WAR, MONEY, MERCY: ARMY AND UNIONS OF LANDS AND CITIES IN THE YEARS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

В историографии Февральской революции продолжает господствовать политизированный подход в освещении деятельности общественных организаций помощи больным и раненым, используется узкая база, привлекаемые источники страдают односторонностью. Автор предлагает отказаться от политизированности при решении данной проблемы и рассмотреть этот вопрос в свете особенностей Первой мировой войны, как тотальной, требовавшей значительного участия общественности в мобилизации тыла. В настоящей работе используются новые архивные материалы, которые позволяют поновому, максимально объективно рассмотреть ряд вопросов. Настоящая статья имеет целью выявление причин обращения армии за помощью к Всероссийским союзам земств и городов, выявление основных аспектов плана эвакуации, места в нем общественных организаций, вопросов сотрудничества на фронте и в тылу армии и общественности. В работе приводятся данные о финансировании, его структуре, объемах помощи, ее эффективности со стороны союзов земств и городов, их вклад в решение деловых вопросов в сфере санитарного обеспечения армии и населения, а также вопросы нарушений в организации этой деятельности. Автор фокусирует внимание на вынужденности для армии использовать работу союзов земств и городов, как самых крупных инициативных помощников в военной мобилизации общества. Но это же поставило армию перед необходимостью защищать деятельность союзов от нападок консервативных сил в правительстве, даже несмотря на нарушения в деятельности общественных организаций. In the historiography of the February Revolution the politicized approach to the coverage of the activity of public organizations for the help to the sick and wounded continues to dominate, a narrow base is used, and the sources used suffer from onesidedness. The author proposes to abandon politicization in tackling this problem and to consider this question in the light of the peculiarities of the World War I as a total war, which demanded considerable public participation in the mobilization of the home front. This paper uses new archival materials, which allow a new, most objective examination of a number of issues. The present article is aimed at revealing the reasons of the army's request for help to the All-Russian unions of zemstvos and cities, revealing the main aspects of the evacuation plan, the place of public organizations in it, the issues of cooperation at the front and in the rear of the army and the public. The work provides data on financing, its structure, scope of assistance, its efficiency on the part of zemstvos and towns unions, their contribution to solving business questions in the field of sanitary provision of the army and population, as well as the questions of violations in the organization of this activity. The author focuses on the necessity for the army to use the work of zemstvo and city unions as the largest proactive helpers in the military mobilization of society. But this also put the army in the position of having to defend the activities of the unions against the attacks of conservative forces in the government, even in spite of the irregularities in the activities of public organizations.

Military Service and Canadian Army Suicides of the Second World War, 1939–44

Over 230 Canadian Army soldiers took their own lives during the Second World War. For many, soldiering seems to have exacerbated stresses and depressions. Their suicide notes and the testimony of family, officers, and bunkmates reveal that wartime disturbance was an important section of the complex array of reasons why. In attempts to explain the motivations for their tragic final actions, the instabilities brought by the Second World War and the stresses of military mobilization must be added to the many biological, social, psychological and circumstantial factors revealed by the proceedings of courts of inquiry. Major military risk factors include: access to firearms, suppression of individual agency, and disruption of the protective networks of friends and family. Some Canadians had a difficult time adjusting to military discipline and authority and were frustrated by their inability to succeed by the measures set by the army. Suicide motivations are complex and it may be too simplistic to say that the Second World War caused these deaths, however, it is not too far to say that the war was a factor in their final motivations. Some men, due to the social pressures and constructs of masculine duty, signed up for active service despite previously existing conditions which should have excused them. Revisiting these traumas can expose the difficulties that some Canadians experienced during mobilization for total war. Many brought deep personal pain with them as they entered military service and for some, the disruptions, frustrations, and anxieties of life in khaki were too great to bear. Like their better-known colleagues who died on the battlefield, they too are casualties of the Second World War.

Population of the Volga German Republic: Life and labour in June – September 1941 (for the 80th anniversary of the events)

The author of the article examines the changes that occurred in the life and work of the population of the Volga German Republic under the state of emergency caused by the outbreak of the war. The article examines the transformation of the state’s policy towards the Volga German: from emphasized loyalty to deaf hostility and their eviction from the region. Special attention is paid to the reaction of the Volga German population to the beginning of the war, the participation of the population in activities caused by the war: military mobilization, reception and placement of evacuated enterprises and refugees, the creation of fighter detachments and militia. The most important event that required great efforts of citizens was the harvesting of a rich harvest. The article reveals the participation of the Volga German in a counter-propaganda campaign aimed at the armed forces and the population of Germany. Due to major failures at the front as a reinsurance company in September 1941 the German population of the Volga region was evicted to Siberia and Kazakhstan.

The Military and Diplomatic Strands

At the beginning of 1915, concern mounted in Britain over the prolongation of the war, the damage to the British economy caused by uncoordinated military mobilization, and mounting evidence of strategic drift. In addition, political leaders were uneasy over the magnitude of casualties on the Western Front, and nervous at the thought of committing there the Kitchener New Armies comprised of volunteers. Prime Minister Asquith announced a full review of strategic policy to be held during first week of January 1915. Major disagreements over strategy within both army and navy high commands and much lobbying ensued. The planned strategic review was effectively aborted when the British army commander in France complained that the government was starving him of adequate resources, however, and nothing was resolved.

Democracy and the Preparation and Conduct of War

In Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine, Ned Dobos highlights several negative consequences the preparation for war has for individuals and states. But he misses what I consider perhaps the most significant consequence of military mobilization for states, especially democracies: how war and the preparation for it affect deliberative politics. While many argue that all states, including democracies, require strong militaries—and there is some evidence that long wars can build democracies and states—I focus on the other effects of militarization and war on democratic states. War and militarism are antipodal to democracy and undermine it. Their normative bases are conflicting—democracy takes force off the table, whereas force is legitimate in war. Thus, while militarism and militarization can sometimes yield liberalization and the expansion of civil rights, they are arguably more likely to undermine democratic norms and practices.

“It Will Take a Man Person with you to … Keep the Place Up”: Family, Gender, and Power in Confederate Common White Households

This article provides fresh insight on the ways in which the American Civil War challenged and destabilized understandings of familial and gendered power within the Confederate States. It is well established that the impressive extent of the Confederacy’s military mobilization significantly altered the gendered demographics and dynamics of the home front. While not rejecting this orthodox view, this article does challenge its tendency to overemphasize the extent to which the rural South was sapped of men. In doing so, it not only underscores the important roles some men, most notably those too old for military service, continued to play in ordinary households but also how this pattern unsettled familial power in terms of generation and age as well as gender. Finally, this article endeavors to excavate the more quotidian experience of Confederate common white families and, in order to do so, utilizes three microbiographies of specific households from the state of South Carolina.