scholarly journals Review: The Navy’s First Enlisted Women: Patriotic Pioneers

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Kristine Stilwell

That women served in every military conflict in the history of the United States is common knowledge—but that women performed duties other than nursing during the First World War may come as a surprise to some. Regina Akers, a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command, describes the service of the more than eleven thousand women that enlisted in the Naval Costal Defense Reserve during the Great War in The Navy’s First Enlisted Women: Patriotic Pioneers. She also details the meaning of their contributions to the war effort both at home and overseas. By working as clerks, typists, stenographers, translators, cryptologists, messengers, and even designers of camouflage for ships, these women volunteers freed up men for sea duty and combat.

Author(s):  
Vanda Wilcox

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.


Balcanica ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 245-259
Author(s):  
Maxim Vasiljevic

The present study gives us an opportunity to look at the Christian heritage that the Serbian immigrants brought to the new land of Americas through the examples of Mihailo Pupin and Nikolai Velimirovic, Bishop of Zica, since these two names are indelibly inscribed in the history of the so-called Serbica Americana. The paper is divided into two sections dealing specifically with their Serbianism and Americanism to show that a distribution of love and loyalty between their native and adopted country functioned in a fruitful way. Based on a detailed analysis of their writings, the author suggests that Serbians and Americans remember Pupin and Velimirovic because they enjoy the benefits of their remarkable contributions. The following aspects of Pupin?s and Nikolai?s lives are examined: their deep concern with the fate of Serbia during and after the First World War; their leading roles among the Serbs in the United States through their assistance in establishing Serbian churches and communities, through their scholarship funds, philanthropic work, etc. Their genuine care for Serbia and Serbs was in no way an obstacle in their adjustment to their adopted country.


Balcanica ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 357-390
Author(s):  
Milovan Pisarri

Since sufferings of civilian populations during the First World War in Europe, especially war crimes perpetrated against civilians, have - unlike the political and military history of the Great War - only recently become an object of scholarly interest, there still are considerable gaps in our knowledge, the Balkans being a salient example. Therefore, suggesting a methodology that involves a comparative approach, the use of all available sources, cooperation among scholars from different countries and attention to the historical background, the paper seeks to open some questions and start filling lacunae in our knowledge of the war crimes perpetrated against Serb civilians as part of the policy of Bulgarization in the portions of Serbia under Bulgarian military occupation.


Author(s):  
Amanda M. Nagel

In the midst of the long black freedom struggle, African American military participation in the First World War remains central to civil rights activism and challenges to systems of oppression in the United States. As part of a long and storied tradition of military service for a nation that marginalized and attempted to subjugate a significant portion of US citizens, African American soldiers faced challenges, racism, and segregation during the First World War simultaneously on the home front and the battlefields of France. The generations born since the end of the Civil War continually became more and more militant when resisting Jim Crow and insisting on full, not partial, citizenship in the United States, evidenced by the events in Houston in 1917. Support of the war effort within black communities in the United States was not universal, however, and some opposed participation in a war effort to “make the world safe for democracy” when that same democracy was denied to people of color. Activism by organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) challenged the War Department’s official and unofficial policy, creating avenues for a larger number of black officers in the US Army through the officers’ training camp created in Des Moines, Iowa. For African American soldiers sent to France with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), the potential for combat experience led to both failures and successes, leading to race pride as in the case of the 93rd Division’s successes, and skewed evidence for the War Department to reject increasing the number of black officers and enlisted in the case of the 92nd Division. All-black Regular Army regiments, meanwhile, either remained in the United States or were sent to the Philippines rather than the battlefields of Europe. However, soldiers’ return home was mixed, as they were both celebrated and rejected for their service, reflected in both parades welcoming them home and racial violence in the form of lynchings between December 1918 and January 1920. As a result, the interwar years and the start of World War II roughly two decades later renewed the desire to utilize military service as a way to influence US legal, social, cultural, and economic structures that limited African American citizenship.


2018 ◽  
pp. 15-51
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Conner

This chapter looks at the establishment of the ABMC and the history of American cemeteries and monuments in Europe. During the First World War, in a span of about seven months, America left more than 75,000 American soldiers dead in Europe. Torn between bringing the soldiers home and the expense of doing so, the U.S. government allowed the families to decide the fates of their fallen loved ones. Two parties arose from the controversy over whether the fallen soldiers should be brought home or left in American cemeteries abroad. The “Bring Home the Soldier Dead League” wanted the former, and the “Field of Honor Association” wanted the latter. Most of the soldiers’ bodies were shipped home to America, but in 1920-1921, eight permanent cemetery sites were designated in Europe: Suresnes, Romagne, Belleau Wood, Bony, Brookwood, Fère-en-Tardenois, Thiaucourt, and Waregem. In addition to the American cemeteries, it was also decided that American monuments would be erected in Europe. General Pershing emerged as the “chief of national remembrance” for the United States, and the first chairman of the ABMC.


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