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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 …