scholarly journals WAR, MONEY, MERCY: ARMY AND UNIONS OF LANDS AND CITIES IN THE YEARS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

2021 ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Александр Борисович Асташов
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Public Organizations ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Total War ◽  
Military Mobilization ◽  
The Government ◽  
Evacuation Plan ◽  
The Military

В историографии Февральской революции продолжает господствовать политизированный подход в освещении деятельности общественных организаций помощи больным и раненым, используется узкая база, привлекаемые источники страдают односторонностью. Автор предлагает отказаться от политизированности при решении данной проблемы и рассмотреть этот вопрос в свете особенностей Первой мировой войны, как тотальной, требовавшей значительного участия общественности в мобилизации тыла. В настоящей работе используются новые архивные материалы, которые позволяют поновому, максимально объективно рассмотреть ряд вопросов. Настоящая статья имеет целью выявление причин обращения армии за помощью к Всероссийским союзам земств и городов, выявление основных аспектов плана эвакуации, места в нем общественных организаций, вопросов сотрудничества на фронте и в тылу армии и общественности. В работе приводятся данные о финансировании, его структуре, объемах помощи, ее эффективности со стороны союзов земств и городов, их вклад в решение деловых вопросов в сфере санитарного обеспечения армии и населения, а также вопросы нарушений в организации этой деятельности. Автор фокусирует внимание на вынужденности для армии использовать работу союзов земств и городов, как самых крупных инициативных помощников в военной мобилизации общества. Но это же поставило армию перед необходимостью защищать деятельность союзов от нападок консервативных сил в правительстве, даже несмотря на нарушения в деятельности общественных организаций. In the historiography of the February Revolution the politicized approach to the coverage of the activity of public organizations for the help to the sick and wounded continues to dominate, a narrow base is used, and the sources used suffer from onesidedness. The author proposes to abandon politicization in tackling this problem and to consider this question in the light of the peculiarities of the World War I as a total war, which demanded considerable public participation in the mobilization of the home front. This paper uses new archival materials, which allow a new, most objective examination of a number of issues. The present article is aimed at revealing the reasons of the army's request for help to the All-Russian unions of zemstvos and cities, revealing the main aspects of the evacuation plan, the place of public organizations in it, the issues of cooperation at the front and in the rear of the army and the public. The work provides data on financing, its structure, scope of assistance, its efficiency on the part of zemstvos and towns unions, their contribution to solving business questions in the field of sanitary provision of the army and population, as well as the questions of violations in the organization of this activity. The author focuses on the necessity for the army to use the work of zemstvo and city unions as the largest proactive helpers in the military mobilization of society. But this also put the army in the position of having to defend the activities of the unions against the attacks of conservative forces in the government, even in spite of the irregularities in the activities of public organizations.

Raising an ‘industrial army’: the policy of reservation in the First and Second World Wars

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliette Pattinson ◽  
Arthur Mcivor ◽  
Linsey Robb
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Government Control ◽  
World War ◽  
Total War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Government ◽  
Armed Services ◽  
The Military ◽  
First World

This chapter provides an examination of the policy of reservation in the two world wars. In total war, industry was in direct competition with the military for a limited supply of men. The state needed to mobilise labour just as much as it did combatants to fill the ranks of the armed services. Both wars witnessed increased government control to direct manpower to where it was needed. Despite attempts to retain men with essential skills on the home front during the First World War, too many skilled men were able to enlist into the forces. Those men who remained on the home front were derided as shirkers and cowards. Civilian men therefore had to negotiate their relegation to the subordinate status of unmanly ‘other’. Whereas errors were made during the First World War, with the government lurching from one manpower crisis to another, a more systematic approach was adopted in the Second with a Schedule of Reserved Occupations. The raising of an ‘industrial army’, which was merely rhetoric in the First World War, became a reality in the Second.

STRATEGIC BOMBING AND RESTRAINT IN ‘TOTAL WAR’, 1915–1918

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-431
Author(s):  
ANDREW BARROS
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
World War ◽  
Total War ◽  
Strategic Bombing ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Military ◽  
Modern War ◽  
First World

ABSTRACTRecent studies of ‘total war’ depict a process of inexorable expansion leading to an often nebulous linkage of everything to war. This article takes the study of ‘total war’ in the opposite direction by studying a specific example of strategic restraint. It examines how the French bombing strategy that was developed over the course of the First World War went to considerable lengths to maintain a distinction between the civilian and the military. The article studies France's restraint by highlighting the strategic, geographical, institutional, and economic factors upon which it was built. It then goes on to examine the political pressures for an expansion of bombing which proved incapable of overturning this policy. Finally, it contrasts French restraint with that of its key ally, Great Britain. There, bombing developed into a strategic weapon designed to destroy the ‘home front’. This study of restraint underscores the importance of limits, and the attendant choices government has to make, in understanding the course and intensity of a country's mobilization for modern war.

The British Cabinet and the Anglo-French Staff Talks, 1905–1914: Who Knew What and When Did He Know It?

1985 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Coogan ◽  
Peter F. Coogan
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
French Military ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
First World

The role of the British cabinet in the Anglo-French military conversations prior to the First World War has been and remains controversial. The acrimonious debate within the government during November 1911 seems linked inextricably to the flood of angry memoirs that followed August 1914 and to the continuing historical debate over the actions and motivations of the various ministers involved. Two generations of researchers now have examined an enormous body of evidence, yet the leading modern scholars continue to publish accounts that differ on the most basic questions. Historians have proved no more able than the ministers themselves were to reconcile the contradictory statements of honorable men. The persistence of these differences in historical literature demonstrates both the continuing confusion over the cabinet's role in the military conversations and the need for a renewed effort to resolve this confusion.The starting point for any discussion of the staff talks must be the recognition that the meaning of the term changed significantly over the nine years before the outbreak of World War I. The contacts began with a series of informal discussions between senior British and French officers during 1905. The first systematic conversations took place early in January 1906 under the authority of Lord Esher, a permanent member of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), and Sir George Clarke, the CID secretary. Later in that month a small group of ministers, including Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, sanctioned formal, ongoing exchanges between the two general staffs.

scholarly journals The Meeting of 21–22 November, 1915, about the Reception and Accommodation of Refugees in the Irkutsk Governorate General

2018 ◽  
pp. 20-26
Author(s):  
O. M. Dolidovich
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Public Organizations ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Medical Assistance ◽  
Remote Region ◽  
Charitable Organizations ◽  
The Government ◽  
Set Up

The article features the meeting held on November 21–22, 1915, where representatives of the authorities, municipal and public organizations discussed the issues of assistance to World War I refugees on the territory of the Irkutsk Governorate General. The study is based on the previously unstudied meeting minutes and the newspaper reports and describes the participants, the main issues, and the results of the discussion. The research made it obvious that initially the authorities did not plan to accommodate the refugees in such a remote region but were forced to redirect them farther east because the western regions were overcrowded. The cities of Eastern Siberiadid not have time to prepare for such a massive resettlement. The migrants were hastily resettled, provided with rations and medical assistance. The money, however minimal and irregular, came mostly from the government, the department of migration, the All-Russian Union ofCities, and local charitable organizations. At the meeting, it was proposed to set up a general Siberian Committee for Assistance to Refugees, to organize local refugee departments, and assign all expenses to the state.

A Discriminatory Frontier Land Policy: Chile, 1870-1914

1969 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl E. Solberg
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Wage Labor ◽  
World War ◽  
Property Ownership ◽  
The Public ◽  
European Immigrants ◽  
The Government

Writing in 1904, the Chilean intellectual Nicolás Palacios bitterly complained that his fellow-countrymen inhabiting the southern frontier provinces were “orphans” in their own land. The simile was appropriate. Since the 1870's, the government, through its land policy, systematically and deliberately had excluded Chile's wage-labor class from property ownership in the frontier. As a direct result, many Chilean laborers fell to peonage while European immigrants and wealthy Chileans acquired ownership of much of the public domain. Shortly before World War I, social and political pressures in Chile forced the government to end this discriminatory policy and to begin distributing the remainder of the public domain to nativeborn settlers.

The Problem of Inflation in Germany

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz Neumann
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Budget Deficit ◽  
World War ◽  
German Government ◽  
Total War ◽  
War Finance ◽  
Treasury Notes ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War

This chapter examines the problem of inflation in Germany. In 1914 the German government based its war finance program on the assumption that World War I would be short. No additional taxation was introduced. Loans were considered sufficient to cover the total war expenses. The government obtained the necessary cash by discounting treasury notes with the Reichsbank which, in turn, sold these notes to banks and large business firms. Every six months loans were floated to redeem the treasury notes. The chapter begins with a discussion of Germany's war financing during the period 1914–1924, focusing on the post-war budget deficit and reestablishment of free prices, depreciation of the mark, and stabilization of the currency. It then considers Nazi Germany's finances during the period 1933–1943, along with the inflation problem after the defeat of Germany in World War II.

Total Warfare, Gender, and the “Home Front” in Europe during the First and Second World Wars

2020 ◽  
pp. 431-450
Author(s):  
Susan R. Grayzel
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Venereal Disease ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Total War ◽  
Common Parlance ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Second World

This chapter traces the fundamental transformation of the European civilian experience of war during the First and Second World Wars. It begins by interrogating the category of the home front at the moment of its entry into common parlance in World War I and looks at the incorporation of noncombatants into the waging of industrialized total war. It argues that gender was at the heart of this powerful change as civilian lives and spaces became targets of new modes of warfare and new forms of state intervention into domestic and everyday life. The chapter investigates civilian war work, the meanings of wartime violence, and especially the experience of occupation, the growth of state interest in monitoring sex to prevent the spread of venereal disease, and, above all, the expansion of state regulation in ways that militarized the home.

scholarly journals Skrb v službi vojne: bolniške strežnice na Kranjskem

2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-102
Author(s):  
Irena Selišnik
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
World War I ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
World War ◽  
Retirement Benefits ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Great War

HEALTH CARE IN THE SERVICE OF WAR: WAR NURSES IN CARNIOLAEven before World War I an ongoing discussion took place in Austria whether medical nurses should be mobilised to take care for wounded soldiers in case of extensive military conflict, natural disasters or epidemics. After the outbreak of the Great War the Austrian authorities encouraged the professionalisation of nursing, and especially women were invited to join. Special conditions for schooling were enacted and the first courses were opened at local hospitals. In the Austrian Monarchy, Carniola was no exception. The Red Cross organised special courses for nurses with the promise of salary, retirement benefits and possibility of vacation. Austrian propaganda portrayed war nurses as heroines, and at least part of the public perceived them as a personification of motherly care and love which could be compared with the sacrifices of the soldiers. However, war nurses also represented modern women who successfully avoided social control and headed towards imminent danger in the battlefield. In the public doubts about their morality emerged, as nurses had direct contact with soldiers and were especially close to doctors. With their presence they invaded the dichotomy between public/battlefront-private/home front. The image of war nurses clearly reveals the awkward relationships between the attitudes to war and women as well as the rapidly changing values in times of war.

scholarly journals Socks at War: American Hand Knitters and Military Footwear Production for the World Wars

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-92
Author(s):  
Rachel P. Maines
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Option ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
World War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

Abstract In both World Wars, combatant nations, including the United States, Britain, and Germany, learned that inadequate or poorly-maintained footwear produced costly and preventable casualties from trench foot and frostbite. While provision of shoes and boots to troops were major issues in earlier conflicts, no nation before World War I had fully appreciated the significance of warm, dry, well-fitting socks to the effectiveness of soldiers in the field. The large numbers of trench foot casualties in World War I, especially among the French and British, convinced policymakers that this vital commodity must receive a higher priority in military production planning, but few nations in wartime could shift production to knitting mills rapidly enough to make a difference. Thus, in Britain and the U.S, the best policy option proved to be recruiting women and children civilians to knit socks by hand for the military in the first war, and for refugees, prisoners and civilians in the second. This paper discusses the economic and military importance of this effort, including the numbers of pairs produced, and the program’s role in supplementing industrial production. The production of this low-technology but crucial item of military apparel is typical of detail-oriented tasks performed by women under conditions of full mobilization for war, in that they have a high impact on battlefield and home front performance and morale, but very low visibility as significant contributions to national defense. Often, both during and after the emergency, these efforts are ridiculed as trivial and/or wasteful. Unlike women pilots or industrial workers, handcrafters of essential supplies are regarded as performing extensions of their domestic roles as makers and caretakers of clothing and food. This was especially true in the U.S. in and after World War II, a wealthy industrialized nation that took pride in its modern - and thoroughly masculinist - military industrial complex.

scholarly journals An American-Made Miracle: The Politicization of Penicillin During World War II

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Herst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Venereal Diseases ◽  
War Effort ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
Alexander Fleming

The discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928 revolutionized the way infections were treated. In the context of World War II, the government of the United States politicized the production and use of penicillin as yet another weapon to win the war. It was carefully rationed on the home front, while being used with reckless abandon in the treatment battle wounds and venereal diseases on the battlefield. Penicillin was described as a miracle drug that would be able to cure everyone, when in reality it was only being used to benefit the military and the American war effort, at the expense of civilian lives.

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