World War I Caterpillar Valley Cemetery containing the graves of over five thousand British and Commonwealth soldiers who died during the Somme offensive of 1916.  There are an awful lot of these cemeteries in France--all still well tended.

• Read/review chapter 31 in the textbook (chapters 27 and 28 in the Edgar text).
• Read my remarks on the Great War and also on Russia and World War I.
  
• Check Private Donald Fraser, War Diary, September 1915, who was a member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, as he recounted his experiences on the battlefield.
  
• Study the Questions to Consider and the Key Terms for the unit.
• Post (or respond) your thoughts/ideas about this unit's reading and assignment in the Blackboard online discussion forum. Do not post your assignment there.
  

• Read Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (if you are going to submit the optional Remarque paper).
• Submit the Optional Remarque paper.  If you don't understand why I call this an optional paper, take a look at the Explanation of Assignments and Grading
• You may listen to some further information about the Great War from my HIS 102 course.
• Read my notes on Franz Kafka, one of the most important writers of the twentieth century.
• There are an unbelievable amount of source documents that have been published with regard to World War I.

• See the videos dealing with World War I in the HIS 102 course.
• For extra credit please suggest to your instructor a relevant video for this unit of the course. Send the title of the video, the url and a brief explanation of why you find the video interesting and applicable to the material that is being studied in this unit.

• Take the short 5-point quiz(zes) for this unit's textbook chapter(s). Log into Blackboard and look under "Chapter Quizzes." You have five minutes to complete each quiz (multiple-choice questions).
• Explain the impact of World War I in a one-page paper for a maximum of 50 points (maybe more depending on how good).  Please be sure to cite your sources.  Start here (canadaonline.about.com/od/ww1battles/p/beaumonthamel.htm).
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, watch All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, directed by Lewis Milestone), and assess the historical accuracy of the film in a one-page paper.
• In a one- or two-page paper for a maximum of 50 points (maybe more), offer a detailed contrast between Remarque's depiction of the war in his novel and Milestone's view of the war in his film adaptation of the novel.
• For 50 points maximum extra credit, read Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (1962) and write a one-page paper in which you explain what went wrong for the Russian army in the first two months of the war.
• For 25 points maximum extra credit, read the "Willy-Nicky" Telegrams, exchanged between tsar and kaiser, 29 July - 1 August, 1914 and write a long paragraph in which you assess these rulers' grasp on reality.
• For 25 points maximum extra credit, read the comments by Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941, Emperor 1888-1918), "A Place in the Sun" (1901) and write a long paragraph explaining how the Kaiser's attitude contributed to the march towards war.
• For extra credit of a maximum of 10 points, you can submit the answers to the Remarque study questions.  Please write in formal, complete sentences.
• For extra credit, please suggest a relevant website for this unit of the course.  Send the title of the site, the url and a brief explanation why you find the information interesting and applicable to the material being studied this unit.