Owen, Wilfred (1893–1918)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Beauchesne
Keyword(s):  
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ◽  
John Keats ◽  
Elizabeth Barrett Browning ◽  
Rudyard Kipling ◽  
Siegfried Sassoon ◽  
Thomas Gray ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Rupert Brooke ◽  
First World

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen (1893–1918) is among the most renowned British poets of the First World War (1914–1918). His style can best be described as elegiac or tragic, standing defiantly against the idealized or propagandistic depictions of the battlefield prevalent during the ‘Great War’s early stages. In opposition to the sentiments of Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) and Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), and more akin to those of Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1918) and Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967), Owen considered such reductive glorifications of mass slaughter ignorant, if not outright dishonest — a radical viewpoint at the time. Owen’s influences range from Dante and Shakespeare to Thomas Gray, William Collins, Percy B. Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Burns, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and especially John Keats. Owen’s poetic signature and chief innovation was his subversion of traditional rhyme schemes. He experimented with consonantal end-rhyme (or ‘pararhyme’), a technique that, along with Edmund Blunden (1896–1974), he helped popularize. Critic Sasi Bhusan Das interprets Owen’s use of this technique, in conjunction with broken rhythms, as an effort to capture ‘the disharmony of the [Great] War’ (13).

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 Russian Red Cross Society and staff replenishment of sisters of mercy on the eve of the First World War (1908–1914)

2020 ◽  
pp. 136-153
Author(s):  
Elizaveta E. Polianskaia ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Red Cross ◽  
World War ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Medical Facilities ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
Sisters Of Mercy ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

This article deals with the problem of recruiting sisters of mercy by the Russian Red Cross Society (also RRCS, Red Cross) in 1908-1914s. In case of war, Red Cross had to send sisters of mercy to its own institutions and to medical institutions of the military Department. The war ministry was developing a mobilization plan, which included a plan for the deployment of medical facilities. The ministry sent this plan to the administration of the Red Cross. In accordance with the request of the ministry, the RRCS strengthened its efforts to attract new staff of sisters of mercy. This activity led to certain results. On the eve of the war, there was a number of sisters of mercy that were required to replenish the medical institutions of the Red Cross and the military Department. That means that according to the pre-war plan, in the matter of creating a cadre of sisters of mercy, the RRCS was ready for the war. However, the Great War took on a wide scale, a situation which the army, the industry, and the medical service were not prepared for. The Russian Red Cross Society was forced to quickly open new medical institutions and to urgently train new personnel. Sometimes the duties of nurses were performed by those who did not have the necessary education.

Comment on Corner: Giolitti's Italy – Sonderweg or Well-Travelled Road?

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 296-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander De Grand
Keyword(s):  
World War ◽  
French Politics ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
Imperial Germany ◽  
The First World War ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Socialist Movement ◽  
Modern Mass ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

The idea of an Italian Sonderweg is interesting, but it is not exactly a new interpretation of the Giolittian era. Gaetano Salvemini was very clear in blaming Giolitti for distorting Italy's path to democracy. I agree with Paul Corner's cautionary remark that nothing before the First World War made fascism inevitable. Still, we should look closely at the fifteen years before the Great War, if for no other reason than the fact that the great hopes for reform that marked the period gave rise to little structural reform. Giolitti simply did not bring about the modernisation of the liberal parliamentary system. However, I have my doubts that this adds up to a Sonderweg. Nowhere on the Continent did a modern mass party of the bourgeoisie emerge before 1914. Moreover, in no country did the middle-class movement for reform develop solid links with the growing socialist movement. It is curious in this regard that Corner never mentions France. Certainly the Giolittian era resembles the post-Dreyfus period in French politics more than anything that happened in Germany. It would be interesting for Professor Corner to expand on the viability of the British Lib–Lab pact of 1906; it is implied that this was a model that worked elsewhere on the Continent (p. 286). I also find it surprising that he finds the roots of the Weimar coalition in prewar imperial Germany (p. 294).

The Italian Empire and the Great War

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanda Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Italian Experience ◽  
The First World War ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Global Status ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

The Italian Empire and the Great War brings an imperial and colonial perspective to the Italian experience of the First World War. Italy’s decision for war in 1915 built on its imperial ambitions from the late 19th century onwards and its conquest of Libya in 1911–12. The Italian empire was conceived both in conventional terms as a system of settlement or exploitation colonies under Italian sovereignty, and as an informal global empire of emigrants; both were mobilized in support of the war in 1915–18. The war was designed to bring about ‘a greater Italy’ both literally and metaphorically. In pursuit of global status, Italy endeavoured to fight a global war, sending troops to the Balkans, Russia, and the Middle East, though with limited results. Italy’s newest colony, Libya, was also a theatre of the Italian war effort, as the anti-colonial resistance there linked up with the Ottoman Empire, Germany, and Austria to undermine Italian rule. Italian race theories underpinned this expansionism: the book examines how Italian constructions of whiteness and racial superiority informed a colonial approach to military occupation in Europe as well as the conduct of its campaigns in Africa.

War Decision and Neoclassical Realism: The Entry of the Ottoman Empire into the First World War

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Balci ◽  
Tuncay Kardaş ◽  
İsmail Ediz ◽  
Yildirim Turan
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Great War ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Unit Level ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Realist Analysis ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

Why did the fracturing Ottoman Empire enter the Great War? Why did the Ottomans drag their feet for a period of three months although the alliance treaty stipulated that the Ottomans should enter the war against Russia if the latter fought with Germany? This article sets forth a neoclassical realist analysis of the war decision by the members of Ottoman foreign policy executive as the outcome of dynamic interactions between the systemic stimuli/structural modifiers and unit-level variables that occurred in a limited time frame (August to November 1914) and sequentially influenced the strategic calculus of the actors involved. It demonstrates that a changing amalgamation of systemic and unit-level factors were instrumental in the Ottoman decision to enter the Great War, the most prominent of which was the divided foreign policy executive.

The Great War and the Re-drawing of the Ottoman Empire

2019 ◽  
pp. 166-197
Author(s):  
Martin Pugh
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Great War ◽  
Full Account ◽  
The North ◽  
The First World War ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

This chapter details how, during the 14 years before the outbreak of the First World War, Britain comprehensively revised her diplomatic alignments, readjusted her military strategy, and rearranged her armed forces to meet the threat posed by the European powers. In the process, she signed an alliance with Japan and ententes with France and Russia, she concentrated her fleet in the North Sea and the Channel, and developed a plan to prevent Germany from imposing a quick defeat on France by mobilising a new British Expeditionary Force. However, there remained one flaw in all this: she had not really considered the Ottoman Empire or, indeed, the wider question of her relations with the Muslim societies in Turkey, Persia, Egypt, and especially India. This oversight was a by-product of her new strategy, which frankly made security in Europe the chief object and in effect downgraded the importance of the imperial world. As a result, Britain failed to take full account of changes in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa engendered by the Great War.

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.

scholarly journals Nikola Pasic: The Radicals and the "Black hand" challenges to parliamentary democracy in Serbia 1903-1917

Balcanica ◽  
2006 ◽  
pp. 143-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dusan Batakovic
Keyword(s):  
Rural Society ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

Given that the issue of the functioning of parliamentary democracy in Serbia 1903-1914 has not been thoroughly explored, an attempt is made to define the capacities of Serbia?s parliamentary system confronted with military interferences in political processes. The paper looks at the conflict between the democratic forces, led by the Prime Minister Nikola Pasic and his Radicals, and a group of conspirators within the army, which in 1911 formed a clandestine society "Unification or Death" (Black Hand), led by D. Dimitrijevic Apis. Political influence of the army significantly increased with the dynastic change effected in 1903. In a predominantly rural society (almost 90 percent of the population) the army took up the function of the middle class and its mission to expedite the process of national liberation. Due to unconstitutional and non-parliamentary actions of military circles the period may be described as one of fragile but functional democracy. Seeking to suppress the army's praetorian aspirations, Pasic and the Radicals took various measures to force it into its constitutional role. Sharpened during the First World War, the conflict led in 1917 to a show trial known as the Salonica Trial. The leaders of the Black Hand were sentenced to death and executed. Similar trials stood by military conspiracies in other European countries during the Great War show that democracy is always threatened in times of extreme crisis such as war. In that sense, Pasic may have deemed the extreme measures against the Black Hand necessary for the preservation of the democratic system established in 1903.

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