scholarly journals Overlooking British experiences: a reply to Evershed

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 557-559
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson

Jonathan Evershed presents a compelling account of the clear dangers that lie in forms of state-led remembrance. The danger is, of course, that, in commemorating, actual experience is lost. While I do not wish to challenge any of the core claims in the piece, I do think that there is one element that requires greater examination: Evershed’s claim that contemporary Irish conceptions of the First World War as ‘A war that stopped a war’ ‘contributes to a (post)colonial and militaristic nostalgia in British political culture’. While the dangers of that for Northern Ireland are clear, perhaps the greatest risks lie in England, since any such benign account of the conflict serves radically to distort the experience of those soldiers commonly regarded as identifying as British and painted as being motivated by patriotism. Drawing on experience from Tyneside, I argue that, in considering the nature of that conflict, we must remember the many diverse, and often banal, reasons for working class engagement in conflict.

2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-175
Author(s):  
Jos Monballyu

Over de motieven waarom Belgische militairen tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog naar de Duitse vijand deserteerden is al veel geschreven. Volgens de Franstalige patriottische pers en literatuur van kort na de Eerste Wereldoorlog was die desertie uitsluitend te wijten aan de defaitistische ingesteldheid van de Vlaamse Frontbeweging en de talrijke aansporingen waarmee hun vier afgezanten naar de Duitsers (Jules Charpentier, Karel De Schaepdrijver, Vital Haesaert en Carlos Van Sante) de Vlaamse soldaten aan het IJzerfront bestookten. De Vlaamse historici probeerden die beschuldiging op allerlei manieren te weerleggen of schoven de verantwoordelijkheid voor die desertie in de schoenen van Antoon Pira en zijn Algemeen Vlaamsch Democratische Verbond. Geen enkele historicus ging daarbij na wat de deserteurs zelf over hun desertie naar de vijand te vertellen hadden. Dit deden zij nochtans uitvoerig tijdens de verschillende gerechtelijke ondervragingen waaraan zij na de oorlog werden onderworpen wanneer zij konden worden aangehouden. Het feit dat zij daarbij al strafbaar waren van zodra zij wetens en willens deserteerden ongeacht hun eigenlijke motief, liet hen daarbij toe om dit motief vrij complexloos mee te delen. Geen enkele van de overlopers van wie het strafdossier bewaard is, gaf echter toe dat hij omwille van de Vlaamse kwestie was overgelopen. Oorlogsmoeheid en de behoefte om zijn familieleden terug te zien waren, zoals in alle legers, de voornaamste motieven waarom zij naar de vijand deserteerden. Ook de Belgische Militaire Veiligheid en de krijgsauditeurs slaagden er trouwens niet in om een verband te leggen tussen de Vlaamse Frontbeweging en de Belgische deserties naar de vijand.________Desertion to the enemy in the Belgian front army during the First World War (part 2)Much has already been written about the reasons why Belgian soldiers deserted to the German enemy during the First World War. According to the French language patriotic press and literature dating from shortly after the First World War that desertion was exclusively due to the defeatist attitude of the Flemish Front Movement and the many exhortations with which their four representatives to the Germans (Jules Charpentier, Karel De Schaepdrijver, Vital Haesaert and Carlos Van Sante) bombarded the Flemish soldiers at the Yser Front. Flemish historians attempted in a variety of ways to refute that accusation or they shifted the responsibility for the desertion on to Antoon Pira and his Algemeen Vlaamsch Democratische Verbond (General Flemish Democratic Union). Not a single historian investigated what the deserters themselves had to say about their desertion to the enemy. However, the deserters gave extensive explanations during the detailed investigation that took place during the various judicial interrogations, to which they were submitted after the war if it was possible to arrest them. The fact that they were considered to have committed a criminal offence for having knowingly deserted whatever their actual motive, allowed them to communicate this motive without too many complexes. However, none of the defectors whose criminal records have been preserved admitted that he had defected for the sake of the Flemish Question.  As is the case in all armies, the main reasons for desertion to the enemy were war-weariness and the longing to see members of their family. The Belgian Military Security and the military auditors were not able either to establish a causal link between the Flemish Front Movement and the Belgian desertions to the enemy.


Author(s):  
Roger Smith

When the German poet Ernst Lissauer published his anti-English poem “Haßgesang gegen England” in the early weeks of the First World War, the effect was electric. The poem, translated into English and dubbed the “Hymn of Hate,” echoed around the globe, reaching as far as New Zealand where newspapers sedulously followed its international reception and published local responses. Given the nature of New Zealand’s relationship to Britain and the strength of the international press links, it is not surprising that news of the poem reached New Zealand in the early months of the war. However, the sheer volume of coverage given to a single German war poem in New Zealand’s press over the course of the war and after, as well as the many and varied responses to that poem by New Zealanders both at home and serving overseas, are surprising. This article examines the broad range of responses to Lissauer’s now forgotten poem by New Zealanders during the Great War and after, from newspaper reports, editorials and cartoons, to poetic parodies, parliamentary speeches, enterprising musical performances and publications, and even seasonal greeting cards.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (48) ◽  

The Ottoman Empire signed an alliance agreement with Germany right after the start of the First World War. After the Alliance treaty, political and military targets were determined in the meeting held among the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress to determine the policy to be followed. In this meeting, it was also decided to set up an Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa, which would carry out a guerilla war for the army. Establishment of Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa, immediately after the alliance signed with Germany, shows that Germany is also looking at this kind of initiative. It was established under the proposal of Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa Enver Pasha under the Ministry of War. Süleyman Askeri Bey, who dealt with the guerilla war, was brought to the head of the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa. The next two presidents were elected among soldiers of military origin. Unionist officers formed the core of the organization. Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa carried out activities in the Balkans, Caucasus, Morocco, Tripoli, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria during the First World War. However, during the war, the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa underwent some changes. After Ali Başhampa, a civilian, became the president, the name of Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa became Umur-ı Şarkiyye Dairesi, and Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa became more central and civil. Following this change, Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa started to conduct propaganda rather than military activity. In this article, the activities carried out by Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa during the First World War will be evaluated. Keywords: Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa, Enver Pashaa, the Committee of Union and Progress, the Ottoman Empire


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 1401-1405
Author(s):  
Oliver Cackov

In this paper the battle of Krivolak is presented as an example of a senseless human tragedy that took place during the First World War and took place in central Macedonia. This battle showed all the nonsense, absurdity and futile tragedy of the participants in it. It outlines the schedule and military operations of the Bulgarian and French troops, enriched with geographical and topographical data. Also it points to the unbearable position in which soldiers from both sides found themselves, the cruel discipline and the specific and psychologically condition of the long-suffering in the shades. In the paper there is also a point about the complete eviction of the surrounding villages, some of which were completely destroyed. During this period the population was not spared not only by the military events but also by the many diseases that mercilessly decimated it. The subject refers only to one episode of the war in this part of the Macedonian front which I think will turn it around the attention.


Author(s):  
Jerome Boyd Maunsell

An account of Wyndham Lewis’s career as a portrait painter opens this chapter, with a focus on the many self-portraits he painted during his life. The theme of the difference between visual and literary self-portraiture is explored, and the role of satire in portraiture. The chapter examines Lewis’s first autobiography Blasting and Bombardiering (1937), and his depiction of the period leading up to and through the First World War. It also analyzes Lewis’s self-imposed exile during the Second World War during his emigration to America and Canada with his wife Anne, portrayed in Self Condemned (1954), and the subsequent writing of Rude Assignment (1950) after Lewis’s return to England. Lewis’s word portraits of Ford and Stein in his autobiographies are discussed, as are the omissions in these autobiographies.


1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Prost

I would like to discuss George Mosse's excellent and stimulating book, Fallen soldiers, mainly from a French point of view, and to comment upon some issues about the political and moral consequences of the First World War upon French and German societies.The core of the question is Mosse's assumption of a strong relationship between the war experience and the emergence of nazism in Germany. Hence, I shall examine first the reasons why, in Mosse's argument, Hitlerism appears as a consequence of the war. Then I ask why such an evolution did not happen in France, although the war experience was quite similar in the two countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-613
Author(s):  
John Paul Newman ◽  
Lili Zách

AbstractOur special issue discusses different perspectives on the important changes that took place in the transition from empire to nation-state at the end of the First World War, focusing especially on transnational connections, structural and historical continuities, and marginal voices that have been fully or partially concealed by the emphasis on a radical national awakening in 1918. Specific articles broach topics such as the implications of 1918 on notions of gender and ethnicity, 1918 and the violence of the “Greater War,” and the legacies and memories of 1918 across the 20th century. Our approach treats the “New Europe” of 1918 as a largely coherent geopolitical and cultural space, one which can be studied in an interdisciplinary fashion. We contend that 1918 is not simply a clean break in which one epoch cleanly makes way for another, but rather it is an ambiguous and contradictory pivot, one which created an “Old-New Europe” caught between the forces of the imperial past and those of the national future. Our intention is not to dismiss entirely the importance of the transformations of 1918 but rather to show how there exists a tension between those changes and the many continuities and legacies that cut across the traditional chronology.


Author(s):  
William Stuart Nance

This chapter briefly summarizes the development of American mechanized cavalry doctrine and organization from the First World War to the Second. It highlights the tension in the cavalry branch over how best to incorporate new technology while still maintaining the core skill sets required of cavalry. It shows how mechanized cavalry doctrine became stunted by the creation of the armored force, as well as by ideological differences across the branch and Army Ground Forces.


Author(s):  
Gordon Boyce

This chapter examines the role of executives within the Furness Group and the way in which they conducted the Group’s affairs. It seeks to determine the structure of Furness Withy’s personnel in 1919 and the disruptive factors that surrounded it, such as the First World War, and the withdrawal of the Furness family. It uses the structural management theories of Alfred Chandler, Edith Penrose, and Peter Payne to explain how ownership and control of Furness Withy became divorced, yet personal concerns and motivations continued to structure the company’s development. It also explores statements and publications written by Christopher Furness and his associates that illuminate his management strategies and incentives, and the organisational direction within the Group. At the core of the chapter is the question of whether the Group failed to consolidate their interests due to executives failing to implement their knowledge, or due to the administrative complexity surrounding the expansion efforts of the Group. It concludes that as the Furness family withdrew, their dynastic style of management continued to influence the next generation of leadership, a curious but not overtly hindering development.


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