western front

• Allied forces: armies that fought against Germany on the Western Front, including Britain, France, and USA
• Artillery: large guns used to fire explosive shells
• Base Hospitals: hospitals far from the frontline with laboratories and specialist centers
• The Black Hand: a Serbian nationalist group
• Blank Cheque: an unconditional promise by Germany to support Austria-Hungary in war
• Casualties: dead or wounded soldiers
• Casualty Clearing Station (CCS): where doctors and surgeons operated on critical injuries, later equipped with operating theatres and x-ray machines
• Conscription: when men are forced to join the army
• Dressing Station: where teams of medical officers gave emergency treatment to soldiers
• Enlist: to join the army
• Debridement: cutting away infected tissue
• FANY: female volunteer nurses who drove ambulances and bathed soldiers
• Field Ambulance: RAMC staff working at Dressing Stations
• Gas gangrene: infection caused by bacteria in soil
• Mobilise: prepare and transport soldiers for war
• No Man’s Land: area of land between enemy trenches
• Pals battalion: army units made up of family and friends who enlisted together
• RAMC: Army medical staff, all male
• Regimental Aid Post (RAP): place where soldiers received first aid close to the frontline
• Salient: a bulge in the front line, surrounded on 3 sides by the enemy
• Triage: system of dividing casualties into three categories of urgency
• Alliance: a group of countries who work together for shared aims
• Arms race: when countries compete to build up their armed forces
• Censorship: controlling people’s attitudes by banning information
• Imperialism: building an empire
• Militarism: prioritizing the size and power of armed forces
• Nationalism: extreme loyalty to your country, wanting to make it stronger and more independent at the expense of others
• Propaganda: controlling people’s attitudes by using media to put ideas into their minds
• Kaiser Wilhelm II: Emperor of Germany
• Franz Ferdinand: Austro-Hungarian heir
• Gavrilo Princip: a member of the Black Hand
• Wilfred Owen: British First World War poet
• 1882: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy formed the Triple Alliance
• 1907: France, Britain, and Russia formed the Triple Entente
• Jun 1914: Franz Ferdinand assassinated
• July 1914: The July Crisis - a chain reaction of events in which major countries in Europe went to war
• 1914: First Battle of Ypres
• 1915: Second Battle of Ypres
• 1916: Conscription introduced, Battle of the Somme, Battle of Arras
• 1917: Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele)