‘Help to win the war’ or ‘Ireland above all’?: Remobilisation, politics, and elite boys’ education in Ireland, 1917–18

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (166) ◽  
pp. 326-348
Author(s):  
Charlotte Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Public Support ◽  
First World War ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Food Shortages ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Post War ◽  
First World

AbstractWhile scholars have rightly recognised that the First World War transformed twentieth-century Ireland, this article queries assumptions regarding the scope and scale of public support for hostilities during 1917 and 1918. Eleven elite boys’ schools are used as case studies to assess civilian reactions to the ongoing war effort, food shortages, and the 1918 conscription crisis within specific institutional communities, illuminating the importance of socio-religious affiliations and political aspirations in determining late-war behaviour. Drawing on school magazines and newspaper coverage of college events, it is argued that alternative visions of statehood underpinned divergent reactions to the conflict; Protestant schools clung to fundraising and militaristic activities seen to support continued union with Britain but Catholic establishments rejected such endeavours in the wake of increased separatist sentiment. This research also casts new light on the interplay between conflict, educational socialisation and politicisation in revolutionary Ireland. Constitutional nationalist reputation aside, wartime mobilisation in elite Catholic schools proved extremely lacklustre, while the unionist expectations their Protestant counterparts had for the post-war world ultimately went unfulfilled. Prestigious colleges across the denominational spectrum demonstrably navigated late-war pressures on their own terms, shaping Ireland's political landscape both throughout and beyond the conflict's most contentious years.

The role of nitrogen in transforming British agricultural productivity production prior to and during the First World War

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-609
Author(s):  
John Martin
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Production ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Coal Gas ◽  
Major Threat ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Food Shortages ◽  
War Effort ◽  
First World

This paper explores the reasons why artificial or mineral sources of nitrogen, which were more readily available in Britain than in other European countries, were only slowly adopted by farmers in the decades prior to and during the First World War. It considers why nitrogen in the form of sulphate of ammonia, a by-product of coal-gas (town-gas) manufacture, was increasingly exported from Britain for use by German farmers. At the same time Britain was attempting to monopolise foreign supplies of Chilean nitrate, which was not only a valuable source of fertiliser for agriculture but also an essential ingredient of munitions production. The article also investigates the reasons why sulphate of ammonia was not more widely used to raise agricultural production during the First World War, at a time when food shortages posed a major threat to public morale and commitment to the war effort.

scholarly journals The Finest Feats of the War? The Captures of Baghdad and Jerusalem during the First World War and Public Opinion throughout the British Empire

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Fantauzzo
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Press ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Post War ◽  
First World

In March and December 1917 the British Empire won two much-needed victories in Mesopotamia and Palestine: Baghdad and Jerusalem. Both cities were steeped in biblical and oriental lore and both victories happened in a year that had been otherwise disastrous. Throughout the British Empire the press, public, and politicians debated the importance of the two successes, focusing on the effect they would have on the empire’s prestige, the Allies’ war strategy, and the post-war Middle East. Far from being overwhelmed by the ‘romance’ of the fighting in the Middle East, the press’s and public’s response reveals a remarkably well-informed, sophisticated, and occasionally combative debate about the empire’s Middle Eastern war effort.

Saving the nation from starvation: the heroic age of food control, June 1917 to July 1918

Rural History ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (02) ◽  
pp. 181-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Martin
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
First World War ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Food Control ◽  
World War ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Food Shortages ◽  
War Effort ◽  
First World

AbstractThe civilian food shortages and accompanying malnutrition that characterised the latter stages of the First World War were instrumental in fundamentally changing the course of European history. In Russia, food shortages were a key underlying factor in precipitating the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, while in Germany, food shortages led to the so-called ‘turnip winter’ of 1917, which effectively helped to undermine commitment to the war effort and contribute to the country’s defeat. In spite of Britain’s precarious dependence on imported food, and the shipping losses inflicted by German U-boats, the population was less badly affected. This achievement has been attributed to the work undertaken by Lord Rhondda, the second food controller, whose actions were characterised as the ‘heroic age of food control’. This article uses evidence from official government reports, newspapers and diaries, memoirs and biographies to challenge the prevailing historiography about the success of food control measures in Britain during the First World War. It shows that the Ministry of Food under Lord Rhondda’s period of tenureship was not only indecisive, but that efforts to save the nation from malnutrition, if not actual starvation, were in large part the result of initiatives implemented at the local level.

scholarly journals Scandal in Mesopotamia: Press, empire, and India during the First World War

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 1395-1445
Author(s):  
MANU SEHGAL ◽  
SAMIKSHA SEHRAWAT
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
British Press ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
Post War ◽  
The One ◽  
First World

AbstractBy providing the first comprehensive account of the role of the British and Indian press in war propaganda, this article makes an intervention in the global history of the First World War. The positive propaganda early in the war, intertwined with a rhetoric of loyalism, contrasted with how the conservative British press affixed blame for military defeats in Mesopotamia upon the colonial regime's failure to effectively mobilize India's resources. Using a highly emotive and enduring trope of the ‘Mesopotamia muddle’, the Northcliffe press was successful in channelling a high degree of public scrutiny onto the campaign. The effectiveness of this criticism ensured that debates about the Mesopotamian debacle became a vehicle for registering criticism of structures of colonial rule and control in India. On the one hand, this critique hastened constitutional reforms and devolution in colonial India and, on the other, it led to demands that the inadequacy of India's contribution to the war be remedied by raising war loans. Both the colonial government and its nationalist critics were briefly and paradoxically united in opposing these demands. The coercive extraction of funds for the imperial war effort as well as the British press's vituperative criticism contributed to a post-war, anti-colonial political upsurge. The procedure of creating a colonial ‘scandal’ out of a military disaster required a specific politics for assessing the regulated flows of information, which proved to be highly effective in shaping both the enquiry that followed and the politics of interwar colonial South Asia.

scholarly journals ENGLISH RUGBY UNION AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 797-817 ◽  
Author(s):  
TONY COLLINS
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Sports Organizations ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First World

The idea that war was a football match writ large was commonly expressed in Britain during the First World War. This article looks at the attitudes and actions of the English Rugby Football Union and its supporters before, during, and after the First World War to examine how such beliefs were utilized by sports organizations and the impact they had on the military and on society as a whole. Rugby union football was viewed both by its supporters and general observers alike as the most enthusiastic and committed sporting supporter of the war effort; the article explores rugby's overtly ideological stance as a means of shedding light on broader discussions about the cultural impact of the war, such as in the works of Paul Fussell and Jay Winter, and about the continued survival of traditional and Edwardian ideas of patriotism among the English middle classes in the immediate post-war period.

British academics, liberalism, and the First World War

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Sherington
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
First World War ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
World War ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First World

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the War on two prominent academic liberal historians. Design/methodology/approach The research is based on a narrative of their lives and careers before and during the War. Findings The findings include an analysis of how the War engaged these academic liberals in the pursuit of the War effort. Originality/value By the end of the War, both sought to reaffirm much of their earlier academic liberalism despite the political and social changes in the post-war world.

‘Machinic Desire’: Wyndham Lewis, Masculinity and the Sublime Horror of Technological War

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-514
Author(s):  
Udith Dematagoda
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Wyndham Lewis ◽  
World War ◽  
Technological Society ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
First World

This article explores Wyndham Lewis's experience of the First World War, and its influence on his varied artistic output. It interrogates how Lewis's initial ambivalence towards an emergent technological society shifted through direct encounters with mechanized warfare, and speculates on the effect of these upon his post-war writing and criticism. By contrasting Lewis's thought against that of his Italian Futurist contemporaries, I will demonstrate the centrality of their divergent conceptions of masculinity in accounting for this opposition – and how Lewis's critique of technological society prefigures contemporary opposition towards the post-humanist philosophy of Accelerationism.

Western Ethnic Borderlands in the Influence of Russian-Soviet Propagangda Before and in the Years of the Second World War

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (46) ◽  
pp. 32-39
Author(s):  
Igor Lyubchyk
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Russian Orthodoxy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World ◽  
First World ◽  
Russian Identity

The research issue peculiarities of wide Russian propaganda among the most Western ethnographic group – Lemkies is revealed in the article. The character and orientation of Russian and Soviet agitation through the social, religious and social movements aimed at supporting Russian identity in the region are traced. Tragic pages during the First World War were Thalrogian prisons for Lemkas, which actually swept Lemkivshchyna through Muscovophilian influences. Agitation for Russian Orthodoxy has provoked frequent cases of sharp conflicts between Lemkas. In general, attempts by moskvophile agitators to impose russian identity on the Orthodox rite were failed. Taking advantage of the complex socio-economic situation of Lemkos, Russian campaigners began to promote moving to the USSR. Another stage of Russian propaganda among Lemkos began with the onset of the Second World War. Throughout the territory of the Galician Lemkivshchyna, Soviet propaganda for resettlement to the USSR began rather quickly. During the dramatic events of the Second World War and the post-war period, despite the outbreaks of the liberation movement, among the Lemkoswere manifestations of political sympathies oriented toward the USSR. Keywords: borderlands, Lemkivshchyna, Lemky, Lemkivsky schism, Moskvophile, Orthodoxy, agitation, ethnopolitics

The Short Career of the Indian Labour Corps in France, 1917–1919

2015 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 27-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radhika Singha
Keyword(s):  
Military Personnel ◽  
First World War ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Status ◽  
War Experience ◽  
Social Agendas ◽  
First World

AbstractThis essay adds the story of the Indian Labour Corps (ILC) to the narratives of the various “coloured” units brought in to France to deal with the manpower crisis that had overtaken that theater of the First World War in 1916. The label “coloured” or “native labour” justified inferior care and a harsher work and disciplinary regime than that experienced by white labor. However, official reports and newspaper coverage also expose a dense play of ethnographic comparison between the different colored corps. The notion was that to “work” natives properly, the managerial regimes peculiar to them also had to be imported into the metropolis. The register of comparison was also shaped by specific political and social agendas which gave some colored units more room than others to negotiate acknowledgement of their services. One dimension of the war experience for Indian laborers was their engagement with institutional and ethnic categorizations. The other dimension was the process of being made over into military property and the workers own efforts to reframe the environments, object worlds, and orders of time within which they were positioned. By creating suggestive equivalences between themselves and other military personnel, they sought to lift themselves from the status of coolies to that of participants in a common project of war service. At the same time, they indicated that they had not put their persons at the disposal of the state in exactly the same way as the sepoy.

scholarly journals The Austro-Hungarian occupation regime in Serbia and its break-down in 1918

Balcanica ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 107-133
Author(s):  
Dimitrije Djordjevic
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

This paper discusses the occupation of Serbia during the First World War by Austro-Hungarian forces. The first partial occupation was short-lived as the Serbian army repelled the aggressors after the Battle of Kolubara in late 1914, but the second one lasted from fall 1915 until the end of the Great War. The Austro-Hungarian occupation zone in Serbia covered the largest share of Serbia?s territory and it was organised in the shape of the Military Governorate on the pattern of Austro-Hungarian occupation of part of Poland. The invaders did not reach a clear decision as to what to do with Serbian territory in post-war period and that gave rise to considerable frictions between Austro-Hungarian and German interests in the Balkans, then between Austrian and Hungarian interests and, finally, between military and civilian authorities within Military Governorate. Throughout the occupation Serbia was exposed to ruthless economic exploitation and her population suffered much both from devastation and from large-scale repression (including deportations, internments and denationalisation) on the part of the occupation regime.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document