European History Commons^™

Gurkha Soldiers As An Intercultural Moment On The European Battlefields Of The Great War, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article analyzes the role of the Gurkhas during the First World War to explain the intercultural contacts as they were created by the multi-ethnicity of the troops that were recruited for the Great War throughout the British Empire.

On The Fields Of Glory: A Student’S Reflections On Gettysburg, The Western Front, And Normandy, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

I’m very fortunate to have had no shortage of opportunities to get out into the field and put my classroom learning into practice. I am especially lucky to have twice had the opportunity to travel to Europe. Two years ago, I went with my first-year seminar to explore the Western Front of World War I in France and Belgium. This year, I travelled with The Eisenhower Institute to tour the towns and beaches of Normandy where the Allies launched their invasion of Hitler’s Europe during World War II. Having experienced these notable sites of military history, and having taken a …

Learning The Fighting Game: Black Americans And The First World War, S. Marianne Johnson

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

The experience of African American veterans of the First World War is most often cast through the bloody lens of the Red Summer of 1919, when racial violence and lynchings reached record highs across the nation as black veterans returned from the global conflict to find Jim Crow justice firmly entrenched in a white supremacist nation. This narrative casts black veterans in a deeply ironic light, a lost generation even more cruelly mistreated than the larger mythological Lost Generation of the Great War. This narrative, however, badly abuses hindsight and clouds larger issues of black activism and organization during and …

Gettysburg Historical Journal 2015

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

No abstract provided.

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 …

Lusitania: An Examination Of Captaincy And Seamanship In The Face Of Disaster, Robert J. Goulding

Graduate Masters Theses

The last voyage of the RMS Lusitania is examined. The Cunard liner left New York for Liverpool on May 1, 1915 as the conflict in Europe began to escalate. The research separates the act of war from the actions of the ship's command and control infrastructure and the seamanship of its crew. This distinction is made under a thesis that more lives could have and should have been saved. The central question of the research was therefore: to what extent should the captain and crew of RMS Lusitania be held to account for the elevated loss of life in the …

Love Your Enemy? Reflections At The Centenary Of World War I, Denis Kaiser

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Time To Remember U.S. Rise As A World Power, Ian A. Isherwood

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

This summer marks the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. In the United States, the war has been long eclipsed by the other great conflicts straddling it - the Civil War and Second World War - and as a result has been unfairly pushed to the margins in our national memory.

My hope is that the First World War's centennial, starting this summer and ending in 2018, will be an opportunity for Americans to break out of our intellectual isolationism and discover again a conflict that not only transformed world history, but also America's place within it. …

Debating Cannae: Delbrück, Schlieffen, And The Great War, Andrew Loren Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Debating Cannae: Delbrück, Schlieffen, and the Great War provides the reader a view of the historical struggle between Alfred von Schlieffen and Hans Delbrück. They argued fiercely about the foundation of the German Empire and the use of history. The first chapter provides the context of the foundation of the German empire. The second chapter explores the debates between Schlieffen and Delbrück by investigating their writings. The third chapter surveys the effect that the Delbrück and Schlieffen culture war had upon the First World War. This work expands the current view of Schlieffen by demonstrating his commitment to his interpretation …

“To Fly Is More Fascinating Than To Read About Flying”: British R.F.C. Memoirs Of The First World War, 1918-1939, Ian A. Isherwood

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

Literature concerning aerial warfare was a new genre created by the First World War. With manned flight in its infancy, there were no significant novels or memoirs of pilots in combat before 1914. It was apparent to British publishers during the war that the new technology afforded a unique perspective on the battlefield, one that was practically made for an expanding literary marketplace. As such former Royal Flying Corps pilots created a new type of war book, one written by authors self-described as “Knights in the Air”, a literary mythology carefully constructed by pilots and publishers and propagated in the …

Call To Duty: Women And World War I, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Articles and Research

"Watching loved ones depart, uncertain if they would return—this was an experience that women around the world shared during the Great War. The continual scene of women sending men off to fight was troubling; paradoxically, it was also a familiar, traditional ritual that reinforced gender roles within western societies. "

Perceptions Of Poverty: The Evolution Of German Attitudes Towards Social Welfare From 1830 To World War I, Rebekah O'Zell Mcmillan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Today's Western European countries have the world's most extensive government Social welfare systems, beginning with Germany as the forerunner. Prior to the eventual 20th century German welfare state, Germany was not devoid of distributing aid to combat the effects of poverty. Religious and public benevolent institutions, several centuries earlier, managed local poverty, resulting in an interesting relationship between the German citizens and these charities. The willingness of these institutions to address the poverty issue opened the door for the 20th century German welfare state to emerge.

This study examines the evolution of the attitudes towards poverty in nineteenth century Germany. …

Security, Prestige, And Realpolitik : Sir Eyre Crowe And British Foreign Policy 1907-1925, Patricia Lynn Pillsworth

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Sir Eyre Crowe is known to historians primarily as the author of the 1907 Memorandum on French and German relations in which he concluded that Britain must maintain the Entente with France because Germany's aim was to gain hegemony over Europe. He was also arguably the central figure of the British Foreign Office for the first two-and-a-half decades of the twentieth century, and his career in the Foreign Office spanned forty years.

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 …

“O Freunde, Nicht Diese Töne!" First World War Beethoven Reception As Precedent For The Nazi "Cult Of Art", David B. Dennis

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Gen Ms 27 Early 20th-Century German Print Collection Finding Aid, Julie Cismoski, Kristin D. Morris

Search the General Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Description:

Printed materials acquired by the donor's father while serving in West Germany during the Cold War. The Collection contains 37 items, books and ephemeral material. Materials deal with German history from the beginning of World War I to the end of World War II. Dates span 1914 to 1983, with the bulk evenly spread between the periods of 1915-1923 and 1934-1942. The collection includes propaganda, war humor, poems, songs, and a film promotional leaflet; stories from German prisoners of war during WWI; and materials related to revolution (following World War I). The two issues of Stern magazine were published …

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 …

Graydon A. Tunstall, Blood On The Snow: The Carpathian Winter War Of 1915., Lee Eysturlid

Faculty Publications & Research

By early 1915, the Habsburg Monarchy faced a self-inflicted strategic crisis of the first magnitude. Under thecommand of the ever fallible Conrad von Hötzendorf, successive Austrian offensives against the Serbs andthe Russians in 1914 had been outright failures. In both cases, Conrad had attempted to shift between frontswith insufficient resources and succeeded only in grinding the life out of the fragile, undermanned, andunderequipped Habsburg Army. As a result, the Russians were able to lay siege to the critical Austrian fortificationof Przemyśl, which guarded the great Hungarian Plain against Russian invasion. In reaction, Conradgathered forces to relieve Przemyśl with an offensive …

Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.) - Rennes, France (Mss 312), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Collection 312. Guest book of the American YMCA kept at Rennes, France, February-August 1919. Includes soldiers' names, military units, home towns and remarks. Also includes a 1918 postcard showing typical YMCA "hut."

'Light, More Light': The 'Light' Newspaper, Spiritualism, And British Society, 1881 - 1920., Brian Glenney

All Theses

This thesis looks at the spiritualist weekly Light through Late Victorian, Edwardian, and World War I Britain. Light has never received any extended coverage or historical treatment yet it was one of the major spiritualist newspapers during this part of British history. This thesis diagrams the lives of Light's first four major editors from 1881 till the end of World War I and their views on the growth of science, God, Christ, evolution, and morality. By focusing on one major spiritualist newspaper from 1881 till 1920, this thesis attempts to bridge the gap in spiritualist historiography that marks World War …

Smith, Rhonda L. (Sc 1666), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1666. Paper titled "Death on the Rails" written by Rhonda L. Smith for a history class at Western Kentucky University. Relays the World War I story of how members of the 113th Engineer Battalion and the 138th Field Artillery, which included many Kentuckians, were killed in a rail accident in France.

The Military Career Of Ernest A. Love, Alan Roesler

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

The Prescott aviator’s 22 WW I combat missions in seven short weeks in France in 1918

Christine: The Life And Death Of A Danish American Medical Missionary In The Middle East, Jim Iversen

The Bridge

Recent world events have spawned renewed interest in the people and history of the Middle Eastern country known as Iraq. For many centuries the people and territories of what was known as Mesopotamia were part of the Ottoman Empire, which was ruled by the Sultan of Constantinople from the city now called Istanbul. Iraq did not become a separate country until the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist shortly after the "Great War," eventually called the First World War. The history of the area is complicated, but Iraq became a country essentially because the Western Allies, that is, Great Britain, France, …

Review Of "A Fraternity Of Arms: America & France In The Great War" By Robert B. Bruce., Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Articles and Research

This is a review of Robert B. Bruce's "A Fraternity of Arms: American & France in the Great War."

Review Of A Storm In Flanders: The Ypres Salient, 1914-1918: Tragedy And Triumph On The Western Front, Michael F. Russo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of "Understanding The Great War" By Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau And Annette Becker, Jennifer D. Keene

History Faculty Articles and Research

This is a review of Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker's "Understanding the Great War."

Review Of Blindfold And Alone : British Military Executions In The Great War, Michael F. Russo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Silent Night: The Remarkable 1914 Christmas Truce, Michael F. Russo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Letters From 1915 To The End Of The War, Othmar Ammann, Lilly Ammann

Swiss American Historical Society Review

My dear parents,

Tomorrow the last steamship that can bring you our Christmas greetings is leaving, so that means: hurry. Just a few words, but from the heart.

One is carried along here in the non-ending stream of business so much that one can hardly catch one's breath in order to appreciate the ideal side of life. However, with the approach of the holidays, spirits are lifted. With great excitement and wonderment, young and old await the festive days. What will Christmas bring, how will the New Year begin? This is what each one is asking himself and with thousands …

Marcus Lee Hansen: America's First Transethnic Historian, Moses Rischin

The Bridge

In a world in flux, the historian must strike a balance between change and tradition. The historian of American immigration and culture particularly sits poised on the knife's edge, seeking universal categories of analysis and understanding while immersing himself in a loving study of distinct peoples, places, and ways of life in disarray. He is the boomer engineer committed to democracy and equality, progress and growth, mobility and technology, science and medicine, individualism and freedom. But he is also the artist, priest, and guardian of culture, the admirer of fragile arts and crafts and tastes perfected over generations, of customs, …