Flyboys

AP Psychology	Current Events	Resource Room (SETSS)
Period 1	Periods 3 & 5	Period 8
Mr. Ott	Mr. Ott	Mr. Ott

Essential Question:

Opening Move/Do Now:

Lesson Overview:

Item	Approx Time
Opening Move	3-5 Min
Activity	30 Min
Film	2 Hrs 10 Min
Discussion	30-40 Min

Historical Circumstances

M-A-I-N-S

The M-A-I-N-S acronym is often used to analyze the World War I or known at the time as The Great War

• Militarism
• Alliances
• Imperialism
• Nationalism
• Sark

It’s simplistic but provides a useful framework for any discussion about the causes of World War I

Militarism

The late nineteenth century was an era of military competition, particularly between the major European powers. The policy of building a stronger military was judged relative to neighbors, creating a culture of paranoia that heightened the search for alliances. It was fed by the cultural belief that war is good for nations.

Germany in particular looked to expand its navy. However, the ‘naval race’ was never a real contest – the British always s maintained naval superiority. But the British obsession with naval dominance was strong. Government rhetoric exaggerated military expansionism. A simple naivety in the potential scale and bloodshed of a European war prevented several governments from checking their aggression.

Alliances

A web of alliances developed in Europe between 1870 and 1914, effectively creating two camps bound by commitments to maintain sovereignty or intervene militarily – The Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance.

• The Triple Alliance of 1882 linked Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
• The Triple Entente of 1907 linked France, Britain and Russia.

A historic point of conflict between Austria Hungary and Russia was over their incompatible Balkan interests, and France had a deep suspicion of Germany rooted in their defeat in the 1870 war.

The alliance system primarily came about because after 1870 Germany, under Bismarck, set a precedent by playing its neighbors’ imperial endeavors off one another, in order to maintain a balance of power within Europe

Imperialism

Imperial Competition also pushed the countries towards adopting alliances. Colonies were units of exchange that could be bargained without significantly affecting the metro-pole. They also brought nations who would otherwise not interact into conflict and agreement. For example, the Russo-Japanese War (1905) over aspirations in China, helped bring the Triple Entente into being.

The Russo-Japanese War was fought over colonial aspirations in China – with the Russians suffering a heavy defeat.

It has been suggested that Germany was motivated by imperial ambitions to invade Belgium and France. Certainly the expansion of the British and French empires, fired by the rise of industrialism and the pursuit of new markets, caused some resentment in Germany, and the pursuit of a short, aborted imperial policy in the late nineteenth century. However the suggestion that Germany wanted to create a European empire in 1914 is not supported by the pre-war rhetoric and strategy.

Nationalism

Nationalism was also a new and powerful source of tension in Europe. It was tied to militarism, and clashed with the interests of the imperial powers in Europe. Nationalism created new areas of interest over which nations could compete.

Austria Hungary was really a conglomerate of countries under a dual monarchy.

For example, The Habsburg empire was tottering agglomeration of 11 different nationalities, with large slavic populations in Galicia and the Balkans whose nationalist aspirations ran counter to imperial cohesion. Nationalism in the Balkan’s also piqued Russia’s historic interest in the region. Indeed, Serbian nationalism created the trigger cause of the conflict – the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne – Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The Spark: The Assassination

Ferdinand and his wife were murdered in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Bosnian Serbian nationalist terrorist organization the ‘Black Hand Gang.’ Ferdinand’s death, which was interpreted as a product of official Serbian policy, created the July Crisis – a month of diplomatic and governmental miscalculations that saw a domino effect of war declarations initiated.

The historical dialogue on this issue is vast and distorted by substantial biases. Vague and undefined schemes of reckless expansion were imputed to the German leadership in the immediate aftermath of the war with the ‘war-guilt’ clause. The notion that Germany was bursting with newfound strength, proud of her abilities and eager to showcase them, was overplayed.

The almost laughable rationalization of British imperial power as ‘necessary’ or ‘civilizing’ didn’t translate to German imperialism, which was ‘aggressive’ and ‘expansionist.’ There is an on-going historical discussion on who if anyone was most culpable. Blame has been directed at every single combatant at one point or another, and some have said that all the major governments considered a golden opportunity for increasing popularity at home.

The Schlieffen plan could be blamed for bringing Britain into the war, the scale of the war could be blamed on Russia as the first big country to mobilise, inherent rivalries between imperialism and capitalism could be blamed for polarising the combatants. AJP Taylor’s ‘timetable theory’ emphasises the delicate, highly complex plans involved in mobilization which prompted ostensibly aggressive military preparations. The German Schlieffen Plan required Germany to defeat France quickly to avoid a two front war.

Every point has some merit, but in the end what proved most devastating was the combination of an alliance network with the widespread, misguided belief that war is good for nations, and that the best way to fight a modern war was to attack. That the war was inevitable is questionable, but certainly the notion of glorious war, of war as a good for nation-building, was strong pre-1914. By the end of the war, it was dead.

Source: http://madefrom.com/history/world-war-one/causes-world-war-one/ Alex Browne

Film Connection

Determined to remain neutral, President Woodrow Wilson’s administration would not prevent American citizens from serving in the French army during WWI, but it would not help them either. Although attracted by the propaganda benefits of an American squadron fighting for France, the French government feared contravening American neutrality, therefore volunteers had to first join the French Foreign Legion and were then detached to the squadron. The American Escadrille (squadron) first saw combat in May 1916 during the Battle of Verdun. Repeated protests from the German ambassador motivated the decision to change the name to Lafayette Escadrille. The original squadron had drawn so many recruits that additional squadrons were formed, creating the Lafayette Corps. Participating in the Battles of Verdun and the Somme, the Passchendaele Campaign and the Nivelle Offensive, the squadron soon gained a good reputation, so it was often requested as an escort for bombing and reconnaissance missions. In fact, the Lafayette Escadrille had become famous by early 1917, so it received a steady stream of visiting newsmen and American officers. The United States entered the war on April 6, 1917. The pilots had expected that the air force would eagerly want their experience, but the tiny American air force lacked the technical expertise needed to quickly expand. As a result, the Lafayette Escadrille became the first American squadron, the 103rd Pursuit Squadron, only in February 1918. The fame of the squadron ensured that thousands of men later claimed to have been members of the squadron.

Fact vs. Fiction

Inspired by the true story. There is a lot of wriggle-room in that sentence.

To be fair, viewers will actually learn a little about the war. The training sequence is quite good, and is probably better than the training the real pilots received. Thenault explains that the pilots wore silk scarves because they were always turning their heads looking for the enemy. Cassidy gives them pistols to shoot themselves in case their planes catch fire, since they don’t have parachutes.

The movie gets most of the basic facts right. Thenault was the actual commander of the real squadron. The escadrille did have a lion, Whiskey, as a mascot. In fact, it had two lions, the second was named Soda. However, the lions were moved to a zoo after a playful Whiskey knocked Thenault down into the mud, and started chewing on his cap.

There is a good shot of the abrupt transformation from peaceful farmland to the front. Since the front did not move for most of the war, the area behind it remained untouched.

The script captures the real pilots’ heavy drinking and endless discussions about the merits of various types of planes, but it does not show that how rapidly technology advanced in WWI. The introduction of a new model would give one side a temporary advantage for a few months until the other side introduced a newer plane that could fly faster or was more manueverable.

Skinner is clearly based on Eugene Bullard, a black American who had moved to France to escape racial discrimination, and fought for France, first in the Foreign Legion, and then in the Lafayette Flying Corps. The script acknowledges the rampant racism in the United States, admitting that Skinner was not allowed to fly in the American air force after the United States entered the war.

Speaking of the Lafayette Flying Corps, where is the corps? The movie covers the period from 1916 to America’s entrance into the war in 1917, but the dwindling group of pilots in the escadrile seem to be the only American pilots in France. In reality, the escadrile was so popular that it was expanded into a corps. Presumably, the writers chose to focus on a small group of characters, but would it have hurt to mention the Lafayette Corps?

To be honest, the film is not about the real Lafayette Escadrille, it is just a generic WWI aviation film that happens to feature Americans fighting for France. Cassidy is the squadron commanding officer because every single other veteran is dead, which is ridiculous. It gets worse. Meeting the new recruits for the first time, the veteran Cassidy informs them that their life expectancy is three to six weeks. The Lafayette Escadrille took losses, but it was not the Suicide Squad. I suspect that there are no other experienced pilots in the squadron other than Cassidy because the script focuses on the young stars, and experienced pilots would have distracted from the young heroes’ story.

However, the amazing aerial combat scenes are the movie’s strength. In particular, a battle against a zeppelin, which is heading for Paris, is simply stunning. Unfortunately, the movie does not explain that the zeppelins’ main advantage was their ability to bomb from such a height that the fighters had trouble climbing high enough to actually shoot at them. Zeppelins did bomb high-profile civilian targets like London and Paris, but the attacks usually took place at night because the greatest threat to the zeppelins was anti-aircraft fire, not fighter planes. Still, it is a cool scene, and it is nice to see the huge size of the zeppelins.

Despite the constant repetition that they are knights of the air, the idea that aces routinely fought duels is more than a bit of an exaggeration. Most aces died because they were exhausted or were surrounded, not in duels.

Classwork & Homework

Lesson Video: Flyboys (PG-13) 2h 10m

Homework: Courseworks Plus - Login Needed

Special Education Modifications

• Teaching Model: Co-Teaching
• Special Education Teacher will work with All students General Ed and Special Ed.
  • Special Ed Students:
    • Teacher will read-aloud to students when necessary.
    • Teachers will break down assignments into smaller tasks.
    • Teachers will work with students on vocabulary acquisition by breaking down words into prefixes/suffixes and etymology.
    • Teachers will group students according to learning style inventory as a homogeneous group.
    • Teachers will keep students on-task by managing distractions and on-task behavior.
    • Teachers will modify note-taking by modeling notes from PowerPoint to chalkboard/whiteboard.
    • Teachers will differentiate lessons by using; verbal cues for auditory learners, graphic organizers for visual learners, and hands-on cues for tactile learners.