Dissenting in the First World War: Henri Bourassa and Transnational Resistance to War

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-66
Author(s):  
Geoff Keelan
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
First World War ◽  
French Canadian ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
Similar Solutions ◽  
First World

This article discusses the connection between French Canadian nationalist, the journalist Henri Bourassa, and other international voices that opposed the First World War. It examines common ideas found in Bourassa’s writing and the writing of the Union of Democratic Control in Britain and the position of Pope Benedict XV about the war’s consequences, militarism and the international system. This article argues that Bourassa’s role as a Canadian dissenter must also be understood as part of a larger transnational reaction to the war that communicated similar solutions to the problems presented by the war.

scholarly journals The Memory of the First World War and the Key Problems of the French Foreign Policy during the Inter-war Period in the Reflection of the Journal “La Revue des Vivants”.

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-45
Author(s):  
Mariya K. Medvedeva
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
International System ◽  
First World War ◽  
Social Orientation ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
French Foreign Policy ◽  
War Experience ◽  
First World

The article analyses the French journal “La Revue des Vivants” (1927–1935) as a source of studying the history of the Inter-war period. This journal, created by the veterans of the First World War, who at the same time represented the French intellectual elites, presents a unique combination of their war experience and current political agenda. The author examines three main subjects that characterized the political and social orientation of this journal. Firstly, its publishers and authors were deeply influenced by the First World War and its consequences. Its experience forced them to seek a better international system, where the repeat of such conflict would be impossible. This leads to the second subject, the European integration and the frame it was supposed to set. The idea of the united Europe was connected with the third subject, the relations with Germany, which could be successful only as a part of an international organization. The analysis of all these subjects brings a contradictory conclusion: despite all progressive and forward-thinking ideas of this journal, its publishers and authors failed to understand some important tendencies of their time (for example, the nature and the origins of the national socialism). However, this conclusion only confirms the nature of the Inter-war period as a time of many different ideologies and ideas and opens new perspectives of its studying.

Catholic Neutrality: The Peace of Henri Bourassa

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Keelan
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
French Language ◽  
French Canadian ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Peace Initiatives ◽  
First World ◽  
Member Of Parliament

One-time Liberal Member of Parliament, Henri Bourassa (1868-1952) was also a member of the Quebec provincial legislature, French Canadian nationalist and editor of Le Devoir from 1910 to 1932. His enduring career lasted over five decades, during which he discussed a wide range of domestic and political issues. During the First World War, historians have traditionally acknowledged his powerful domestic presence, such as over French language rights, the Conscription Crisis of 1917, or during the Easter riots of 1918. As a result, few scholars have commented on his broad-ranging and critical analyses of the international situation in Europe. This article uses Bourassa’s discussion of the various peace proposals during the war to better understand his ability to engage and understand complex international events. It examines his reaction to the German peace proposal of December 1916, President Wilson’s peace note of December 1916, Lord Lansdowne’s letter of November 1917 and the Papal peace initiatives. It concludes that although Bourassa was greatly influenced by his Catholic religious beliefs, he ultimately displayed an intelligent understanding of the war that far exceeded many other contemporary Canadian observers.

scholarly journals 2. The Emergence of the Middle East into the Modern State System

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene L. Rogan
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International System ◽  
First World War ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
World War ◽  
System P ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
First World

This chapter examines the origins and the entry of Middle East states into the international system after the First World War. Drawing on the ideas of the English School of international relations, it traces the emergence of the Middle East that saw states entering and participating in the international society. After providing a historical overview of the Arab entry to international relations, the chapter considers diplomacy under the Ottoman Empire as well as the Ottoman legacy of statehood. It then discusses plans for the partition of the Middle East during the First World War, along with the post-war settlement. It also describes the colonial framework of the Middle East that emerged from the post-war negotiations and concludes with an assessment of the Arab states’ efforts to address the Palestine crisis in 1947 and 1948.

War, Peace, and Progress: Militarism and Pacifism in Evolutionary Thought, 1898-1920

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Massie
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
International System ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Evolutionary Thought ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Evolutionary Science ◽  
Evolutionary Narratives ◽  
First World

Much of the academic literature written about the First World War has tended to revolve around questions of diplomacy, foreign policy, and the International System as it existed in Europe in the decades before the war began. To balance this, I analyze the intellectual history of evolutionary thought as it applied to the question of war, peace, and the alleged “pugnacity” of man before and during the war years. Many people viewed the world of international conflict through the lens of socio-biological progress and a “struggle for existence” among humans, nations, and races. By identifying three broad intellectual trends, I argue that these evolutionary narratives of the war question were diverse. Some used the language of human evolution to arguethat war was an inevitable engine of progress whereas others stressed different concepts in evolutionary science, such as cooperation, to make pacifist arguments. A third school of thought, the pessimists, argued that man was inherently warlike but that this instinct could be tamed. As the centennial anniversary of the July Crisis and the beginning of the First World War approaches, it is worth investigating the ideational “mood” of the era and the intellectual climate which allowed for such a devastating war to take place.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

2000 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 889-903 ◽  
Author(s):  
HEW STRACHAN
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
First World War ◽  
Great War ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Yale University ◽  
World War ◽  
Arms Races ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

The arming of Europe and the making of the First World War. By David G. Herrmann. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp. xiii+307. ISBN 0-691-03374-9. £29.50.Armaments and the coming of war: Europe 1904–1914. By David Stevenson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Pp. xi+463. ISBN 0-19-820208-3. £48.00.Authority, identity and the social history of the Great War. Edited by Frans Coetzee and Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee. Providence and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995. Pp. xxii+362. ISBN 1-57181-017-X. £40.Dismembering the male: men's bodies, Britain and the Great War. By Joanna Bourke. London: Reaktion Books, 1996. Pp. 336. ISBN 0-948462825. £19.95.Passchendaele: the untold story. By Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996. Pp. xv+237. ISBN 0-300-066292-9. £19.95.Battle tactics of the western front: the British army's art of attack, 1916–1918. By Paddy Griffith. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996 (paperback edition). Pp. xvi+286. ISBN 0-300-06663-5. No price given.Government and the armed forces in Britain, 1856–1990. Edited by Paul Smith. London, Hambledon Press, 1996. Pp. xviii+324. ISBN 1-85285-144-9. £35.Whether or not arms races cause wars was a historiographical preoccupation of the Cold War era. The issue was then of more than academic concern. Those opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons saw previous arms races as having destabilized the international system at best and as having led ineluctably to war at worst. Their critics countered that arms races possessed the capacity to increase terror and so promote more effective deterrence.

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