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History 💣 > The Western Front > Flashcards

The Western Front Flashcards

1
Q

What happened in the first battle of Ypres? When was it?

A
  • October-November 1914
  • British held on to Ypres
  • Was vital in maintaining control of the English Channel ports
  • But Germans gained ground
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2
Q

What happened in the battle on Hill 60? When was it?

A
  • April 1915
    - British tunnelled into and under the hill and exploded 5 mines from the tunnels
  • Enabled them to take the hill
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3
Q

What happened in the second battle of Ypres? When was it?

A
  • April–May 1915
  • Germans made slight gains towards Ypres
  • First time chlorine gas was used (by Germans)
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4
Q

What happened in the third battle of Ypres? When was It?

A
  • July-November 1917
  • British used the creeping barrage to break out of the Ypres Salient
  • Bad weather left the ground waterlogged and many drowned
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5
Q

What happened in the Somme? When was it?

A
  • July-November 1916
  • Very high casualties on both sides
  • First time for the creeping barrage and the use of tanks
  • But they had little impact
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6
Q

What happened in Arras? When was it?

A
  • April-May 1917
  • Year before British linked and expanded the underground tunnels
  • Used to launch the battle which began successful but ended with little progress and many casualties on both sides
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7
Q

What happened in Cambrai? When was it?

A
  • November-December 1917
  • First large scale use of tanks
  • Were successful but not backed up so British were forced back
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8
Q

What were some features of the trenches?

A
  • 2.5m deep
  • Built in a zigzag pattern
  • Dugouts, holes in the trenches where men took cover
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9
Q

How were trenches organised?

A
  • Front line trench, where attacks were launched
  • Support trench, 80m behind, where troops retreated if frontline was attacked
  • Reserve trench, 100m behind support trench, where troops could be mobilised for a counter-attack if frontline was captured
  • Communications trench, which ran between trenches
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10
Q

What were the problems with transport and communication on the western front?

A
  • Land often waterlogged
  • Constant shelling left landscape full of creators and destroyed roads
  • Was farmland, so lots of fertiliser in soil, meaning lots of bacteria that could infect wounds
  • Horse drawn wagons were shaky and made injuries worse, also couldn’t cope with number of casualties
  • Stretcher bearers exposed to shelling and gunfire
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11
Q

What developments were made to the methods of transport on the Western front?

A
  • Newspapers appealed for donations, 512 ambulance wagons were bought
  • First motor ambulances in October 1914
  • First ambulance training November 1914 arrived in France
  • Later some trains had operating theatres
  • Canal barges were also used to bypass base hospitals to take back to Britain
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12
Q

What was some medical problems on the Western front?

A
  • Trench foot
  • Gas attacks
  • Shellshock
  • Trench fever
  • Bullets and shrapnel
  • Head injuries
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13
Q

What was trench foot? 

A
  • Caused by standing in waterlogged trenches
  • Caused swelling of the feet
  • Could lead to gangrene which was only treated by amputation
  • Men rubbed whale oil into feet to protect them
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14
Q

What is trench fever?

A
  • Flu like symptoms that lasted for months
  • Caused by lice so in 1918 troops were deloused and cases decreased
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15
Q

What is shellshock?

A
  • Symptoms included loss of speech, uncontrollable shaking, complete mental breakdowns
  • Some were accused of cowardice
  • Many evacuated British hospitals to be treated
  • 80,000 British troops experienced shellshock
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16
Q

What injuries did bullets and explosives called?

A
  • Bullets could penetrate organs and fractured bones
  • Shells and shrapnel caused 58% of wounds in a study of 200,000 men at CCS
  • Bullets caused 39% of wounds
17
Q

What was Phosgene gas?

A
  • First used at end of 1915 near Ypres
  • Similar effects to chlorine but faster acting, killing within two days
18
Q

What is chlorine gas?

A
  • First used by Germans in 1915 at the second battle of Ypres
  • Lead to death by suffocation
  • Used by British in 1915 at Battle of Loos but wind change direction and it blew back to British lines
19
Q

How were gas attacks dealt with?

A
  • Medical services had no experience with gas attacks so had to experiment with treatments
  • Before gas masks soldiers urinated on socks etc
  • Gas masks given to all British troops in July 1915
20
Q

What is mustard gas?

A
  • First amused by Germans in 1917
  • Odourless gas that worked within 12 hours
  • Caused internal and external blisters and passed through clothing to burn skin
21
Q

How were heading injuries prevented?

A

In 1915 soldiers soft hats were replaced by Brodie helmets

22
Q

What were the RAMC?

A
  • Royal Army Medical Corps
  • Founded in 1898
  • Medical branch of the British Army
23
Q

What were the FANY?

A
  • First Aid Nursing Yeomanry
  • Founded in 1907
  • First women’s voluntary organisation to send volunteers to Western front
  • Driving ambulances and providing emergency first aid
24
Q

What were the stages of the chain of evacuation?

A
  • Regimental aid post
  • Dressing stations
  • Casualty clearing stations
  • Base hospitals
25
Q

What are the features of the regimental aid post?

A
  • 200m from the front line
  • Staffed by a regimental medical officer with help from stretcher bearers
  • Gave immediate first aid to get men back to fighting but could not deal with serious injuries
26
Q

What were the features of dressing stations?

A
  • Advanced dressing stations were 400m from the RAP
  • Main dressing stations where another half a mile back
  • Often located in abandoned buildings dugouts or bunkers
  • The Field Ambulance worked here
  • Each unit could deal with 150 wounded men
  • Only had the facilities to care for wounded men for a week
27
Q

What were the features of the casualty clearing stations?

A
  • Located 7-12 miles from frontline
  • Set up in buildings such as factories or schools and often located near a railway line
  • Triage system – walking wounded, in need of hospital treatment, no chance of recovery
28
Q

What were the features of base hospitals?

A
  • Located near the French and Belgian coast near to ports so wounded men could go home to Britain
  • Were less important until 1918 when Germans pushed back the front line and many CCSs were pushed back so base hospitals took over surgery
29
Q

What will the features of the underground hospital at Arras?

A
  • Waiting rooms for the wounded
  • 700 spaces where stretches could be placed as beds
  • An operating theatre
  • Electricity and piped water was supplied
30
Q

What was the Carrel-Dakin method?

A
  • 1917
  • Salt solution was moved through the wound using tubes
  • Only lasted six hours, had to be made up when it was needed, difficult when lots of casualties
31
Q

What were the new techniques for infections?

A
  • Antiseptic and aseptic surgery not possible in dressing stations or CCS
  • Surgeons went back to using chemicals to kill bacteria but didn’t work on gas gangrene
  • Carrel-Dakin method
  • Surgery developed to remove damage and infected tissue
  • Last resort – amputation, by 1918 240,000 men lost limbs
32
Q

What was the Thomas Splint?

A
  • From December 1915
  • Reduced death rate from broken limbs to fewer than 20%
  • Kept the leg rigid which reduced blood loss
33
Q

How were blood transfusions developed?

A
  • Used from 1915
  • In 1915 Richard Lewisohn discovered adding sodium citrate to blood stopped it clotting, so could be stored a short time
  • Richard Weil used refrigerators to store for much longer
  • In 1916 Francis Rous and James Turner added citrate glucose so it stored even longer
  • In preparation for Battle of Canterbury, 1917, Oswald Hope Robertson stored 22 units of blood in the first blood depot
34
Q

Who was Harold Gillies?

A
  • Developed plastic surgery
  • Sent to Western front in 1915
  • By the end of the war nearly 12,000 plastic surgery operations took place
35
Q

What are different sources to use for question 2b?

A
  • Diaries by soldiers, doctors, nurses
  • Hospital and medical records of the RAMC
  • National army records
  • National newspaper reports
  • Government reports on the war
  • Photographs
  • Army statistics

History 💣 (5 decks)

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