Separating the Surgical and Commercial: Space, Prosthetics and the First World War

Author(s):  
Julie Anderson

The First World War witnessed an unprecedented scale of amputation. Traditionally, it has been argued that design and innovation were a direct result of the numbers of prostheses required to re-embody the many thousands of amputees from the war. This chapter argues that innovations in artificial limbs were well-established in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, there were a number of reputable companies that maintained a good trade in artificial limbs. The surgical profession and the commercial arena, while aware of each other, operated separately in two spheres. The First World War physically narrowed this division, relocating the limb fitter and the surgeon in close proximity in specialist hospitals established for amputees. Many manufacturers, including some from overseas, were required to provide the amputee servicemen with limbs, yet the relationship between the two professions was not improved. Nevertheless, the specialist hospitals staffed with experts in surgical technique and artificial limb fitting benefitted a number of patients. Focusing on Queen Mary Roehampton Hospital, this chapter explores the relationship between physical spaces and professionals, and the impact that it has on medical care in the First World War.

2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-175
Author(s):  
Jos Monballyu

Over de motieven waarom Belgische militairen tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog naar de Duitse vijand deserteerden is al veel geschreven. Volgens de Franstalige patriottische pers en literatuur van kort na de Eerste Wereldoorlog was die desertie uitsluitend te wijten aan de defaitistische ingesteldheid van de Vlaamse Frontbeweging en de talrijke aansporingen waarmee hun vier afgezanten naar de Duitsers (Jules Charpentier, Karel De Schaepdrijver, Vital Haesaert en Carlos Van Sante) de Vlaamse soldaten aan het IJzerfront bestookten. De Vlaamse historici probeerden die beschuldiging op allerlei manieren te weerleggen of schoven de verantwoordelijkheid voor die desertie in de schoenen van Antoon Pira en zijn Algemeen Vlaamsch Democratische Verbond. Geen enkele historicus ging daarbij na wat de deserteurs zelf over hun desertie naar de vijand te vertellen hadden. Dit deden zij nochtans uitvoerig tijdens de verschillende gerechtelijke ondervragingen waaraan zij na de oorlog werden onderworpen wanneer zij konden worden aangehouden. Het feit dat zij daarbij al strafbaar waren van zodra zij wetens en willens deserteerden ongeacht hun eigenlijke motief, liet hen daarbij toe om dit motief vrij complexloos mee te delen. Geen enkele van de overlopers van wie het strafdossier bewaard is, gaf echter toe dat hij omwille van de Vlaamse kwestie was overgelopen. Oorlogsmoeheid en de behoefte om zijn familieleden terug te zien waren, zoals in alle legers, de voornaamste motieven waarom zij naar de vijand deserteerden. Ook de Belgische Militaire Veiligheid en de krijgsauditeurs slaagden er trouwens niet in om een verband te leggen tussen de Vlaamse Frontbeweging en de Belgische deserties naar de vijand.________Desertion to the enemy in the Belgian front army during the First World War (part 2)Much has already been written about the reasons why Belgian soldiers deserted to the German enemy during the First World War. According to the French language patriotic press and literature dating from shortly after the First World War that desertion was exclusively due to the defeatist attitude of the Flemish Front Movement and the many exhortations with which their four representatives to the Germans (Jules Charpentier, Karel De Schaepdrijver, Vital Haesaert and Carlos Van Sante) bombarded the Flemish soldiers at the Yser Front. Flemish historians attempted in a variety of ways to refute that accusation or they shifted the responsibility for the desertion on to Antoon Pira and his Algemeen Vlaamsch Democratische Verbond (General Flemish Democratic Union). Not a single historian investigated what the deserters themselves had to say about their desertion to the enemy. However, the deserters gave extensive explanations during the detailed investigation that took place during the various judicial interrogations, to which they were submitted after the war if it was possible to arrest them. The fact that they were considered to have committed a criminal offence for having knowingly deserted whatever their actual motive, allowed them to communicate this motive without too many complexes. However, none of the defectors whose criminal records have been preserved admitted that he had defected for the sake of the Flemish Question.  As is the case in all armies, the main reasons for desertion to the enemy were war-weariness and the longing to see members of their family. The Belgian Military Security and the military auditors were not able either to establish a causal link between the Flemish Front Movement and the Belgian desertions to the enemy.


2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Pavić Pintarić

This paper investigates the translation of pejoratives referring to persons. The corpus is comprised of literary dialogues in the collection of short stories about the First World War by Miroslav Krleža. The dialogues describe the relationship between officers and soldiers. Soldiers are not well prepared for the war and are the trigger of officers’ anger. Therefore, the dialogues are rich with emotionally loaded outbursts resulting in swearwords. Swearwords relate to the intellect and skills of soldiers, and can be divided into absolute and relative pejoratives. Absolute pejoratives refer to the words that carry the negative meaning as the basis, whereas relative pejoratives are those that gain the negative meaning in a certain context. They derive from names of occupations and zoonyms. The analysis comprises the emotional embedment of swearwords, their metaphoric character and the strategies of translation from the Croatian into the German language.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 358-383
Author(s):  
Rose Spijkerman

During the First World War, many soldiers in the Belgian Army were endowed with a decoration, in order to inspire, motivate, and reward desirable conduct. The relationship between decorations and the soldier’s self-consciousness, his behaviour and his emotions, is present in every aspect of decorating, as it emphasized his self-esteem, pride, and character. By analysing the material aspects of decorations, the ceremonies surrounding their bestowal, and the textual motivation for doing so, this article explores the functions and effects of decorating, the evaluation of behaviour and self-conscious emotions by both Army Command and soldiers.


2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER N. B. ROSS

ABSTRACTAs British efforts to secure the approaches to India intensified in the closing years of the nineteenth century, expert knowledge of the states bordering the subcontinent became an increasingly sought-after commodity. Particularly high demand existed for individuals possessing first-hand experience of Qajar Persia, a state viewed by many policymakers as a vulnerable anteroom on the glacis of the Raj. Britain's two foremost Persian experts during this period were George Nathaniel Curzon and Edward Granville Browne. While Curzon epitomized the traditional gentleman amateur, Browne embodied the emerging professional scholar. Drawing on both their private papers and publications, this article analyses the relationship between these two men as well as surveys their respective views of British policy toward Iran from the late 1880s until the end of the First World War. Ultimately it contends that Curzon's knowledge of Persia proved deficient in significant ways and that Anglo-Iranian relations, at least in the aftermath of the Great War, might well have been placed on a better footing had Browne's more nuanced understanding of the country and its inhabitants prevailed within the foreign policymaking establishment.


Author(s):  
Roger Smith

When the German poet Ernst Lissauer published his anti-English poem “Haßgesang gegen England” in the early weeks of the First World War, the effect was electric. The poem, translated into English and dubbed the “Hymn of Hate,” echoed around the globe, reaching as far as New Zealand where newspapers sedulously followed its international reception and published local responses. Given the nature of New Zealand’s relationship to Britain and the strength of the international press links, it is not surprising that news of the poem reached New Zealand in the early months of the war. However, the sheer volume of coverage given to a single German war poem in New Zealand’s press over the course of the war and after, as well as the many and varied responses to that poem by New Zealanders both at home and serving overseas, are surprising. This article examines the broad range of responses to Lissauer’s now forgotten poem by New Zealanders during the Great War and after, from newspaper reports, editorials and cartoons, to poetic parodies, parliamentary speeches, enterprising musical performances and publications, and even seasonal greeting cards.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 557-559
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson

Jonathan Evershed presents a compelling account of the clear dangers that lie in forms of state-led remembrance. The danger is, of course, that, in commemorating, actual experience is lost. While I do not wish to challenge any of the core claims in the piece, I do think that there is one element that requires greater examination: Evershed’s claim that contemporary Irish conceptions of the First World War as ‘A war that stopped a war’ ‘contributes to a (post)colonial and militaristic nostalgia in British political culture’. While the dangers of that for Northern Ireland are clear, perhaps the greatest risks lie in England, since any such benign account of the conflict serves radically to distort the experience of those soldiers commonly regarded as identifying as British and painted as being motivated by patriotism. Drawing on experience from Tyneside, I argue that, in considering the nature of that conflict, we must remember the many diverse, and often banal, reasons for working class engagement in conflict.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-365
Author(s):  
Tatiana A. Ponomareva

The article deals with the traditions of N.V. Gogol in the prose of S.A. Klychkov. The absence of generalizing works that examine the work of Novokrestyansk writers in the context of the traditions of Russian classics, determines the relevance of the topic. The purpose of the work is to identify and analyze common images and motifs in the prose of Gogol and Klychkov. The task of the research is to find out what caused the creative interchange of these writers. In the works of both writers presented the motive of Russian heroism and Russian force. But in S. Klychkov's novel “Sugar German”, the events of which take place in the First World War, the motive of heroism is transformed into the motive of the death of the Russian people. The iron “German civilization” not only destroys the natural utopia, but also morally cripples the person, makes him the servant of the devil. The image of the “the deceptive city”, which is ruled by the devil, in prose of S.A. Klychkov is projected onto the “Saint Petersburg stories” by N.V. Gogol. In “Sugar German” there are plot rolls with “Nevsky Prospect”. Material for comparison is the theme of the relationship between man and the devil in the works of Gogol and Klychkov. The results of the research show that in S.A. Klychkov's prose there are typological convergences with the works of N.V. Gogol, conditioned by conceptual ideas about the Russian national character, the fate of the people and Russia, as well as a conscious orientation to Gogol's poetics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Ulla Åkerström

This paper aims to explore how the Swedish writer Ellen Key’s ideas on collective motherliness and on the relationship between man and woman were received and reformulated in the articles, poetry and prose of Sibilla Aleramo and Ada Negri before and after the First World War. The ideas in Aleramo’s autobiographical novel Una donna (1906) were close to Key’s theories, but her autobiographical novel Il passaggio (1919) was quite different. Ada Negri’s idealistic view of motherhood, as expressed in her collection of poetry Maternità (1904), corresponded to parts of Key’s conception of motherhood, while Negri’s dream of single motherhood and the realisation of that ideal is emphasized in her autobiographical novel Stella mattutina (1921).


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 1401-1405
Author(s):  
Oliver Cackov

In this paper the battle of Krivolak is presented as an example of a senseless human tragedy that took place during the First World War and took place in central Macedonia. This battle showed all the nonsense, absurdity and futile tragedy of the participants in it. It outlines the schedule and military operations of the Bulgarian and French troops, enriched with geographical and topographical data. Also it points to the unbearable position in which soldiers from both sides found themselves, the cruel discipline and the specific and psychologically condition of the long-suffering in the shades. In the paper there is also a point about the complete eviction of the surrounding villages, some of which were completely destroyed. During this period the population was not spared not only by the military events but also by the many diseases that mercilessly decimated it. The subject refers only to one episode of the war in this part of the Macedonian front which I think will turn it around the attention.


2020 ◽  

The volume collects eight essays on Italian politics, economics, law and culture during Fascism. Several of the writings highlight the role played by important personalities, some attached to the regime, such as Guido Jung or Alberto Beneduce, some at the opposition, as Luigi Sturzo and Alcide De Gasperi. Other essays focus on the relationship between fascism and scholars of law as Costantino Mortati and Vezio Crisafulli, or economists such as Vilfredo Pareto and Maffeo Pantaleoni. Lastly, three writings deal, respectively, with the dissolution of the Masonic lodges in 1925, the extension of the legal institute of self defense to the protection of property, and, finally, the problems incurred by Italy between the 1920s and 1930s in repaying the debts contracted during the First World War.


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