Lesson video

Hi and welcome to lesson three of our six lesson inquiry looking at the forgotten armies of the First World War and what they reveal about the Western Front.

I'm Miss Cusworth as hopefully you know by now, and today we're going to be looking at Algerian soldiers.

So you remember that this is our inquiry question.

We're using the stories of these often forgotten armies to reveal something to us about the Western Front to show us perhaps a new perspective to allow us to kind of peek behind the curtain and see something new that maybe has been hidden about the Western Front.

So today as I said, we're going to be having a look at Algerian soldiers.

But before we look at their story, I just want to do a really quick recap on where we are in the First World War.

So you'll remember that we looked at the Race to the Sea after the First World War began in July and we looked at the First Battle of Ypres, and the experience of Genghis Xin.

You'll remember that after that sort of stalemate started to set in and that's what we're really going to be focusing on today, stalemate when neither side in a war can get an advantage, can win.

And we see that in the First World War, it's kind of symbolised by the trenches, by that trench warfare system.

Later on we're going to be looking at very briefly some of those sort of key really big battles of the First World War that took place in 1916.

And then as you'll remember from last time, things sort of begin to change slightly and eventually the war ends in November 1918.

But like I said, today we're going to be focusing on that sort of situation of stalemate and what one of the sides did to try and break it.

So the situation in Spring 1915 where we're here on the Western Front and after the Race to the Sea the two sides begin to dig in in those trenches and stalemates starts to occur.

Neither the German army on this side or the French or British armies could really make any clear or lasting progress.

And this was a bit of a shock because before the war, people would have thought maybe it was going to be over really quickly, kind of a six months thing, over by Christmas.

That wasn't the case.

So we looked at the First Battle of Ypres and you'll remember that Ypres was seen as a really sort of strategically important place.

And the German army was looking for a way to break through the British and French lines at Ypres.

And they decided to try something new.

At the time, many of the soldiers were Canadian, Indian, Moroccan, and Algerian in the French and British armies.

And a big part of the reason for that was that the empires that these two countries had, so Britain here in this sort of red maroon colour and France in this blue, these empires spanned across the globe.

So you'll see here in the French empire in North Africa, Algeria and then more recently Morocco had come under French influence.

And Britain you can see some of the countries that were part of the British empire.

We looked at British India last time with Genghis Xin.

So there were also French possessions in French Indo-China or French West Africa.

And the French army drew on troops from across its empire.

And that's how there ended up being Algerian soldiers in the Western Front.

So here are some pictures of French imperial soldiers.

I'm just going to make myself a tiny bit smaller.

Of French imperial soldiers.

You have Senegalese soldiers here in the First World War and a decorated Senegalese soldier here.

This photo's actually from the Second World War.

And then it's not just from these places, we also have what was known then as French Indo-China, what we now might kind of call Vietnam and countries around there who fought not only on the Western Front but also in other places during the First World War.

But we're going to be looking today at the experience of a group of Algerian soldiers in Ypres.

And so like last time, we're going to be using these different categories of weapons, military strategy, treatment of troops and life on the front line, and psychological effects of war.

So like you did last time, I'd like you to in one moment pause the video, draw out that table on your piece of paper in your exercise book and then once you've drawn that out you might want to sort of use this as a sort of heading for your table.

Once you've drawn that out, you can unpause the video when you're done and we will continue with the lesson and start getting into their story.

Okay so hopefully you're ready to go with the table.

Now don't write these things down, these are just some things that we talked about last time as the sort of typical things we associate with World War One.

So we think about weapons and technology and machine guns, shells, tanks, gas.

Look out for some of those things in the story.

Do you see that? When we're thinking about military strategy, we think about trench warfare, maybe barbed wire, no mans land, and does that appear in the story today? We also might sort of think of bad treatment by officers especially that's sort of part of the British narrative of the First World War.

And bad conditions in the trenches.

And then when we're thinking about psychological effects of war are we seeing examples of what was often called shell shock? So be looking out for those as we go through the story.

So I'm going to be reading the story to you and on the Oak website, there is a copy of the story if you want to follow along with it or if you want to refer back to it later.

As I'm reading, you will see images on the screen.

And as I am reading you might want to be adding to your table anything that you notice.

But we'll also have some time to do that at the end.

So the story of the Algerian soldiers at Ypres.

It's the 22nd of April 1915.

It's a glorious spring day in Ypres but scene, the day wears on in cigarettes and quiet talking.

It's almost boring.

If the clock in Ypres town square could still chime, it would ring four times.

Four o'clock in the afternoon.

The Germans begin shelling British and French lines and the men retreat to their dugouts.

Then the shelling stops.

Some soldiers from Algeria, now part of the French army hear a hissing noise.

They watch as yellowish green clouds drift towards them across No Man's land.

The Algerians and Moroccans fighting with the French are both North Africans and white colonialists.

They watch as the clouds come closer.

They think it is smoke and prepare for attack.

There are no gas masks in their packs.

But no men appear.

They do not realise that the clouds are the enemy.

Not until the heavy vapour slides down into their trench.

Then the gargled screams and desperate splutters begin.

Many collapse.

Others cough up a burning, yellow fluid.

The chlorine gas attacks tissues and membranes.

Most are temporarily blinded while others die, with frothing bubbles gurgling in their throats.

The French and Algerian troops who leave their trenches to escape this new weapon are struck down by old ones, machine guns and rifles.

As the gas spreads, birds literally fall from the skies.

The rats die too.

The Africans try to communicate their distress and desperation in broken French and in their own languages.

They are without officers.

Many are without weapons.

They rush backwards through gas and bullets.

French soldier later wrote, "It was impossible to understand what the Africans said, but from the way that they coughed and pointed to their throats, it was evident if not suffering from the effects of gas, they were thoroughly scared." Meanwhile, the Germans advance into the four mile-wide gap opened up by the gas attack.

The German advance two miles, capturing a large part of the Ypres salient.

Although they broke the stalemate with the gas attack, the allies fought back and stalemate later returned.

Chlorine gas was first used on the Western Front by the Germans in the Second Battle of Ypres.

The heaviest part of the gas cloud hit the Algerians.

Other troops including Canadian soldiers were also affected.

On this day, the 22nd of April 1915, 6,000 men fell victim to poison gas.

Britain and France used chlorine gas later on that year.

During the war, around 30,000 Africans died fighting on the side of France alone.

So now we've sort of read that story again written for us, or written by Ms. Worth who has kindly allowed us to read it together.

And you remember what I said last time about the fact that although Ms. Worth has written the stories, they're very much based on the book, "The World's War" and other information that we have from the time.

So I want you to think about that story we've just read about the Algerian soldiers and their experience of Ypres and their experience of the gas attack.

And I'd like you to, in a moment, pause the video and you should have your table in front of you, make some notes of what weapons and technology.

So the obvious one there being gas.

Think about the military strategy.

Maybe why they used the gas, what were they trying to break? What was the effect? Think about the treatment of the troops.

Maybe you'll remember that the Algerians didn't have gas masks at that point.

So gas had been used in other battles, but not particularly successfully.

So one example was it was used in an attack but because it was so cold, the gas didn't work.

So this was the Second Battle of Ypres was, I suppose, the first time gas was really used on the Western Front to really devastating effect.

And then I want you to maybe think about the psychological effects of war.

How would you imagine the Algerian soldiers would have been impacted? In fact any of the soldiers there that day that got effected by the gas? How would that have felt? What maybe would it have done to their mental state? So I'm going to ask you to pause the video, get to work on that table, and then when you're done with your notes, unpause and we'll think about some possible answers that you might have.

Okay so welcome back.

Let's think about the weapons and technology first of all.

Maybe you've got first sort of "successful".

And I put that in inverted commas because while it was militarily successful, chlorine gas was actually banned at the time.

And it was banned by kind of convention.

And so successful maybe is a complicated word to use there hence why I've put it in inverted commas.

In terms of technology where the allies didn't have gas masks, and the gas caused horrific injury and death.

People died from it from the damage it did to their lungs.

But also I suppose from them understandably panicking and going back into the kind of gunfire.

In terms of military strategy yeah it was about the desperation to break the stalemate and to do that the German army broke the rules that had been previously set down about not using chemical weapons.

So I think it shows the desperation that they broke kind of international conventions to use this gas in an attempt to break the stalemate.

Managed to make a gap in defences but they didn't press home the advantage.

And what I mean by that is that although the Germans opened up a gap, the stalemate didn't end totally as a result of it.

The allies fought back and then things kind of went back to how they had been before.

At this point there was no gas masks.

We talked in the story it talks about there's that source or report from the French soldier saying he didn't quite understand what the African troops were saying.

So it gives us a sense that life on the front line people were multilingual or there were different languages spoken, sorry.

Some people could understand multiple languages, but some people couldn't.

And soldiers were not always properly prepared.

So like I said, gas had been used in other parts of the war before this point and so they could have maybe had gas masks.

But they didn't at that time maybe because it wasn't something that was common.

And so I think you could potentially argue the soldiers were not properly prepared by their leaders.

In terms of psychological effects of the war, it must have been really traumatic.

Being blinded by the gas, even if it was only temporary, must have been a really traumatic experience.

As was the effect of the gas on your lungs.

The feeling of like drowning in your own lungs because of what the chlorine gas does to you.

And then also the feeling of being in such a difficult situation, the Algerian soldiers being in such a difficult, awful situation but not being understood.

People not getting what they're trying to say must also have a deep psychological effect.

So we're going to go do our kind of review multiple choice questions.

So this time we're looking at the Germans used banned chlorine gas at Ypres.

What does that maybe reveal about the Western Front? The British were in trouble, the Germans were evil, leaders would stop at very little to break the stalemate, or new technology was being used in World War One.

Pick your answers now.

You can choose two.

So I went for leaders would stop at very little to break the stalemate and new technology was being used in World War One.

I suppose you could say that the British were in trouble after they used it but I probably wouldn't have picked that one because we're talking a bit more about like why they used the gas.

Some people would say that the Germans were evil, I think that's a relatively moral judgement.

I think people would potentially debate that thinking about the complexities of war.

But if you picked that one I could understand what your kind of thought process was.

Gas caused death and horrible injuries, what does it reveal about the Western Front? The soldiers were stupid and they should have known it was gas, the Western Front could be a horrible place to be, chemical weapons like chlorine and gas are highly destructive, and oh sorry, at first they thought it was just smoke.

So what I would like you to do is to pick two, write down your two options and I'll show you the answer in one moment.

Okay so the ones I've got for this are the Western Front could be a horrible place to be, and the weapons used there were deadly.

They firstly did think it was just smoke but that doesn't really reveal much to us about the Western Front.

And I think it would be very unfair to say that the soldiers were stupid.

So option two and option three.

The Algerian troops were thoroughly scared, that's what the French soldier had written.

What does that reveal about the Western Front? That the Algerian soldiers were weak, that the Western Front could be a horrible place to be, that the soldiers were not always supported or cared for properly or that at first they thought it was just smoke? I'd like you to write down your two options now.

Okay so the options I probably would have gone for here is that the Western Front could be really horrible place to be if the Algerian troops were thoroughly scared I think it reveals that the Western Front was a really tough place for soldiers.

And then also I'd potentially I'd go for option three that soldiers were not always supported or cared for properly.

The allies could have prepared perhaps better for the use of chlorine gas and supported their soldiers better in that attack.

So let's think about the questions now.

So we've got our usual five questions.

And number one is going to be, which battle did we learn about today? Number two, which soldiers fought in that battle? Number three, what weapon did the German army use at Ypres? Number four, what effect did it have on the soldiers? And number five, what effect did it have on the war overall? So think about kind of what happened potentially after the use of the gas.

As usual you're going to want to pause here, write down the answers to those questions, and then once you've finished you can resume and we will go through the answers together as normal.

Okay so let's go through some of the answers.

Which battle did we learn about today? An acceptable answer would have been Ypres.

A good answer would have been today we learnt about the Second Battle of Ypres.

So there are, there were sorry, three battles.

We looked at the First Battle of Ypres last lesson, today we were looking at the Second Battle of Ypres.

Which soldiers fought in that battle? Give yourself a tick if you put Algerian, good job.

A good answer would be, among the soldiers who fought in the battle were Algerian soldiers alongside French, Moroccan, British, Indian, and Canadian.

So a whole range.

Well done if you got all of those.

Even if you got one or two give yourself a nice big tick.

What weapon did the German Army use at the Second Battle of Ypres? Gas.

Give yourself a tick if you put gas.

Would be better if you had put it in a full sentence and talked about it using, them using chlorine gas.

What effect did it have on the soldiers? It killed and injured many soldiers.

Give yourself a tick for that one.

And then a kind of good answer would be that it caused many soldiers to collapse, many were temporarily blinded while others died, frothing bubbles gurgling in their throats.

So a really horrible death.

What effect did it have on the war? An acceptable answer would be it didn't really have a huge impact in the sense that it didn't break the stalemate, but you might also want to talk about this in more detail.

So initially it broke a gap that the German army then went through but in longer term it didn't break the stalemate.

It would also be absolutely fine if you had answers around it encouraged the use of chemical weapons or something about it like legitimised the use of gas or brought gas into the war as something that both sides used.

That would be a really good answer too.

So give yourself a tick for that.

So the extension activity today is thinking a little bit about the Second Battle of Ypres and how it's often normally potentially seen, or at least this poem "In Flanders Fields", which you might be really familiar with, is part of the reason why we associate the First World War with poppies.

You probably see people in and around sort of your school or in the community, on TV, wearing a poppy for remembrance day.

And McCrae was at Second Battle of Ypres.

So the man who wrote this poem was at the Second Battle of Ypres.

He was a doctor I think.

And so that's often how sometimes we think about this poem is kind of a way we think about the First World War.

And today we were kind of looking at a slightly different angle perhaps.

And so let's have a think then about maybe answering this question.

What does the story of the Algerian soldiers at Ypres reveal about the Western Front? I've given you some sentence starters here and you can talk a bit about what happened and then maybe what it reveals to us about the Western Front, maybe using some of the ideas we talked about earlier on your table or on the multiple choice quiz that we did.

So regardless of whether you do the extension activity I'd really encourage you to give it a go, make sure that you do the end of lesson quiz to check your understanding.

This is the end of the lesson.

And I'm very much looking forward to seeing you next time for another story about an often forgotten army and what it reveals about the Western Front.

See you soon.