“The Roast Beef of Old England”
Composed in 1731 by Richard Leveridge. Public domain.
Performed by the United States Marine Band. Public domain recording. Source.
The Capture of Kars
Composed in 1880 by Modest Mussorgsky. Public domain.
Performed by The University of Chicago Orchestra, directed by Barbara Schubert, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.
Overture to La Forza del Destino (“The Force of Destiny”)
Composed in 1862 by Giuseppe Verdi. Public domain.
Performed by The University of Chicago Orchestra, directed by Barbara Schubert, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.
Cover of the February 23, 1916 edition of The Fatherland, a pro-German magazine published in the US by George Sylvester Viereck. Note the suggestion that Japan also has imperial ambitions in North America.
In Mexico, the constitutionalist forces loyal to Venustiano Carranza oust the conventionalists from Mexico City and Pancho Villa is forced to retreat to his base in Chihuahua. German intelligence agents in the US fund the pro-German magazine The Fatherland as they plot to draw the US into the conflict in Mexico. With Victoriano Huerta in prison, the Germans offer support to Pancho Villa. Villa also believes US intervention in the Mexican Revolution to be in his interests, and he provokes the Americans by attacking Columbus, New Mexico.
Ochos Valses Poéticos
Composed in 1900 by Enrique Granados. Public domain.
Performed by Edson Lopes and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.
Vaslav Nijinsky visits Charles Chaplin on the set of Chaplin’s current production, Easy Street, in January 1917.
The United States experienced an economic boom during the Great War. The motion picture industry grew rapidly, and the most famous name in cinema was Charles Chaplin. Vaslav Nijinsky and the Ballets Russes tour the US, and Nijinsky visited Chaplin’s studio. (See photo above. Nijinsky and Chaplin were both 27 years old when this picture was taken.)
Music from Sam Fox Moving Picture Music Volume 1
by J.S. Zemecnik. Published in 1913. Public domain.
Performed by Richard Frolich and the Texas Radio Theatre Company and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source and source.
Eighteen-year old Lieutenant John Kipling was one of the more than 8,000 British soldiers who died at the Battle of Loos.
In the autumn of 1915, the Allies attempt an offensive on the Western Front, partly in an effort to take pressure off the Russians. The offensive attempted to put into practice new strategies for offensive combat that the French and British were developing, but the Germans were also developing new strategies.
Listen:
Danse macabre
Composed in 1874 by Camille Saint-Saëns. Public domain.
Performed by the University of Chicago Orchestra and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.
“La Marseillaise”
Composed in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. Public domain.
Performed by the United States Navy Band. Public domain recording. Source.
