scholarly journals ‘A War Imagined’: Postcards and the Maintenance of Long-Distance Relationships during the Great War

2019 ◽  
pp. 096834451983103
Author(s):  
Alex Mayhew
Keyword(s):  
Military History ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World ◽  
Cultural Turn

This article explores the role of postcards in the maintenance of relationships between combatants and civilians during the First World War. By drawing on untapped archival material found during wider research into the morale of English infantrymen, it concentrates on the multiple uses of this medium in correspondence between the Western and Home Fronts. Following the ‘cultural turn’ in military history it has become increasingly apparent that the gulf between those fighting and those left at home was much narrower than previously assumed. This analysis charts the variety of ways in which postcards helped to bridge this divide.

Triage in the trenches, for the love of animals : a tribute to veterinarians in the First World War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. BASTIAENSEN
Keyword(s):  
Grey Literature ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
New Research ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World ◽  
Central Forces

On the occasion of the centenary of the First World War, remembered across the world from 2014 until the end of 2018, many aspects and experiences of this global conflict have been re-examined or brought to light for the first time, as we honour the memory of those estimated 16 million soldiers and civilians who perished in what was then known as the ‘Great War’, or the ‘War to End All Wars’. So many of these died on the infamous fields of Flanders, where Allied and Central Forces dug themselves into trenches for the better part of four years. Over the past few years, new research has brought to light many insights into the plight of animals in this War, which – for the younger readers amongst you – was fought at the dawn of motorised warfare, using anything powered by two or four feet or paws, from the homing pigeons delivering secret messages across enemy lines, to the traction provided by oxen and mules to pull cannons and other heavy artillery, to the horses of the cavalry. Not least among these roles was the supply of animal protein to the troops, whether this came through the specific designation of animals for this purpose or as the result of a failed attempt at delivering any of the above services. Several leading publications today have documented the role (and suffering) of animals in ‘La Grande Guerre’. Less so the role of veterinarians in the ‘War to End All Wars’. Who were they? How many? How were they organised? What did they do, on either side of the enemy lines? The present article is a humble attempt to shed some light on these veterinary colleagues, based on available, mostly grey, literature…

scholarly journals The voice of the great war: italian prisoners’ letters collected by Leo Spitzer

Linguistica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-282
Author(s):  
Paola Desideri ◽  
Mariapia D’Angelo
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
World War ◽  
Extensive Documentation ◽  
Linguistic History ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The Voice ◽  
First World

From September 1915 until the end of the First World War, the Viennese Romance scholar Leo Spitzer was dispatched to the Censorship section of the Austrian Central Bureau of Information on Prisoners-of-War, where he was in charge of examining the correspondence of the Italian prisoners. In the unusual dual role of censor and philologist, he was the first to collect extensive documentation of popular Italian written texts during a crucial period of Italian linguistic history. The first part of the present paper focuses on the linguistic and communicative properties of the letters included and analyzed in the volume Italienische Kriegsgefangenenbriefe, published by Spitzer in 1921 and translated into Italian in 1976 (Lettere di prigionieri di guerra italiani), whereas the second part deals with stylistic and onomasiological aspects of the circumlocutions expressing hunger, on the basis of Spitzer’s study Die Umschreibungen des Begriffes “Hunger” im Italienischen (1920) and with reference to his work Motiv und Wort (1918).

scholarly journals Into the Shadows: Tragedies of the Last Monarchs of Russia and Germany (Controversial Issues of Historiography)

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-951
Author(s):  
A. A. Turygin ◽  
A. N. Shigareva
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
World War ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Biographical Research ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

The fates of the last Emperors of Russia and Germany are forever linked by the First World War and the revolutions. History knows the circumstances of their abdication; however, their motives still remain a matter of debate. The present research featured a comparative analysis of various points of view on the roles Nicholas II and Wilhelm II played in the revolutions and the political decisions they made. The biographical research clarified the general characteristics of the revolutionary processes that occurred during their reign and how both revolutions affected the institution of monarchy. The authors analyzed the contemporary historiographical discussions of the monarchy and the revolutions caused in both countries by the consequences of the First World War. The article also focuses on the role of social, class, and political groups in both revolutions, as well as on the attempts of monarchists to save the emperors. Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm II lived in a very similar political context: complicated family ties, rapid economic development, the Great War, etc. Their abdications occurred in similar circumstances and had similar motives and socio-political consequences. However, their further destinies were very different.

The experience of the museum commemoration of the Great War of the UK in the 1920–1930s

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
S. A. Man’kov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Military History ◽  
First World War ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Museum ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

The article examines the experience of creating military-historical expositions and museums dedicated to the Great War of 1914-1918 in UK. The process of forming a military history museum, which began during the First World War, received support from government and military circles as a center for rallying the nation around the ideas of a «just» war, the representation of hostilities and with the aim of counterpropagating pacifist sentiments. Conceived as the National War Museum, it was opened in 1920 with Imperial status to counter regional public discontent in the British dominions and colonies. Although the Imperial War Museum was initially popular as a national memorial, interest in it began to wane noticeably over time. A separate place in the article is given to the consideration of several unrealized projects of museum commemoration of the events of the Great War

A New History for a New Channel: The Great War and the Launch of BBC2

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Downing
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Television History ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World ◽  
Intense Debate ◽  
Do So

This article considers the making of the BBC2 series, The Great War, and examines issues around the treatment and presentation of the First World War on television, the reception of the series in 1964 and its impact on the making of television history over the last fifty years. The Great War combined archive film with interviews from front-line soldiers, nurses and war workers, giving a totally new feel to the depiction of history on television. Many aspects of The Great War were controversial and raised intense debate at the time and have continued to do so ever since.

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 Local versus the Global in the history of relativity: The case of Belgium

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Sjang L. ten Hagen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
First World War ◽  
Global History ◽  
World War ◽  
Global Pattern ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
First World

ArgumentThis article contributes to a global history of relativity, by exploring how Einstein’s theory was appropriated in Belgium. This may sound like a contradiction in terms, yet the early-twentieth-century Belgian context, because of its cultural diversity and reflectiveness of global conditions (the principal example being the First World War), proves well-suited to expose transnational flows and patterns in the global history of relativity. The attempts of Belgian physicist Théophile de Donder to contribute to relativity physics during the 1910s and 1920s illustrate the role of the war in shaping the transnational networks through which relativity circulated. The local attitudes of conservative Belgian Catholic scientists and philosophers, who denied that relativity was philosophically significant, exemplify a global pattern: while critics of relativity feared to become marginalized by the scientific, political, and cultural revolutions that Einstein and his theory were taken to represent, supporters sympathized with these revolutions.

scholarly journals Religion and Reform in the City: The Re-Thinking Chicago Movement of the 1930s

1986 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-337
Author(s):  
Jacob H. Dorn
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Era ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Machines ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Leaders ◽  
First World ◽  
Urban Civilization

Historians have produced a rich and sophisticated literature on urban reform in the progressive era before the First World War. It includes numerous studies of individual cities, biographies of urban leaders, and analyses of particular movements and organizations. This literature illuminates important variations among reformers and their achievements, the relationships between urban growth and reform, and the functional role of the old-style political machines against which progressives battled. Similarly, there are many examinations of progressive-era reformers' ideas about and attitudes toward the burgeoning industrial cities that had come into being with disquieting rapidity during their own lifetimes. Some of these works go well beyond the controversial conclusions of Morton and Lucia White in The Intellectual Versus the City (1964) to find more complex—and sometimes more positive—assessments of the new urban civilization.

THE ROLE OF ENGLAND IN THE FORMATION OF THE PROTO-STATEHOOD OF THE IRAQI KURDS AFTER THE FIRST WORLD WAR (1918–1920) IN THE MANDATE TERRITORIES FORM

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-191
Author(s):  
Kirill V. Vertyaev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Iraqi Kurdistan ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
First World

The article develops the stadial formation thesis of the proto-statehood among the Iraqi Kurds. The concept of national identity of the Iraqi Kurds remains the subject of a complex and long-lasting discussion. The main obstacle for the emergence of the Kurdish integral nationalism is still the fact that the Kurds speak different dialects of Kurdish language, and still maintain political and inter-clan conflicts over the distribution of power (not to mention the futility of any attempts to define political boundaries of Iraqi Kurdistan). Ironically, Great Britain faced practically the same contradictions during its occupation of Mesopotamia at the end of the WWI (following the Mudros armistice in October 1918), when British attempts to create an independent Kurdish state failed for a number of reasons, which are discussed in the article. In our opinion, this period was responsible for the formation of proto-statehood in Kurdish area (Kingdom of Kurdistan, for example, obtained classic characteristics of a chiefdom, but at the same time had a vivid anti-colonial, anti-imperialist orientation). The phenomenology of the British government’s political relations with such ‘quasi-states’ presents the subject for this article’s analysis.

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