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The Christmas Truce: Myth, Memory, And The First World War, Theresa B. Crocker
The Christmas Truce: Myth, Memory, And The First World War, Theresa B. Crocker
Theses and Dissertations--History
The 1914 Christmas truce, when enemy soldiers met, fraternized and even played football in No-Man’s-Land, is frequently used to support the popular view of the First World War as a “stupid, tragic and futile” conflict, the ultimate “bad” war. The truce, which one historian describes as “a candle lit in the darkness of Flanders,” is commonly perceived as a manifestation of the anger that soldiers felt towards the meaningless war which they had been tricked into fighting. However, contemporaneous sources show that the impromptu cease-fire was not an act of defiance, but rather arose from the professionalism of the soldiers …
"An Everlasting Service": The American And Canadian Legions Remember The First World War, 1919-1941, Mary E. Osborne
"An Everlasting Service": The American And Canadian Legions Remember The First World War, 1919-1941, Mary E. Osborne
Theses and Dissertations--History
The public tends to think of war memorials as fixed monuments, but I argue that the American and Canadian Legions served as living memorials that acknowledged veterans’ war-time service by providing service to veterans and to the public. This dissertation focuses on how Legionnaires interacted with one another and with their local communities during the interwar years to construct memories of the First World War. By analyzing local chapter records from Michigan, New York, and Ontario, Canada, this case study highlights the contrast between the organizations’ national and local activities. The local posts’ and branches’ wide range of activities complicated …
A Tender Spot: Care, Memory, And Place In Carolingian Memoria Mortuorum, Amber Suzanne Mcclure
A Tender Spot: Care, Memory, And Place In Carolingian Memoria Mortuorum, Amber Suzanne Mcclure
Theses and Dissertations--History
This thesis argues that in the Carolingian period, the rituals for the memory of the dead, or memoria mortuorum, was built on structures that utilized location, space, and architecture as devices for creating mnemonic images for remembering. It also argues for the theological significance of memoria mortuorum, which was heavily debated, and that from Augustine to the Carolingians there is a shift in approaches to the theological aspects of practices including burial ad sanctos and communal prayers. Augustine’s work left an unresolved problem: the need to reconcile the theological aspect with the mnemonic function of memory practices for the …
“A Remarkable Instance”: The Christmas Truce And Its Role In The Contemporaneous Narrative Of The First World War, Theresa Blom Crocker
“A Remarkable Instance”: The Christmas Truce And Its Role In The Contemporaneous Narrative Of The First World War, Theresa Blom Crocker
Theses and Dissertations--History
The orthodox narrative of the First World War, which maintains that the conflict was futile, unnecessary and wasteful, continues to dominate historical representations of the war. Attempts by revisionist historians to dispute this interpretation have made little impact on Britain’s collective memory of the conflict. The Christmas truce has come to represent the frustration and anger that soldiers felt towards the meaningless war they had been trapped into fighting. However, the Christmas truce, which at the time it occurred was seen as an event of minimal importance, was not an act of defiance, but one which arose from the unprecedented …