scholarly journals Neutral Spectators from a Distance? American Jews and the Outbreak of the First World War

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Sarah Panter
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Nation State ◽  
American Jews ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Eastern Front ◽  
American Jewry ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

As the First World War broke out in 1914, American Jews seemed far away from the upheaval in Europe. Yet their role as neutral spectators from the distance was questioned right from the outset because of their diverse transcultural entanglements with Europe. Seen from a specific Jewish perspective, the war bore the potential of becoming a fratricidal war. In particular at the Eastern front it was a likely scenario that Jewish soldiers fighting on either side would have to face each other in battle. For Jews, depending on how one defined Jewishness, could be regarded as citizens of a particular nation-state or multi-ethnic empire, as members of a transnational religious community or as members of an ethnic-national diaspora community. Against this background, this article attempts to shed fresh light on the still under-researched topic of American Jewish responses to the outbreak of the First World War. Although American Jewry in 1914 was made up of Jews with different socio-cultural backgrounds, they were often regarded as being pro-German. The war’s impact and the pressures of conformity associated with these contested loyalties for American Jews did therefore not just unfold in and after 1917, but, as this article emphasizes, already in 1914.

Military casualties and exchange rates during the First World War: did the Eastern Front matter?

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 1312-1334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Duarte ◽  
Marcel Freidinger ◽  
Andreas Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rates ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Eastern Front ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

On the Terrible War of 5675

2012 ◽  
pp. 299-309
Author(s):  
George (Gedaliah) Silverstone
Keyword(s):  
Jewish People ◽  
First World War ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Eastern Front ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Masses ◽  
First World

This chapter studies an early example of a sermon which focuses more on the toll taken by the First World War on the masses of Jewish civilians living on the contested territories of the Eastern Front rather than on the implications of the war for the general values of culture and civilization. Here the sermon of George (Gedaliah) Silverstone does not underline the patriotism of Jews towards all the countries where they lived, but rather emphasizes the underlying unity of the Jewish people, and the sometimes painful tension between that unity and such patriotism. The preacher introduces it by speaking of the reaction of his listeners to the story they have read ‘in the newspapers’, apparently within the past few days. In addition to narratives drawn from the contemporary newspapers, there are two other major components of the sermon's message, drawn from traditional Jewish literature. The source provides hope for a providential, redemptive dénouement to the bloodshed, in the traditional homiletical style.

The East’s Eastern Front: The Ottoman–Russian Clash in the Great War and Its Legacies

2019 ◽  
pp. 096834451982733
Author(s):  
Michael A. Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Eastern Front ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

This article provides an overview of the neglected Caucasian front of the First World War and explores its impact on the overall course of the war and its legacy for the Middle East and Eurasia. By unexpectedly prolonging hostilities and leading the Russian empire to overextend itself, the conflict with the Ottoman empire contributed critically to Russia’s revolutionary crisis and collapse and thereby altered decisively the fate of the Middle East and Eurasia. The article places the Ottoman–Russian conflict in the context of the relentless growth of Western European military and economic might from the eighteenth century onward.

V. Moltke-Conrad: Relations between the Austro-Hungarian and German General Staffs, 1909–14

1966 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Stone
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Winston Churchill ◽  
Eastern Front ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Military ◽  
First World

The Eastern Front of the First World War remains, as Winston Churchill called his book on it, ‘The Unknown War’. Whereas in the West, politics were dominated by the military events, the reverse happened in the East: the gigantic struggles which took place from the Baltic to the Black Sea now seem to have been but a prelude to the Revolution in Russia and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There has been little interest in the military aspects of the Eastern conflict.

scholarly journals Изменение мировоззрения российских меннонитов и разрушение их сообщества

2021 ◽  
pp. 72-80
Author(s):  
Елена Евгеньевна Ходченко
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
First World War ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
World War ◽  
Short Period ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

The article raises the problems of the Mennonite community's reflection on the reforms in Russian Empire as well as the modernization of social, political and economic environment in 1861–1914, during the First World War, the recurring power changes and political anarchy in Ukraine during the Civil War. The author examines the Mennonites' attempts to adjust the changes in reality, the cause-and-effect relationships of arising social crisis which ultimately led to the destruction of the ethnoreligious community's canonical foundations. The research bases on the testimonies of the eyewitnesses (given in their diaries), memoirs and other published materials. The author examines the gradual deviation processes among the Mennonite society that were transforming the fundamental statements of the congregations’ doctrine and their moral norms and traditions. It is analyzed whether the Russian-Ukrainian Mennonites remained an ethno-religious conglomerate or lost their inherent values. As a result it has been proved the following: the Mennonites in Russia in a short period from the beginning of the reforms of the 1860s – 1870s to the beginning of the 20th century, went from a close-knit religious community to an opened and spiritually weakened unification. During the period of “challenges and reactions” of the First World War and the Civil War, the leaders of the community were unable to maintain the unity and cohesion, a complex of moral and ethical markers, pacifist views, social institutions, which led to a deformation of values and disorientation in further actions. Only a small part of the Mennonites society was able to organize itself and, thanks to the support of the Canadian Mennonites communities, it emigrated in 1923–1926 and thus avoided the Bolshevik regime repressions. Key words: the Mennonites, World War I, Civil War, Makhno, identity.

scholarly journals „Neutralność” Litwy podczas Bitwy Warszawskiej

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Jarosław Wołkonowski
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
First World War ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Nation State ◽  
World War ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

After the First World War, three concepts clashed in Eastern Europe: the model of the nation state, the expansion of the Bolshevik revolution implemented by Russia and the union of nation-states (Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and Latvia) according to Piłsudski resulting from the threat. Russia in the years 1920-1921 signed five peace treaties, but only the treaty with Lithuania contained secret arrangements regarding the neutrality of Lithuania in the Bolshevik-Polish war. The analysis of the source material shows that Russia used the secret provisions of the peace treaty in its plans for the expansion of bolshevism, and after the defeat of the Polish army, it was to carry out a Bolshevik coup in Lithuania. Despite the proclaimed neutrality, Lithuania turned out to be on the side of Russia in this conflict, causing additional difficulties for Polish troops in the Battle of Warsaw. The Polish victory over the Vistula impeded the expansion of Bolshevism to Europe.

scholarly journals THE ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR AT THE EASTERN FRONT: HISTORIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE AND RESEARCH PROSPECTS

2021 ◽  
pp. 5-16
Author(s):  
O. S. Nagornaia ◽  
◽  
Y. A. Golubinov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Changes ◽  
First World War ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
Ecological History ◽  
Eastern Front ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

A lacuna that clearly needs to be filled and remains among various topics of the ecological history of the First World War is the Eastern front theme. The authors of this historiographical essay attempt to analyze various papers and monographs on the ecological history of the First World War, such as works on ecological history and history of technologies, works on socio- and cultural-ecological aspects of the Great War, as well as publications on the experience of military occupation at the Eastern Front and its impact on the ecosystems of different regions. A critical analysis of the achievements and limitations of modern historiography allow the authors to emphasize thematic fields of perspective research. The authors notice that the Eastern front is still obscure and largely ignored by English-speaking scholars. The historiography includes a wide variety of thematic fields. Most of them are related to environmental changes in West European war theatre, as well as in colonial landscapes. Such a view deforms the general picture of the Great War. So, the reconstruction of the military impact on the landscapes of the Eastern front, attempts to economically organize the war space by different armies on the same territories, as well as the transformations of local population's management practice, seem to correct the idea of the universality of the Western front processes and phenomena.

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