11th of April, 2012

Today, has been the first day after the Eastern holidays and the people that failed the second term have decided the day for the make-up exam it's going to be the Thursday, 19th of April.
Paqui has remembered us the last things that we studied before Eastern. Afterwards, we have checked the exercises. The first exercise, was checked by Laura Muñoz and it was about the outbreak of World War I and Paqui has copied on the blackboard like a summary of the exercise:
The trigger: was the assassination of the heirs of Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo on the 28th of June killed by a Serbian nationalist.
Austria-Hungary sen a 48 hours ultimatum to Serbia. In the outbreak the Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia. On the 28th of July, Russia defended Serbia and alliances started working and in some days almost all the European countries were involved at war, only Italy kept out.
Afterwards, Paqui has copied the way in which Germany attack on the blackboard and she has said that we have to remember that they dedicated a lot of time preparing war's plans. The first German war plan was the Schlieffen Plan in 1905, which foresaw a war in two fronts: the Eastern front against Russia and the Western front against France. In order to concentrate all the efforts in the Eastern front, the Germans planned a very quick campaign against France, which included invading Belgium to attack France by surprise and break its defenses. They calculated five weeks of war and the final take of Paris.

Source: http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/ww1/homefront/women.html

Then, we have seen an animation on the internet about the Western front between 1914 to 1918. And Paqui has explained the meaning of the different colours. They always fought in the same place, they didn't move, only some kilometres like we have seen in the different slides of the animation. Afterwards, Sara Gil has checked the exercises 3 about the features of the war which were:
-New and deadlier armament: (machine guns, poison gas, aeroplanes, tanks...). Soldiers suffered a lot and there were disabled and dead people.
-Civil population become war target. Cities were bombed and citizens suffered at rearguard.
-War economy: all the resources were mobilized and destined for war, industries and agricultural production were restructurate to supply the army, women substituted men at work.
-Governments of national unity.
-Use of propaganda to rally population and demonize the enemy. The opposers considered traitors and sent to jail.
Source: http://www.squidoo.com/ww1-posters
Paqui has said that, workers and anarchists were against war and it was a general war because a lot of countries fought. We have seen photos of some new weapons such as aeroplanes, airships, tanks, machine guns... and they were deadlier. Also Paqui has said that New Zealand was the first country that recognized the right of women to vote in 1919, was a complete universal suffrage. The government of national unity was formed by different parties.
Today, in the class we have learnt a lot of new words that Paqui has written on the blackboard:
to foresee (prever), airship (dirigible), machine gun (ametralladora), tank (tanque, carro de combate), poison gas (gas tóxico), flamethrowers (lanzallamas), deadlier (más mortiferos), railway gun (cañón de largo alcance), war target (objetivo de guerra), food rationing (racionamiento), war economy (economía de guerra), government of national unity (gobierno de concentración nacional) and to rally (reunir).