History Commons^™

Identity War: World War I Through The Lens Of Carl Schmitt And Ideology, Charles Zambito

All Theses

This thesis will examine World War I from an ideological perspective through the lens of Carl Schmitt. The Central Powers and in particular how Germany represented Romanticism,Social Darwinism,militarism,and tradition more broadly; at the same time however Germany also paradoxically represented modernism and nationalism sometimes called Reactionary Modernism as all of these ideas were the key to German unification in 1871. The Entente powers and especially France and Britain represented liberalism,empiricism,rationalism, stoicism, and internationalism. The philosophical ideas of stoicism and classicism can especially be seen in Britain where the idea of a stiff upper lip and maintaining peace and order were …

Is Humanitarian Aid Neutral? The American Ambulance Field Service And The American Red Cross, Laura Neis

Madison Historical Review

The United States did not outwardly join WWI until April of 1917. However, in the nearly three years in which the U.S. was neutral, they provided medical support to the suffering. This act has been dismissed as humanitarian charity work, and therefore not breaking with neutrality agreements, but it was actually a hotly contested act of foreign policy, and different propaganda campaigns were used to change the minds of American citizens.

Two different groups of medical volunteers show how humanitarian aid shapes perspectives on war. The American Ambulance Field Service drove ambulances for the French army on the front line, …

The Women’S Committee Of The Council Of National Defense In Maryland, 1917-1918, Savannah Scott

Honors Projects

During World War I, the United States created the Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense to organize and coordinate women’s war work. The Women’s Committee had a federalist structure of national, state, and local committees to organize the different levels of women’s societies in the country. This paper uses the Maryland Section of the Women’s Committee as a case study to argue how how the centralized organization of the Women’s Committee and its flexibility with the local committees led to more productive efforts at mobilizing women. It will expand on the formation and organization of the Maryland Women’s …

America’S Mothers: How The Mobilized Women Of Berkeley Harnessed The Power Of Women To Support The Great War And Challenge The Government, Christy Gordon Baty

Graduate Review

This paper examines how middle-class and upper-class women of Berkeley, California harnessed their already-established roles as community organizers and leaders to support the United States Government and their efforts in World War I. These women used the imposed limitations of their role as domestic protector in order to change the scope of their sphere from private to public, and assert their political voice by highlighting their reciprocal relationship with the federal government. In their founding document, the Mobilized Women of Berkeley state that “All of the 151 women’s organizations of Berkeley are willing to give their sons, husbands and brothers …

Women And Violence In Revolutionary Russia, 1860-1925, Jenny R. Findsen

All Master's Theses

Russian women engaged in public violence during the late imperial and revolutionary periods in various ways and for a variety of reasons. This study examines traditional gender roles in Russia, and women’s motivations for female terrorism as well as military and police service. It establishes that women broke through patriarchal social barriers through violence, even while still embracing traditionally feminine notions of self-sacrifice for the common good. Based on primary sources such as memoirs, official policies, and newspaper articles, I argue that Russian women committed both illegal and officially sanctioned violence to achieve diverse personal, ideological, political, material, and familial …

Finding A Place For World War I In American History: 1914-2018, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"World War I has occupied an uneasy place in the American public and political consciousness.1 In the 1920s and 1930s, controversies over the war permeated the nation’s cultural and political life, influencing memorial culture and governmental policy. Interest in the war, however, waned considerably after World War II, a much larger and longer war for the United States. Despite a plethora of scholarly works examining nearly every aspect of the war, interest in the war remains limited even among academic historians. In many respects, World War I became the “forgotten war” because Americans never developed a unifying collective memory about …

The 1918 Anti-British Revolt In Najaf: Local Primary Sources Vs National And Religious Narratives, Mohammed Harba

MSU Graduate Theses

This research examines the diverse historical narratives of the 1918 Najaf Revolt against British forces during the concluding months of World War I on the Mesopotamian front. For a century, two distinguishable narratives have been developed and promoted in Iraqi literature: Pan-Arabist and religious, reflecting the objectives, motivations, and present-mindedness of two political eras in modern Iraqi history. Several local primary sources, mostly memoirs of Najafis who witnessed or participated in the revolt, have been re-surfaced and re-visited during the past twenty years. These primary sources shed new light on the established Pan-Arabist narrative or the recent religious framing of …

A Series Of Political Russian Events To Exploit And Destroy The Volga Germans, 1914-1921, Kassidy Whetstone

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Advanced Research Winner 2019:

Immigration has been controversial for centuries, as it is not always successful; the relationship between the host country and immigrants can become tense and even disastrous. This was the case for the Volga Germans in the Russian Saratov region, an immigration experiment gone wrong. It is important that the story of the Volga Germans be told, as it is suspected of being an experience of ethnic cleansing and genocide. In this project, I will investigate the Volga Germans in the Russian Saratov region, analyze the relationship between the Germans and their Russian neighbors in the early …

Occupation During And After The War (China), Lukas K. Danner

Dr. Lukas K. Danner

No abstract provided.

100 Years: The Death Of John Purroy Mitchel – New York City’S Boy Mayor, Keith J. Muchowski

Publications and Research

The blog post focuses on the life and times of John Purroy Mitchel, the mayor of New York City during the First World War. Mitchel was active in the Preparedness Movement and eventually killed in a military training exercise in July 1918, six months after leaving office.

Counter Currents: Arthur Lower, Lincoln Colcord, And Ideological Isolationism In Interwar Canada And The United States, James Spruce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a comparative study of the ideology of isolationism in interwar Canada and the United States. It proceeds with that comparison using an individual subject from each country as a case study. For Canada, the subject is the historian and social scientist Arthur R.M. Lower; for the United States, it is the journalist and fiction author Lincoln Ross Colcord. Both men are worthy of study as individual isolationists of note, but they are also appropriate for the comparison because of the similarity of their isolationist positions and due to their personal backgrounds. Through the 1930s, Colcord and Lower …

Will War's Nature Change In The Seventh Military Revolution?, F. G. Hoffman

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article examines the potential implications of the combinations of robotics, artificial intelligence, and deep learning systems on the character and nature of war. The author employs Carl von Clausewitz’s trinity concept to discuss how autonomous weapons will impact the essential elements of war. The essay argues war’s essence, as politically directed violence fraught with friction, will remain its most enduring aspect, even if more intelligent machines are involved at every level.

The Great War Then And Now: Reflections On America’S Declaration Of War, Thomas S. Potter

Student Publications

This short essay explores the many impacts of the 1917 U.S. entry to World War I on the author's hometown of Pennington, NJ, and the reaction of its residents at the time.

“No Other Agency”: Public Education (K-12) In Washington State During World War I And The Red Scare, 1917-1920, Jennifer Nicole Arleen Crooks

All Master's Theses

This paper examines the impact of World War I and the Red Scare upon public education in Washington State. Schools, expected to be the instruments of governmental policy, played an important role in the everyday lives of people on the American homefront. Although many helped in the war effort willingly, this wartime drive included both instilling nationalism and loyalty to American political and economic institutions as well as the assimilation of immigrants. While these forces existed well before World War I and the Red Scare, they strengthened and became more publicly acceptable in 1917-1920 as more people grew convinced that …

Warlord: The Political And Military Ambitions Of Nazi Germany, William R. Underhill

Senior Theses

There are so many important stories to consider when thinking about World War II. It is easy to think about the popular aspects of the war: the causes, the major figures, the battles, and, of course, the lasting consequences. Yet there are other, lesser known storylines to consider, ones that have taken a backseat to the more popular narratives of the time. It is commonly understood that Nazi Germany was evil and that they had nothing but ill intentions for the rest of Europe and the world. However, it is vital to understand that Germany’s pre-war intentions are notably different …

9 March 1916, Part I: Newton Baker Sworn In As Secretary Of War, Keith J. Muchowski

Publications and Research

This invited blog post explores the appointment of Newton D. Baker to the post of Secretary of War during the Woodrow Wilson Administration.

Nexus: The Great War's Grain Crisis And The Coming Of Prohibition In America, Keith J. Muchowski

Publications and Research

One of the most immediate reasons for the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment was the Grain Crisis of the First World War. The shortage of this food staple enabled Temperance activists to advocate for limits on the brewing of beers and malt beverages. Herbert Hoover oversaw the Commission for Relief in Belgium during this period. Prohibition became law just after the Great War.

The British Conceptualization Of Belgium, 1914, Maci Reed

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The complicated political agendas surrounding the various nations’ decisions to enter World War I have led to an ongoing debate about the war’s actual cause. This research project will investigate the effect that Germany’s invasion of Belgium had on Great Britain’s decision to enter the war. I will use the Hansard transcripts of debates in the British Parliament to investigate the extent to which the defense of Belgian neutrality was involved in the pre-war deliberations. A comparison between the transcripts from 28 June to 3 August and those from 4 August will illustrate the change, if one exists, or the …

The Intellectual Fallout From World War I, William Dean

Faculty Scholarship – History

Many books link World War II to postmodernism, but few link World War I in the same way. The author here explores the intellectual fallout from World War I as the context of the roots of post-modernism. His limited purpose in this paper is to explore one of many possible links between the unanticipated carnage of World War I, through existentialism, to the attack on meaning in history posed by postmodernism. The postmodern drive towards individual isolation and autonomy has a corrosive political impact on our world, as it does on individual well being.

One of the internal inconsistencies that …

North America, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"These demographic shifts are just one example of how considering North America as an entity during the First World War offers the alluring possibility of breaking away from the strictures of the normal nation-state approach to studying the war, presenting an opportunity to consider the war's regional and global dimensions. Uncovering the full scope of 'North America's War' requires evaluating Britain's dominant position in the global political economy, North America's contribution to the fighting, international relations within North America and how North American-based events and initiatives affected the course of the war and the peace."

Coombs Family Collection (Mss 349), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 349. Correspondence, photographs, business records and miscellaneous papers of the Coombs, Robertson and related families of Warren and Simpson counties in Kentucky and of Alabama, Texas and Tennessee. Includes correspondence, personal papers and research of Elizabeth Robertson Coombs, librarian at the Kentucky Library, Western Kentucky University. Several documents from this collection have been scanned are available for viewing by clicking on the "Additional Files" below.

Uncertain States: Repatriation And Citizenship In The Northeastern Adriatic, 1918-1921, Maura E. Hametz

History Faculty Publications

From 1918 to 1921, officials of the Italian government operating in the new Adriatic territories inherited from the Habsburg monarchy struggled to meet the needs of local populations in an atmosphere of economic dislocation, political unrest, and increasing ethnic violence. This article examines the evolution of Italian policies and practices relating to border crossings, repatriation, and citizenship in the dynamic period from Armistice to official annexation. Using archival records held in Trieste and Rome, it explores officials treatment of inhabitants of the new borderlands, migrants, and refugees in the transformation of Habsburg lands of the multi-ethnic empire to Italian provinces …

Gaetano Salvemini: A Lesson In Thought And Action, Michael Christopher Diclemente

Graduate Masters Theses

Gaetano Salvemini was one of the earliest political exiles during Fascism. Before his exile Salvemini had the reputation of being a well-respected historian and political activist. He taught history at the University of Florence, among other universities. Salvemini was known for his intelligence, detailed research and analysis, and his unflinching ideals. After his exile Salvemini spent some time in England and France. During this time he traveled to the United States for a lecture tour and later settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts to teach at Harvard University. Salvemini's main objective in his writing and lectures was to debunk the myths of …

Gaetano Salvemini: An Anti-Fascist In Cambridge, Michael Diclemente

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

Gaetano Salvemini was one of the earliest political exiles during Fascism. Before his exile Salvemini had the reputation as a well-respected historian and political activist. He taught history at the University of Florence among other universities. Salvemini was known for his intelligence, detailed research and analysis, as well as his unflinching ideals. After his exile Salvemini spent some time in England and France. During this time he traveled to the United States for a lecture tour. He returned to Europe but soon after returned to the U.S. He settled in Cambridge, MA to teach at Harvard University. Salvemini’s time at …

Fighting The Great War: Reconsidering The American Soldier Experience, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Articles and Research

Why men fight is a particularly apt question to ask about the American soldier in World War I. Unlike Europeans in 1914, Americans went to war with their eyes wide open. They had already seen the worst of industrial warfare both on the high seas when the 1915 Lusitania sinking illustrated the dangers of ocean travel and on the battlefield when the 1916 battles of the Somme and Verdun left no doubt about the staggering casualties trench warfare engendered. Nonetheless, Americans displayed a certain naive enthusiasm for war in 1917. When American soldiers arrived overseas, French soldiers noted how much …

Neither A Borrower Nor A Lender Be: America Attempts To Collect Its War Debts 1922-1934., James Chambers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During and immediately after World War I the United States lent over $10 billion to various countries to sustain their war efforts and to provide post-war relief. The United States's insistence that these loans be repaid led to sharp disagreements with its erstwhile allies as to the nature of these loans and whether they should actually be repaid.

This thesis examines the processes, and the policies upon which those processes were based, by which the United States attempted to compel the debtor nations to begin repaying their loans.

The central theme of the thesis was developed largely from primary sources, …

Art+Politics, Shannon Egan, Jenna L. Birkenshock, Hillary B. Goodall, Tessa M. Sheridan, Josiah B. Adlon, Megan E. Hilands, Emily A. Francisco, Molly E. Reynolds, Shelby P. Glass, Colleen L. Parrish, Francesca S. Debiaso

Schmucker Art Catalogs

For the exhibition Art + Politics, students worked closely with the holdings of Gettysburg College's Special Collections and College Archives to curate an exhibition in Schmucker Art Gallery that engages with issues of public policy, activism, war, propaganda, and other critical socio-political themes. Each of the students worked diligently to contextualize the objects historically, politically, and art-historically. The art and artifacts presented in this exhibition reveal how various political events and social issues have been interpreted through various visual and printed materials, including posters, pins, illustrations, song sheets, as well as a Chinese shoe for bound feet. The students' …

A Comparative Study Of America's Entries Into World War I And World War Ii., Samantha Alisha Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies events that preceded America's entries into the First and Second World Wars to discover similarities and dissimilarities. Comparing America's entries into the World Wars provides an insight into major events that influenced future ones and changed America.

Research was conducted from primary sources of Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In addition, secondary sources were used that study the events preceding America's entries into World War I and World War II. Research was also conducted on public opinion.

In World War I, German actions angered Wilson and segments of the American public, persuading Wilson to ask …

Armageddon’S Lost Lessons: Combined Arms Operations In Allenby’S Palestine Campaign, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

In September 1918, the EEF concluded its campaign in Palestine by routing the Turkish forces at the battle of Megiddo. Under command of British general Allenby, the EEF successfully executed one of the most decisive engagements in any theater of World War I. Ably employing and synchronizing infantry, cavalry, and air forces, Allenby provided future military professionals and historians with a shining illustration of the efficacy of combined arms operations. In terms of surprise, concentration, and operational balance of forces, the culmination of the Palestine campaign was a foreshadowing of the German blitzkrieg used in World War II.

Unfortunately, the …

Review Of "Harlem's Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry In World War I" By Stephen L. Harris, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Articles and Research

This is a review of Stephen L. Harris' "Harlem's Hell Fighters: The African-American 369th Infantry in World War I."