Cultural History of the First World War

Die Folgen des Ersten Weltkriegs stellten die Weimarer Republik vor extreme Herausforderungen. Vor dem Hintergrund der Kriegsniederlage und der harten Bedingungen des als Diktatfrieden empfundenen Versailler Vertrags erschienen der Einsatz der Bevölkerung und die Opfer der Kriegsjahre unerträglich und sinnlos. Hier liegen die Wurzeln für die Allgegenwart des Krieges und der Kriegstoten in der politischen Kultur Weimars, welche die junge Republik nachhaltig belastete und zu einer fortdauernden Politisierung des Kriegsgedenkens führte. Dies provozierte leidenschaftliche Kontroversen über den Sinn des Krieges und die Lehren, die aus dem Weltkrieg zu ziehen seien.
Arndt Weinrich untersucht in seinem Buch die Konjunkturen der Wahrnehmung und Instrumentalisierung des Ersten Weltkriegs in ausgewählten Jugendverbänden der Zwischenkriegszeit: in der bürgerlichen Jugendbewegung, der katholischen Jugend und im sozialdemokratischen Jungbanner. Im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchung steht das Weltkriegsgedenken der Hitler-Jugend, das im Kontext der nationalsozialistischen Besetzung des öffentlichen Raumes eine Doppelfunktion erfüllte. Einerseits zielte der Kult um die Gefallenen des "Großen Krieges" innerhalb der HJ auf die mentale Mobilmachung und Kriegserziehung der Jugend, andererseits diente er der Befriedung eines in der unmittelbaren Nachkriegszeit noch geschürten Generationenkonflikts mit den "Frontsoldaten" des Ersten Weltkriegs. Die vorliegende Studie arbeitet heraus, in welchem Maße sich mit dem Weltkriegsgedenken in der Zwischenkriegszeit Repräsentations- und Geltungsansprüche verbanden und wie sehr die Deutungshoheit über das "Kriegserlebnis" insbesondere nach 1933 eine wichtige Herrschaftsressource darstellte.

This article is a conversation between five specialists of veterans’ history on the current direction of the field and its importance to the study of war and society. The discussants offer an an overview of current methodologies, definitions and historiographical approaches. Concentrating on the experiences of twentieth-century veterans (particularly after 1945) and using a diverse range of case studies from across the world, this article also asks what connections bound veteran communities together, and how we as historians might conceptualise veterans: as a class, as a collective, or as a far looser grouping of individuals? Finally, this article explores what distinguishes veteranhood after 1945 and the evolving relationship between veterans and the memory of conflict.

The paper offers analysis of the discourses on the Great War (World War I) and of the practices of the culture of remembrance in interwar Lithuania. The research addresses the scope and the nature of literary fiction dealing with the theme of the Great War in interwar Lithuania (with the focus on the literary merits of translated works by foreign authors and of those by local authors, the ‘upsurge’ of and changes in the fiction on war), and the significance of the war to the public at large; the research also expands on the practices of the commemoration of the Great War and on the maintenance of military cemeteries in interwar Lithuania. On the one hand, literature on war in interwar Lithuania was an object of analysis, while, on the other hand, it represented a field of publishing industry with the works by foreign authors translated and local authors published. The Great War was a landmark event for a whole generation. It changed people’s lives and attitudes to war, and opened up new horizons for war fiction. Multitudes of young gifted people had to spend several years at the front because of universal conscription. Later they wrote books often based on their own experience, or even their diaries, that became literary classics. In Lithuania translated works came first: the publication of the novel
All Quiet on the Western Front can be considered a turning point that was followed by the works of Lithuanian authors. In a sense, the 1930s were a time of a breakthrough for the literature on the subject of the Great War in Lithuania. Certain episodes of the Great War, such as its outbreak and causes, the German occupation, and the military actions reflecting the war experience of the Lithuanians (1914 in East Prussia, the battle of Augustów in 1915, and the fall of Kaunas Fortress)
were actualised in interwar Lithuania. Such a situation stemmed from geographical and national reasons: the said operations took place on the ‘Lithuanian lands’ with numerous involvement of the Lithuanians. There were controversial judgements on the war: on the one hand, it had caused heavy casualties and immense material losses leading to moral decay and changes in the heretofore familiar mode of life and mindset. On the other hand, the war ‘woke up’ the Lithuanian nation and created
conditions for the restoration of the Lithuanian state, which was straightforwardly referred to as a true miracle and was thought impossible were it not for the Great War (followed by the fall of three European empires). The casualties of the Great War therefore came to be seen as a sacrifice on the ‘altar of freedom’ of Lithuania and this
claim was further reinforced by the fact that a great number of Lithuanian soldiers took part in the Great War serving in the armies of other countries (in particular those of Russia, Germany, and the United States) and many of them perished on various fronts.

Actes du colloque international de Toulouse : Andrea Latzko : un classique de la litterature de guerre oublié (27-28 avril 2017), à paraître en 2018 dans la collection Forum : Österreich (Berlin : Frank & Timme), dirigée par Jacques Lajarrige.

Artistic expression frequently engages with the question of suffering. In so doing, it confronts the gravity and complexity of the human condition. This volume investigates the relationship between art and suffering. In short, the contributors to this volume collectively demonstrate that suffering is an undisputed and shareable motivating experience.

The special authority invested in the war artist and the image had become denuded by the mid-1980s. Although an independent artist working to commission, Peter Howson’s work in the Balkans was considered to have crossed the line that distinguished between impersonal witness and overzealous artist. Unlike William Orpen’s impartial rendition of gross personal violation, Howson was deemed to have become both judge and jury, an advocate not an artist, corrupted by circumstantial evidence rather than remaining vigilant as an uncorruptible viewer. For his part, Howson was clear that the terms of engagement had fundamentally changed since the Great War: it was no longer simply about what could be seen or not seen, but also what was known and could not be denied.

La Première Guerre mondiale voit une radicalisation brutale des idées et des discours concernant les relations internationales en général, l'organisation politique de l'Europe en particulier. Une pensée géopolitique nouvelle émerge et se cristallise. A cet égard, le publiciste et journaliste français André Chéradame (1871-1948), spécialiste de l'Europe centrale et orientale et des colonies allemandes, publie en 1916 Le plan pangermaniste démasqué, la même année que L'Etat comme forme de vie du Suédois germanophile Rudolf Kjellén (1864-1922). Cet ouvrage est abondamment illustré de cartes à différentes échelles, représentant le déroulement du conflit et appuyant par l'image une dénonciation virulente de la « menace allemande », proposant un langage parfois emprunté à la tradition cartographique germanique, mais aussi très nouveau par rapport à la cartographie politique « classique » de l'époque. L'efficacité des arguments de Chéradame est montrée par la traduction rapide du livre dans les pays anglo-saxons, et par la citation qui en est faite, quelques années plus tard, par Karl Haushofer (1869-1946), principale figure de la Geopolitik allemande. Les cartes géopolitiques de Chéradame ont ainsi contribué à la propagande de guerre française et à la mobilisation intellectuelle des sociétés civiles engagées dans le conflit, et ont été des instruments de combat, bien avant la reprise d'images comparables dans les discours révisionnistes allemands contre le Traité de Versailles.

The First World War started in Europe in 1914. The conflagration between the major Power nations threated the moral values of Belle Époque. Although the Brazilians intellectuals were away from the theater of war, they felt the belligerency's impact and they assumed postures seeking to discuss the conflict. This paper intends to briefly analyze the discourse on the First World War in favor of the neutrality, at Jornal do Commércio, before the entry of Brazil in the conflict.

Alors que c’est souvent a la Seconde Guerre mondiale et a ses suites que sont associees les experiences des deplacements forces, des internements massifs de civils et de militaires, cet ouvrage propose de placer la focale sur un long XIXe siecle, de la Revolution francaise aux lendemains de la Premiere Guerre mondiale. Ce livre a pour ambition de proposer une analyse conjointe et comparee, a la fois diachronique et internationale, de trois grands types d’experiences a priori dissemblables, celles des refugies, des prisonniers de guerre et des deportes lors d’un siecle qui vit a la fois ces phenomenes se massifier et — lentement encore — se differencier. Ces trois formes de circulation transnationale contrainte — alors encore comparables a bien des egards — sont caracterisees par un moment d’arrachement qui se deroule dans un contexte de violence (guerre, revolution, crise), suivi d’une migration forcee et d’une implantation provisoire ou definitive. Ces deplaces subissent alors souv...

The slides that accompanied an invited lecture I gave at the Royal Air Force Museum, London, in May 2016.

The lecture examines Manfred von Richthofen’s memoir "The Red Battle Flyer" (1918) and seeks to establish the part played by Richthofen himself in creating and promoting the myth of the invincible, ruthless yet gentlemanly "Red Baron".

Richthofen’s presentation of his theory and practice of aerial combat, his thoughts on the meaning of heroism and sacrifice, and his view of the role of air power on the Western Front are outlined and discussed.

I also briefly compare "The Red Battle Flyer" to other  'aerial' memoirs of WW1 and trace the 'afterlife' of the Red Baron, both during the Nazi period and in contemporary popular culture

Italian performance in the First World War has been generally disparaged or ignored compared to that of the armies on the Western Front, and troop morale in particular has been seen as a major weakness of the Italian army. In this first book-length study of Italian morale in any language, Vanda Wilcox reassesses Italian policy and performance from the perspective both of the army as an institution and of the ordinary soldiers who found themselves fighting a brutally hard war. Wilcox analyses and contextualises Italy's notoriously hard military discipline along with leadership, training methods and logistics before considering the reactions of the troops and tracing the interactions between institutions and individuals. Restoring historical agency to soldiers often considered passive and indifferent, Wilcox illustrates how and why Italians complied, endured or resisted the army's demands through balancing their civilian and military identities.

The article deals with a Latin booklet published in 1914 by the German government. Its author, Matthias Erzberger (1875-1921), aimed to show to the cardinals, who were sitting in conclave in order to choose the successor of pope Pius X,  that Germany was not responsible for the outbreak of the First World War.

The First World War was a landmark in modern Balkan history since it created the largest battlefront seen until then in the region, destroyed the Ottoman Empire, strengthened nation states and created millions of refugees. One of the least recognized geno cides worldwide, the Armenian genocide, took place during this war. Ιt was not only a destructive war, but also a creative one since the forces that took part in it (the Entente and the Central Powers) created road and rail networks, improved provision of health care, drained marshland, introduced new methods of production, etc. For the first time, official military cemeteries were created in the Balkan region, in order to pay tribute to the dead of the war. The purpose of this paper is to present the work of the British regarding the care for their dead soldiers, namely the crea tion, the creation and the conservation of permanent military monuments and cemeteries of the First World War in Greece.

During the First World War, Italian soldiers’ attitudes varied widely, from enthusiasm to outright rejection of military service thanks to diverse political opinions, socioeconomic backgrounds and conceptions of national identity. The majority were relatively unenthusiastic but obedient, owing not only to the army’s use of harsh coercive techniques but also to soldiers’ own sense of duty to family, nation and comrades. Despite many episodes of indiscipline, most Italians faced their military service with determination, making endurance the most common response to the war.

Artistic responses to Australia’s war effort were diverse and engaging. Soldiers sketching what they experienced of the 1915 Gallipoli campaign produced some of the earliest images of the conflict. During the war, the first official art scheme was established and employed Australian artists to capture a particularly Australian experience of the fighting. Unofficial responses, primarily created by women artists, offset the narrow official representation of the conflict, including the war experience behind the lines. However, it was during the interwar years that many of the most iconic images of Australia’s war experience were created.

The 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War 1 could be viewed as a tempting opportunity to acknowledge the
origins of military psychiatry and the start of a journey from psychological ignorance to enlightenment. However, the
psychiatric legacy of the war is ambiguous. During World War 1, a new disorder (shellshock) and a new treatment
(forward psychiatry) were introduced, but the former should not be thought of as the fi rst recognition of what is now
called post-traumatic stress disorder and the latter did not off er the solution to the management of psychiatric casualties,
as was subsequently claimed. For this Series paper, we researched contemporary publications, classifi ed military reports,
and casualty returns to reassess the conventional narrative about the eff ect of shellshock on psychiatric practice. We
conclude that the expression of distress by soldiers was culturally mediated and that patients with postcombat syndromes
presented with symptom clusters and causal interpretations that engaged the attention of doctors but also resonated
with popular health concerns. Likewise, claims for the effi cacy of forward psychiatry were infl ated. The vigorous debates
that arose in response to controversy about the nature of psychiatric disorders and the discussions about how these
disorders should be managed remain relevant to the trauma experienced by military personnel who have served in Iraq
and Afghanistan. The psychiatric history of World War 1 should be thought of as an opportunity for commemoration
and in terms of its contemporary relevance—not as an opportunity for self-congratulation.

The first comprehensive historical biography of Bishop Nykyta Budka. an important figure in Ukrainian, Canadian, and Catholic history.  His appointment on 15 July 1912, was the first time the Apostolic See of Rome named an Eastern Catholic bishop will full jurisdiction outside of the old continents of Europe and Asia.  From an early age he became an educator of the Ukrainian people and supported their political and cultural freedom. He was one among hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian immigrants and he encouraged Ukrainian immigration to Canada throughout his life. His mission was to sustain Canadian Ukrainian Greek-Catholics in their faith. Budka achieved government recognition of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada as a legal entity. Facing the reality of assimilation he encouraged his flock to become good Canadians but also dedicated himself to preserving Ukrainian religious and cultural identity. Bishop Budka’s story is one of endurance.  For fifteen years he traveled unceasingly, visiting the Ukrainian settlements scattered across Canada, celebrating the sacraments, teaching, preaching and comforting the faithful.  He invited many Ukrainian priests from Europe and ordained local recruits to serve as missionaries in Canada. He relied upon religious sisters, brothers, and priests to promote Catholic and bilingual education. He sponsored lay people in higher education so that they would become conscientious and self-sacrificing community leaders. He was a poor administrator but a fantastic missionary. He did not receive sufficient financial support from his flock and was forced to rely on grants from Roman Catholic clergy and organizations. He faced bankruptcy on several occasions. In a climate of intense proselytism he battled with many political and religious opponents, who sought to draw his flock away from their Catholic Faith. Overwork, stress, and harsh conditions destroyed his delicate health.  After requesting an assistant bishop several times, he was finally asked to resign. For the next seventeen years he provided moral support and spiritual ministry to Ukrainians under oppressive Polish, Nazi and Soviet regimes. Together with his fellow Ukrainian Catholic bishops, clergy, religious, and laity, he was arrested, tried, and condemned by Soviet authorities.  He died in a prison camp in far-away Kazakhstan. The Catholic Church now numbers him among the heavenly martyrs and confessors of the Faith. His story can be described as a life of obedience, work, and love of the Lord Jesus Christ and God’s pilgrim people..

The image of the First World War soldier as a cowed victim, caught in the grip of a meaningless, industrialized war, is one that has become entrenched in the British popular imagination. It was not, however, the image that dominated public discussion of the soldier between 1914 and 1918. This article seeks to examine how the portrayal of the soldier changed during and after the First World War and proposes that the victimized soldier motif has been reinforced today by the coalescence of three trends. The first is the growth of the family history industry that encourages an individualized and empathetic approach to the First World War. The second trend is concerned with an increasing public interest in psychological reactions to war. Since the Vietnam War, there has been a growing expectation that soldiers will be psychologically damaged by wartime experience. This has influenced the public perception of the First World War soldier, affecting, in particular, the discussion surrounding those executed for military crimes during the conflict. Finally, the article argues that long-term changes in British attitudes to the use of force, coupled with the experience of recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, have also coloured the way in which the First World War is portrayed. A range of interest groups have cast the contemporary British soldier as a victim in recent years and the article argues that the explicit linking of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq with the First World War has reinforced this victim image for each conflict.

The purpose of this paper is to review the multiple meanings of the terms "barbarian" and "barbarity" during World War I in France. The atrocities perpetrated by the German armies in late Summer 1914 contributed to portray the Germans as "barbarians". This widely circulated image was increasingly used by wartime propaganda. This paper also shows how the term was used by the French themselves to describe their own barbarity and to question brutal forms of warfare.

This paper also shows how the term was used to describe one's own barbarity and to question brutal forms of warfare.

Key words : First World War; Image of Enemy; Barbarian; Brutalization; Cruelty.

Résumé :

Cet article s’intéresse aux différentes acceptions des termes « barbare » et « barbarie » en Grande Guerre, et notamment dans le cas de (...)

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Cet article s’intéresse aux différentes acceptions des termes « barbare » et « barbarie » en Grande Guerre, et notamment dans le cas de la France. Il montre que le barbare est une image de l’ennemi très répandue et utilisée qui se radicalise encore entre 1914 et 1918, notamment du fait des atrocités allemandes du début de la guerre qui permettent d’accuser l’ennemi de « barbarie ». Mais il montre aussi que le terme est parfois employé pour évoquer sa barbarie propre en interrogeant les pratiques de violence sur le champ de bataille.

Mots clés : Première Guerre mondiale ; image de l’ennemi ; barbare ; brutalisation ; cruauté.

This paper explores the recent documentary, aired on the American Heroes Network, showing polychromatization of black-and-white World War One military footage. The film's apocalyptic character and effect on current popular culture trends will be analyzed.

This book investigates the uses of crusader medievalism – the memory of the crusades and crusading rhetoric and imagery – in Britain, from Walter Scott’s The Talisman (1825) to the end of the Second World War. It seeks to understand why and when the crusades and crusading were popular, how they fitted with other cultural trends of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, how their use was affected by the turmoil of the First World War and whether they were differently employed in the interwar years and in the 1939-45 conflict. Building on existing studies and contributing the fruits of fresh research, it brings together examples of the uses of the crusades from disparate contexts and integrates them into the story of the rise and fall crusader medievalism in Britain.

Much of the French department of the Nord was occupied during the First World War. This book considers the ways in which occupied locals responded to and understood their situation, focusing on key behaviours adopted by locals and the beliefs surrounding such conduct. Key topics examined include forms of complicity, disunity, criminality, resistance, and the memory of the occupation. This local case study calls into question overly-patriotic readings of this experience, and suggests a new conceptual vocabulary to help understand certain civilian behaviours under military occupation. Drawing on extensive primary documentation, this book proposes that a dominant 'occupied culture' existed among locals: a moral-patriotic framework, born of both pre-war socio-cultural norms and daily interaction with the enemy, that guided conduct and was especially concerned with what was considered acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

War is a strategic activity of attacking using
weapons and new technologies for resolving
internal and/or international disputes or conflicts
between two or more nations; between ethnic,
social, and religious (organized) groups; etc., to
cope with environmental threats and take advantage
of important opportunities, generating at the
same time a reduction of the freedom of other
societies/groups and causing deaths, injured people,
and/or social, economic, cultural, and/or ethnic
damages.

This article will examine how a series of theatrical shows which starred casts of cross-dressing ex-servicemen achieved critical and commercial popularity in interwar Britain despite increased cultural anxieties about the links between gender variance and transgressive acts, behaviours, and categories of identity. Prior to this study, historians have researched wartime concert parties where servicemen cross-dressed for each other’s entertainment, but scant attention has been given to the popular phenomenon of ex-servicemen who performed cross-dressing revues for the general public. Staging revues on the home front exposed cross-dressing ex-servicemen to new forms of spectatorship: the theatregoing public, arts criticism in the press, and state censorship. This article will analyse these dynamics for the first time through an investigation of the First World War troupe Les Rouges et Noirs, who popularized the subgenre of veterans’ cross-dressing revues with their debut production Splinters (1918). Critics commended the company’s contribution to the war effort while also lauding the troupe for their entertainment value and ‘bewitching’ feminine mimicry. Some observers, like the Lord Chamberlain, found Les Rouges’ cross-dressing troubling, but these views were in the minority and did not seriously hinder the performers’ success. When carried out temporarily in a performative setting by artists who presented a skilful and beguiling representation of femininity, and whose status as ex-servicemen helped to dispel suspicions of immorality, cross-dressing could be a source of great pleasure, even as it constituted a source of cultural anxiety in other contexts.

'The fighting Gunditjmara' tells the story of the Gunditjmara people from western Victoria, who have fought for country and for nation, from frontier wars to world wars. The article looks at how Aboriginal servicemen and servicewomen serving in the Australian military forces have often spoke of being part of a long-standing, continuous warrior tradition that embodies deep respect for their forebears who fought for their traditional lands. Such sentiments were encapsulated by Captain Reg Saunders, a Gunditjmara man,  "I would have fought the war my forefathers fought because I think we were right. We were fighting for survival." One of the most famous Australian soldiers of the Second World War, Saunders was the first identifiable Aboriginal to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army. He is from a long line of Gunditjmara men and women - who have earned the reputation 'the fighting Gunditjmara' - who have served in the Australian military.

Este al șaselea volum consacrat Anchetei Astrei, efectuată în 1922. Cu acest volum, se încheie seria „Rapoartelor”  cunoscute în prezent. Transcrierea „Rapoartelor” a fost însoțită, ca și în volumele precedente, de ample analize statistice referitoare la desfășurarea evenimentelor revoluționare din 1918-1919, la organizarea gărzilor naționale și la participarea românilor la Adunarea Națională de la Alba Iulia, în 18 noiembrie/1 decembrie 1918.

The First World War in the Memoirs of the Romanians in Banat and of the Transylvanian Saxons As fundamental sources for the cultural history of World War I, memoirs have long represented a topic of great interest to researchers, given the capacity of such writings to retrieve both individual and collective destinies and mentalities from the mists of time. In the Romanian space, in particular, the importance of the genre also stems from the fact that the beginnings of the historiography of the Great War are to be found in memoirs. This study presents a synthetic overview of an important part of the Great War memoirs of the Romanians in Banat and the Transylvanian Saxons. The sources reviewed include longer or shorter published texts, as well as unpublished material which has been identified in different collection of documents preserved in Romania and in Germany.