The Great War’s Shadow: New Perspectives on the First ... · “The Strange Career of Valdo B....
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Trenches on the Somme By Mary Riter Hamilton Libraries and Archives Canada Acc. No. 1988-180-38 The Great War’s Shadow: New Perspectives on the First World War Calgary and Lake Louise, Alberta 25-28 September 2014 Organized by the Department of History, Centre for Military and Strategic Studies and the History Graduate Students’ Union at the University of Calgary WWW.NP2014.CA Organizing Committee: John Ferris, William Pratt, Andrew McEwen
Transcript of The Great War’s Shadow: New Perspectives on the First ... · “The Strange Career of Valdo B....
Trenches on the Somme By Mary Riter HamiltonLibraries and Archives Canada Acc. No. 1988-180-38
The Great War’s Shadow:
New Perspectives on the First
World WarCalgary and Lake Louise, Alberta
25-28 September 2014
Organized by the Department of History, Centre for Military and Strategic Studies and the History
Graduate Students’ Union at the University of Calgary
WWW.NP2014.CA
Organizing Committee: John Ferris, William Pratt, Andrew McEwen
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THIS CONFERENCE WAS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE
GENEROUS CONTRIBUTIONS OF OUR SPONSORS
History Graduate Students' Union
Faculty of Arts – Department of History
Centre for Military and Strategic Studies
Royal Alberta United Services Institute
Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies
Association for Canadian Studies in the United StatesUniversity of Calgary President's Office
PANEL SPONSORS
The Van Horne Institute
Valour Canada
Royal Canadian Air Force Association
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EXHIBITORS
A number of exhibitors will display materials on the First World War and
military history. Conference attendees are encouraged to discover new
publications and initiatives by visiting the exhibit tables.
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
University of British Columbia Press
Wilfrid Laurier Press
Texas A&M University Press
University of Calgary Press
University of Alberta Press
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE and SPECIAL THANKS
Chairs
Professor John Ferris
Andrew McEwen
Will Pratt
Website and Registration
Stuart Barnard
Fundraising
Paula Larsson
Translation
Kim Main
Professor Francine Michaud
Administration
Nancy Pearson Mackie
Diane McInnes
Marion McSheffrey
Lori Somner
Shelley Wind
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PROGRAMME
Thursday 25 September 2014
10am-7pm Registration The Military Museums,
Calgary
6-7pm Reception The Military Museums
7-8:00 pm Keynote Address The Military Museums
Dr. Jonathan Vance, Western University
“1914-2014: The War Isn't What it Used to Be”
8:30pm Bus departs for Lake Louise The Military Museums
Advance registration necessary.
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Friday 26 September 2014
8:30-9:45am Session 1: Plenary Victoria Ballroom
Dr. Dennis Showalter, Colorado College
“Made Up As They Went Along: The Grand Strategies of
World War I”
Chair: Dr. Holger Herwig, University of Calgary
9:45-10:15am Coffee and Snacks Victoria Ballroom
10:15-11:45 pm Session 2 Chateau Lake Louise
Panel 2.1 British Operations and Intelligence Victoria Ballroom
Mark Froment, PhD Candidate, University of New Brunswick
“Looking Beyond the "Sharp End":The Centrality of the Royal
Engineers in the Innovations of the First World War”
Dr. Nikolas Gardner, Royal Military College of Canada
“A Race Against Time: British Operations in Relief of Kut-al-Amara,
January-April 1916”
Dr. Steven Wagner
“Intelligence, Secret Diplomacy, and the dynamics of British war aims
in the Middle East 1914-18”
Chair: Dr. John Ferris, University of Calgary
Panel 2.2 Popular Memory/Official Memory Pipestone A
Dr. Teresa Iacobelli, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
“Creating Memory: Commemoration, Popular Media and Evolving
Narratives of the Great War.”
Dr. Dagmar Hájková, Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Academy of
Sciences of the Czech Republik
“The First World War and Czech Experience: Creating the
Czechoslovak „official“ memory”
Dr. Robert Cupido, Mount Allison University
“The Politics of Pedagogy: The Great War in the Canadian
Classroom”
Chair: Philipp Muench, German Institute for International and Security Affairs
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Panel 2.3 Medicine in the Great War Pipestone B
Dr. Bill Hanigan, Central Mississippi Medical Center
“Touchstone for a New War: Aviation Medicine and the 'Right Stuff'
on the Western Front"
Erna Kurbegovic, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
“The Unknown Enemy: Serbia and the typhus epidemic of 1914-
1915”
Nina Bozzo, PhD Student, Western University
“Civilian Soldiers, University Overseas Medical Units, and
Community Care: A Case Study of the No. 10 Canadian Stationary
Hospital during the First World War”
Chair: Dr. Frank Stahnisch, University of Calgary
11:45am-1:00pm Lunch Victoria Ballroom
1:00-2:30pm Session 3 Chateau Lake Louise
Panel 3.1 Writing the Great War Victoria Ballroom
Dr. Kimberley Lamay, Siena College
“World War I in the Pulps: 'Fiction Cannot Ignore the Greatest
Adventure in a Man’s Life!'”
Dr. Pinaki Roy, Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University
“Erinnerungen gleichermaßen schmerzhaft: German War Poets of the
Great War” Paper presented in absence.
Sheragim Jenabzadeh, PhD Student, University of Toronto
“Iranian-German Relations during World War One The Quest for
National Independence by the Kaveh Group”
Philipp Muench, German Institute for International and Security Affairs
“On the relationship between speech, act, and action: Re-reading
German middleclass soldiers’ war letters”
Chair: Dr. Michael Neiberg, United States Army War College
Panel 3.2 Memory Pipestone B
Don Smith, PhD Candidate, University of Queensland
“Constructing an authentic and enduring family memory and identity
of those who enlisted underage in the First World War”
Jenny Wilkinson, Research Fellow, Australian Council for Educational
Research
“Perspectives on commemoration: schools in 2014”
Geoff Keelan, PhD Candidate, University of Waterloo
“Digital Commemoration and the Canadian Memory of the First
World War”
Chair: Dr. Jonathan Vance, Western University
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Panel 3.3 Biography and the Individual Pipestone B
Dr. Yves Tremblay, Directorate of History and Heritage
“A.P. Jarvis, 2nd Division A.P.M., and the occupation of the Ypres
Salient, 1915-1916.”
Ben Fischer
“James F. Carty, DSC: A Citizen-Soldier in the Great War”
Dr. David Borys, University of British Columbia
“A Tactical Solution to a Stagnant Front: Arthur Currie and the Verdun
Report”
Chair: Dr. David Marshall, University of Calgary
2:30-3pm Coffee Break Chateau Lake Louise
3pm-10pm Internment Camp Bus Tour Banff
An optional guided bus tour of internment camp sites at Castle Mountain, and
the Cave and Basin National Historic Site, Banff. Advance registration
necessary.
3pm-4:30 pm Session 4 Chateau Lake Louise
Panel 4.1 Victoria Ballroom
A Revised Perspective on the Canadian Corps’ Performance During the
First World War
Panel Sponsored by Valour Canada
Dr. Patrick Brennan, University of Calgary
“Banding Together To Smite the Boches: Personal and Working
Relationships between British and Canadian Officers in the Canadian
Corps”
Dr. Geoff Jackson, University of Calgary
“Making Armies in Wartime: A Comparative Study of the 62nd (West
Riding) and 4th Canadian Divisions on the Western Front”
Dr. Russ Benneweiss
“Dominion Dynamos: The 10th Canadian and 12th Australian
Brigades at Amiens, August 1918”
Chair: Tom Leppard, Valour Canada
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Panel 4.2 Pipestone A
Germanies at War: Divisions and Differences within the German Army,
Before, During, and After the First World War
Gavin Wiens, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto
“As a brave and honourable Soldier of both King and Kaiser: Duke
Albrecht and the Problem of Prusso-Württembergian Military
Relations before the First World War"
Marc-André Dufour, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto
“Securing Germany’s future against internal and external threats: The
war aims of the Pan-German League throughout the war”
Matt Bucholtz, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
"The Reichswehr’s Boogeyman: German Military Politics and The
Concept of the Revolutionary Volksheer, 1918-1920.”
Chair: Dr. Holger Herwig, University of Calgary
Panel 4.3 Constructing Memorials Building Memory Pipestone B
Hanna Smyth, MA Student, University of Leicester
“Mourning, Memory, and Material Culture: Colonial Commemoration
of the Missing on the Great War's Western Front"
Jennifer Zoebelein, PhD Candidate, Kansas State University
“Lest Kansas City Forget Its War Heroes:” The Liberty Memorial and
Early Post-World War I Memory Construction”
Jessica Sandy, MA Student, University of Calgary
“Names in Stone: A Connective Methodology” Paper Presented in
Absence
Dr. Brigit Farley, Washington State University
“War and remembrance on the western front: Ireland on the
landscape of commemoration, 1921-present.”
Chair: Dr. David Marshall, University of Calgary
4:45- 6:15 Session 5 Chateau Lake Louise
Panel 5.1 The Canadian Homefront Victoria Ballrom
David Gallant, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
“Imagining Armageddon: Canadian Newspapers and the Approach of
“World War,” 1914”
Dr. Christine Leppard, Historical Specialist, Calgary Stampede
“The Victory Stampede: Honouring Great War Veterans in Calgary,
1919?”
Trevor Ford, PhD Student, Wilfrid Laurier University
"An Unfamiliar War: The Canadian Militia’s Intelligence Branch in
Military District 5"
Chair: Norman Leach
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Panel 5.2 Canada: Outbreak and Denouement Pipestone A
Chris Hyland, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
“The Canadian Corp’s Long March: Logistics, Discipline and the
Occupation of the Rhineland”
Dr. Bill Stewart
“An Intolerable Burden Of Work And Responsibility:” Recasting the
Canadian Demobilization Plan, 1918-1919”
Dr. Daniel Byers, Laurentian University
“Who Really Captured Hill 145? Vimy Ridge, the 85th Battalion, and
the Battle for History, 1936-1943”
Chair: Dr. Randall Wakelam, Royal Military College of Canada
Panel 5.3 The Great War and Film Pipestone B
Dr. Peter Busch, War Studies, King’s College London
“Witnesses then and now: a critical engagement with the original
BBC interviews recorded for the 1964‘The Great War’ documentary”
Terri Crocker, PhD Candidate, University of Kentucky
"A brief window opened into a world of peace": The Christmas truce
in British documentaries, 1964-2012
Dr. Sean Kennedy, University of New Brunswick
“A Forgotten Crime Wave? Delinquent Youth in Wartime France”
Chair: Dr. Teresa Iacobelli, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
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Saturday 27 September 2014
8:30-9:45am Session 6: Chateau Lake Louise
Plenary: Eastern Front Victoria Ballroom
Dr. Evan Mawdsley, University of Glasgow
“Revolution, Civil War, and 'Long' First World War in Russia”
Chair: Dr. Paul Robinson, University of Ottawa
9:45-10:15am Coffee Break Chateau Lake Louise
10:15-11:45am Session 7 Chateau Lake Louise
Panel 7.1 The War in the Air Victoria Ballroom
Dr. Randall Wakelam, Royal Military College of Canada
“Air Power and the Great War: Learning While Doing”
Dr. Mike Bechthold, Wilfrid Laurier University
"Trench Strafing, Tactical Bombing and Isolating the Battlefield:
Raymond Collishaw, the Royal Air Force and the Battle of Amiens,
August 1918″
Major Bill March, RCAF History and Heritage
“Out of the Hangar: The Impact of Aviation on Canada, 1914-1919”
Chair: Erin Gregory, Canadian Aviation and Space Museum
Panel 7.2 Empire and War Pipestone A
Megan Smith, MA Student, New York University
“Finding Space and Meaning for the Irish Allied Soldiers of World
War I in Irish History”
Dr. Jatinder Mann, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Alberta
“A comparison of Canada and Australia’s experiences during the First
World War”
Dr. Whitney Lackenbauer, St. Jerome’s University
“Indigenous Participation in the Great War across the British and
American Empires”
Chair: Andrew McEwen, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
Panel 7.3 Death, Massacre and the Afterlife Pipestone B
Dr. Ian Germani, University of Regina
"Representations of the Soldier's Death: France, 1914-1918."
Dr. Tony Mullis, US Army Command and General Staff College
“From Lawrence to Louvain: Massacre and Memory in Total War”
Kyle Falcon, PhD Candidate, Wilfrid Laurier University
“Sights of Ghost, Sites of Memory: Haunted Landscapes of the Great
War”
Chair: Dr. Jonathan Vance, Western University
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Panel 7.4 Agnes Room
Popular Mechanics: Perceptions of Modern Warfare in Australia, Canada,
and New Zealand
Steve Marti, PhD Candidate, Western University
“Fight or Pay for an Ambulance: The Anti-Modern Modernization of
the AIF and CEF”
Jonathan Scotland, PhD Candidate, Western University
“Hagiographic history?: George Drew and the Popularity of Postwar
Aviation in Canada” Paper presented in absence.
Dr. Mark Sheftall, Auburn University
“Men, Myths and Machines: Industrialized Warfare in the First World
War Nationalist Narratives of Canada, Australia and New Zealand,
1914 – 1939”
Chair: Will Pratt, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
11:45-1:00pm Lunch Chateau Lake Louise
1:00-2:30pm Session 8 Chateau Lake Louise
Panel 8.1 Victoria Ballroom
Soldiers of the African Diaspora and the Great War: Memory, Identity,
and Transformation
Jeffrey T. Sammons, New York University
“The Strange Career of Valdo B. Schita: A Study in Shifting Identities,
Clever Deception, and Military Desperation”
Dr. John H. Morrow, Jr., University of Georgia
“African American and Senegalese Soldiers in the French Army in
World War I”
Dr. Reena Goldthree, Dartmouth College
“Fighting for a ‘Negro Democracy’: Veterans’ Activism in the
Interwar Caribbean”
Chair: Dr. Kristine Alexander, University of Lethbridge
Panel 8.2 Intelligence Pipestone A
Betsy Rohaly Smoot, Center for Cryptologic History
“Chut, J'ecoute: The AEF's Radio Section and Communications
Intelligence Collection”
Andrew H. Smoot
"Never Has Legend Reaped As Rich A Harvest: Sir Edmund Ironside,
German Radio Intelligence, and the Battle of Gumbinnen"
Tony Comer, Government Communications Headquarters
“The Invention of British Sigint, 4 August—8 November 1914”
Chair: Dr. John Ferris
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Panel 8.3 New Perspectives on Medical Care Pipestone B
Dr. Jessica Meyer, University of Leeds
“Observations of Orderlies: New perspectives on the provision of care
in the British armed forces”
Alexia Moncrieff, PhD Candidate, The University of Adelaide
“The medicalisation of Australian casualty evacuation on the Western
Front.”
Dr. Carol Acton, St Jerome’s University, University of Waterloo
“Remembering War through Medical Personnel Trauma: from private
memory to public remembrance”
Chair: Dr. Bill Hanigan, Central Mississippi Medical Center
Panel 8.4 Naval Strategy and Policy Agnes Room
Dr. Gaetano La Nave, Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Naples
“L’Orientale Regia Marina” for the Italian entry into the Great War
(1913-1915)"
Avram Lytton, PhD Student, King’s College London
“Planning Ambiguity? British Preparation for Blockade 1907-1914”
Louis Halewood , MA Student, University of Calgary
“Anglo-American Naval Co-operation during the First World War”
Beau Cleland, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
“Continuous Voyage:” The Influence of the American Civil War on
Neutral Rights and Britain’s Blockade of Germany during the First
World War”
Chair: Dr. Stephen Randall
2:30-3:00 pm Coffee Break Chateau Lake Louise
3:00-4:30 pm Session 9 Chateau Lake Louise
Panel 9.1 Logistics Victoria Ballroom
Panel sponsored by the Van Horne Institute
Marian Vlasak, PhD Candidate, Syracuse University
"Of Fodder and Fuel-- the AEF and the Other Quest for Mobility in
the Great War: A Logistical Reconsideration"
Dr. Lawrence Clifford
“Tukhachevsky on the Eastern Front 1914-1915”
Dr. Ian Brown
“Logistic and transport problems and solutions on the 'periphery'”
Chair: Andrew McEwen, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
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Panel 9.2 Women and Gender Pipestone A
Dr. Jill Frahm, Dakota County Technical College
“'To Help the Great Cause': Canadian Telephone Operators in France
during the Great War”
Dr. Lisa Todd, University of New Brunswick
“'The Inner Enemy of Sexual Promiscuity' Controlling Soldier-
Civilian Encounters in First World War Europe."
Erin Gregory, Canadian Aviation and Space Museum
“Valuable Service: Women's Work at Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd., 1917-
1918.”
Chair: Kristine Alexander, Canada Research Chair, University of Lethbridge
Panel 9.3 Pipestone B
Military Medicine and the Historiography of the First World War –
Perspectives on some Under-Represented Topics in Medical History
Dr. Heather Perry, University of North Carolina
"'Making Tax-Payers out of Charity Cases': Disabled Germans in War
and Peace"
Dr. Frank Stahnisch, University of Calgary
“Looking for Microscopic Changes in the Brain: Neurohistologists at
the War Effort of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.”
Dr. Jim Wright, University of Calgary
“Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Services in World War 1 in the
US Army Medical Corps.”
Chair: Dr. Russ Benneweiss
Panel 9.4 Transnational Transcendence Agnes Room
Mike Miller, Marine Corps History Division
“The Forgotten Front, Marines in the Caribbean and Mexico, 1914-
1918”
Dr. Sebastian Lukasik, Air Command and Staff College
“Military Service, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Great War:
Toward a Transnational Perspective”
Jonathan Weier, PhD Candidate, Western University
“Transcending the National Boundaries of Conventional Military
History: The International YMCA and the First World War”
Chair: Dr. Tony Mullis, US Army Command and General Staff College
4:30-6:30pm Reception and Keynote Victoria Ballroom
5-6pm Keynote Speech
Holger Herwig, University of Calgary
“A Drama Never Surpassed: The Marne 1914”
6:30-8:00pm Banquet Dinner Victoria Ballroom
Advance Registration Necessary
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University Press of KansasPhone (785) 864-4155 • Fax (785) 864-4586 • www.kansaspress.ku.edu
KANSAS
Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War
The Undaunted 369th Regiment and the African American Quest for Equality
Jeffrey T. Sammons and John H. Morrow, Jr. 632 pages, 40 photos, 3 maps,
Cloth $34.95, Ebook $34.95
Devil Dogs Chronicle Voices of the 4th Marine
Brigade in World War I
Edited by George B. Clark424 pages, 21 photographs, Cloth $39.95
Blood on the SnowThe Carpathian Winter War
of 1915
Graydon A. Tunstall270 pages, 20 photographs,
Cloth $39.95, Paper $22.50
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I
Glenn E. Torrey440 pages, 42 photographs, 17 maps,
Cloth $45.00, Paper $29.95, Ebook $29.95
Modern War Studies
Doughboys on the Great WarHow American Soldiers Viewed Their Military Experience
Edward A. Gutiérrez320 pages, 30 illustrations, 1 map,
Cloth $34.95, Ebook $34.95
Scarlet Fields The Combat Memoir of a World War I Medal of Honor Hero
John Lewis BarkleyIntroduction and notes by Steven Trout
Afterword by Joan Barkley Wells
288 pages, 14 photographs, Cloth $29.95,
Paper $17.95, Ebook $17.95
America’s Deadliest Battle
Meuse-Argonne, 1918
Robert H. Ferrell208 pages, 30 photographs, Paper $22.50
They Fought for the MotherlandRussia’s Women Soldiers in World War I and the Revolution
Laurie S. Stoff320 pages, 24 photographs, Cloth $34.95
17
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Sunday 28 September 2014
8:30-9:45am Session 10 Plenary Chateau Lake Louise
Dr. Michael Neiberg, United States Army War College
“If You Are in Favor of the Kaiser, Keep it to Yourself: American
Reactions to the World War, 1914.”
Chair: Dr. Dennis Showalter, Colorado College
9:45-10:15am Coffee and Snacks Chateau Lake Louise
10:15-11:45am Session 11 Chateau Lake Louise
Panel 11.1 Victoria Ballroom
The Dark Side of the Union Sacrée: Dissent about France's role in the
Great War
Dr. Norman Ingram, Concordia University
“A Not-so-Sacred Union? The Ligue des droits de l’homme and the
debate on War Origins and War Aims, 1914-1918”
Dr. Andrew Barros, Université du Québec à Montréal
“Laying the Foundation of the Union sacrée: German War Guilt and
the French Government’s Mobilization of History”
Dr. Peter Jackson, University of Glasgow
“Contending Conceptions of Peace and Security in France during the
Crisis of 1917”
Chair: Dr. John Ferris, University of Calgary
Panel 11.2 Biography and Personality Pipestone A
Dr. Paul Robinson, University of Ottawa
“Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and Popular Support for the First
World War in Russia”
Dr. David Marshall, University of Calgary
"Canada’s Best-Selling Novelist, “Ralph Connor”, Goes to War”
Andrew Avery, MA Student, East Tennessee State University
"Doubting Thomas: The Agony of T.E. Lawrence, 1916-35"
Chair: Dr. Evan Mawdsley, University of Glasgow
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Panel 11.3 Raw Materials Production Pipestone B
Joseph Zeller, PhD Candidate, University of New Brunswick
“The Limitations of Coal: How one Resource Defined the Naval
Operations of Nations During the First World War”
Michael O’Hagan, PhD Candidate, Western University
“Exploiting Old World Forests with New World Forestry: The
Canadian Forestry Corps in Britain during the First World War”
Dr. Jeremy Mouat, University of Alberta Augustana Campus
“Modern warfare rests upon a metallic basis”: The British Empire, the
German Octopus, and base metals production during the First World
War.”
Chair: Philipp Muench, German Institute for International and Security Affairs
1pm Bus Departs Lake Louise for Calgary
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ABSTRACTSCarol Acton, St. Jerome’s University, University of Waterloo.
“Remembering War through Medical Personnel Trauma: from private memory
to public remembrance”
Medical Officer George Gask recalls that ‘a ridge parallel with the Ancre [t]o
me was a via sacra along which I tried to brace myself to bear the burden of
another day. The remembrance of that path and the railway line near
Poperinghe, where I used to exercise in 1917, is burnt deep into my mind.’ The
connections Gask makes here between the psychological burden of the work,
the coping mechanism he employs, and the later memory of this time period,
point to a Great War narrative that rarely makes its way the forefront of
wartime remembering: the emotional stress and its attendant resilience that is
articulated in private accounts by those who treated the thousands of sick and
injured and watched so many of them die. Although in anticipation of the
Great War Centenary recent publication of diaries and letters by nurses
especially, are making their way into the public domain, much of the subjective
experience, particularly accounts by doctors, remains unpublished in archives.
This paper explores the relationship between these private memories and the
larger public remembrance to highlight the medical experience of war that
bears witness to the enormity of injury and death. Especially, narratives by
medical personnel that speak to their own traumatic remembering must be
included in the larger public collective remembrance.
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Andrew Avery, MA Student, East Tennessee State University.
"Doubting Thomas: The Agony of T.E. Lawrence, 1916-35"
T.E. Lawrence emerged as one of the greatest heroes of the First World War.
His exploits in the Middle East were epic and colorful, unlike the grim realities
of the Western Front. Following the Armistice Lawrence became the poster-
child of an imperial hero. This reputation was only enhanced by American
journalist Lowell Thomas, who made a motion picture about Lawrence and the
Arab revolt. Lawrence quickly became one of the most recognizable figures of
the war.
Lawrence was a deeply conflicted man, unsure of his place in war effort.
Historians have been quite taken with Lawrence and his enigmatic personality.
This paper will draw not only from Lawrence’s personal writings, but also the
historiographic record to discover the source of Lawrence’s doubts about his
mission, and perhaps if his allegiance was called into question at any time. It is
my conclusion that once Lawrence had learned of the Sykes-Picot Treaty that
doubts about his mission began to arise. Following his role in the Paris Peace
Conference his loyalties became divided, something that caused him great
personal anguish.
Many historians have called into question Lawrence’s personality,
stating that he was as much a showman as anything. The question I seek to
answer is this: was Lawrence’s doubt legitimate or merely a manifestation of
his intricate personality? My conclusion is that like many aspects of
Lawrence’s life, the truth lies somewhere in between.
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Dr. Andrew Barros, Université du Québec à Montréal.
“Laying the Foundation of the Union sacrée: German War Guilt and the French
Government’s Mobilization of History”
This paper examines the extensive campaign the French government, and in
particular its Foreign Ministry, undertook to demonstrate that it was not France
but Germany and her allies that were responsible for the conflict’s outbreak in
August 1914. These efforts extended well beyond the publication of the widely
distributed and influential Livre Jaune, a collection of official documents that
were subjected to a particularly rigorous patriotic editing. More so than any
other belligerent, France was determined to win the war over the conflict’s
origins, upon which the Union sacrée’s legitimacy rested. Over the course of
the confrontation this process escalated, notably in 1916-1917 with the creation
of the Bibliothèque et Musée de la Guerre. It was designed to serve as the
headquarters and armory for French forces fighting on the historical front.
Unlike the military operations, the French campaign was conceived to last well
into the peace, a testament to the importance this historical question had come
to have in the Third Republic’s domestic politics as well as its foreign policy.
The paper will underscore the unprecedented nature and significance of
France’s mobilization of history by briefly comparing it with the German,
British, and American efforts to harness the war responsibility question to their
respective war, and peace, efforts.
Dr. Mike Bechthold, Wilfrid Laurier University
"Trench Strafing, Tactical Bombing and Isolating the Battlefield: Raymond
Collishaw, the Royal Air Force and the Battle of Amiens, August 1918″
Nearly a century after the end of the conflict our understand of the role of air
power in the First World War is largely conditioned by the "knights of the air"
paradigm. Great aces like the Red Baron and Billy Bishop are well known for
their exploits in destroying enemy aircraft but this role was of secondary
importance to many other air power tasks. Reconnaissance and artillery
observation were vital missions fulfilled by air power but comparatively little
is known about these operations and their pilots and observers. The same is
true of battlefield air support which grew significantly in importance as the war
progressed. The Battle of Amiens, the great Allied victory of August 1918,
featured the greatest concentration of aircraft to support any land battle during
the First World War. Aircraft were tasked to fly air superiority, interdiction and
close support missions. It was the first thoroughly modern and comprehensive
application of air power on the battlefield and would set the standard for future
air operations in both the First and Second World Wars. Raymond Collishaw
was one of Canada's top aces but his role as a trench strafing specialist at the
end of the war is virtually unknown. This paper will examine the tactical
innovations applied at Amiens and the impact these innovations had on the
development of close air support in the RAF.
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Dr. Russ Benneweiss
“Dominion Dynamos: The 10th Canadian and 12th Australian Brigades at
Amiens, August 1918”
The Canadian and Australian Corps were recognizably important constituents
of the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War. The two
dominion formations undeniably factored in the defeat of the Central Powers
on the Western Front, though nationalist Canadian inclinations tend to
overstate the Canadian Corps’ contribution to Allied victory. Nevertheless, the
scope of influence possessed by the Canadian and Australian Corps was most
likely at its peak during the early stages of what became known as the ‘Last
Hundred Days’ of the First World War. This paper utilizes a transnational
comparison of the 10th Canadian and 12th Australian Brigades during the
Battle of Amiens as a means of identifying commonalities and differences
within Canadian and Australian ground combat formations during the First
World War and to continue the process of puncturing the enduring myth of
Canadian battlefield exceptionalism.
Training techniques and institutional procedures utilized by the two
dominion formations will be examined as a means of comparing Canadian and
Australian performances during the Battle of Amiens and, more broadly, the
First World War as a whole. The integral link between doctrine, training,
organization, and combat results will be evaluated within the two formations as
will the correlation between battlefield achievements and casualty rates.
Context regarding German opposition will also be provided. In addition, the
brigades’ respective ability to successfully adapt to ever-changing battlefield
situations and to the ‘friction’ and ‘fog of war’ prevalent in all combat
encounters will be compared. The comprehensive design of these comparisons
is to generate a revised and broader perspective of the First World War
experience.
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Dr. David Borys, University of British Columbia.
“A Tactical Solution to a Stagnant Front: Arthur Currie and the Verdun Report”
In January of 1917 General Arthur Currie, commanding officer 1st Canadian
Division, and a group of senior officers in the British Expeditionary Force
traveled to the Verdun battlefields and examined the French and German
operations that occurred in and around the ancient fortress town throughout the
previous year. It was French operational and tactical methods employed during
the Verdun battles that Currie analyzed and commented upon in what came to
be known as his ‘Verdun Report.’ This report comprised Currie’s fundamental
doctrinal beliefs for warfare on the western front and provided a blueprint for
operational and tactical changes within 1st Canadian Division and more
importantly throughout the Canadian Corps. These early changes and tactical
implementations would be part of an operational and doctrinal evolution that
would culminate in the Canadian Corps’ greatest period of success and its
recognition as one of the foremost fighting formations on the Western Front.
This presentation will examine the ‘Verdun report’ and highlight several
of its most important recommendations. These include attack frontage,
objective identification, adequate maps, infantry/artillery cooperation, and the
need for greater maneuverability within infantry units. After a thorough read it
becomes clear that the ‘Verdun Report’ is Currie’s most significant contribution
to the tactical evolution that occurred within the Canadian Corps in 1917.
26
Nina Bozzo, PhD Student, Western University.
“Civilian Soldiers, University Overseas Medical Units, and Community Care:
A Case Study of the No. 10 Canadian Stationary Hospital during the First
World War”
In 1914, and again in 1916, universities funded Stationary and General
Hospitals to contribute medical aid overseas, reflecting Canadian responses to
mobilization efforts, the organization of medical forces, and the changing
demands of the First World War. The hospitals relied on a collaborative effort
between university administration and faculty, volunteer organizations, and
their respective communities. Seldom integrated into the broader narrative of
the war effort, these medical units offer unique perspectives into Canadian
communities, universities and medicine during the war. The No.10 Canadian
Stationary Hospital provides a compelling case study for these overlapping
relationships. Western University provided an overseas medical unit in 1916
through collective efforts between the Board of Governors, London
communities, and volunteer organizations’ contributions of time, funds, and
soldiers to outfit the stationary hospital. Dr. Edwin Seaborn, a faculty member
of the Western University Medical Department, took on the role of
Commanding Officer for the unit, and selected surgeons and doctors affiliated
with the university and city of London to join the war effort. The paper will
argue that ties of community within London and Western University translated
to a community identity overseas in organization, commemoration, and
medical practice. However, these medial units were not without their
challenges. The doctors participating in the outfit, including Seaborn, had little
or no previous military training, and it was clear that they were doctors first
and soldiers second- a precarious identity that reflected tensions between
civilian and military medicine in a war with rapidly increasing illness, injury,
and mortality rates.
27
Matt Bucholtz, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
“The Reichswehr’s Boogeyman: German Military Politics and the Conception
of the Revolutionary Volksheer, 1918-1920”
Throughout the early revolutionary era in the Weimar Republic, the German
military leadership found itself haunted by a determined enemy that proved as
equally difficult to defeat as legions of British Tommies and French poilus. The
spectre of a revolutionary military organization, aiming to replace the remnants
of the Kaiser’s army, initially created a crisis mentality within the officer corps.
While the viability and likelihood of a revolutionary “People’s Army”
replacing the weakened Reichswehr slowly evaporated like so many of the
revolutionaries’ promises and proposals, the concept continued to haunt the
military leadership, motivating a ruthless and determined campaign to crush all
political opponents connected to the Volksheer concept. For the better part of a
year the Reichswehr commanders employed volunteer forces, or Freikorps, to
augment regular government troops to re-establish central military and political
authority, thereby securing the Reichswehr’s continued existence. Far more
than a philosophical debate concerning the future shape of Germany’s armed
forces, the “Volksheer” concept pushed the army’s leadership further into
domestic politics. “Solving” the lessons of the First World War battlefield
would have to wait, as the German Army temporarily transformed to fight a
domestic, political, and spiritual battle for its very survival.
28
Dr. Patrick Brennan, University of Calgary
“Banding Together To Smite the Boches: Personal and Working Relationships
between British and Canadian Officers in the Canadian Corps”
Despite dozens of British officers occupying senior positions within the
Canadian Corps, their roles have traditionally been downplayed or even
ignored. In part this was because most did staff work which, given the
operational emphasis in Canadian military scholarship, made them all but
invisible. More importantly, the Corp’s debt to British expertise conflicted
with the pervasive subtext of ‘Canadian exceptionalism’, whereby the Corps’
improvement was chiefly attributable to Canadians embracing their own
solutions to battlefield problems rather than British ones. Even General Byng’s
pivotal role in the Corps’ transformation was all but ignored in much of the
history. Only recently have the invaluable contributions of British officers
begun to receive a long overdue acknowledgement. But regardless of whether
the British presence was downplayed or highlighted, the universal assumption
has been that the interaction between Canadian officers and their British
counterparts (and mentors) went smoothly. Yet there has been no study to
determine how British and Canadian officers worked together or got along. At
a time when the British Army was itself desperately short of skilled staff
officers and commanders, it had no system of assigning individuals to the
Canadian Corps other than to send whoever was available. General Byng’s
famous lament when he was appointed to command the Canadians’ in May
1916 – “Why the Canadians? I don’t even know a Canadian!” - would have
resonated with most of the seconded British officers. Many had already been
rapidly promoted and so were themselves learning on the job, but now were
given the dual role of mentoring those who would replace them. British
regulars, they now found themselves in a militia army whose senior officers
were mostly Canadian born and raised, and whose professional training was
rarely military. The open-ended durations of their appointments, the
unlikelihood of promotion, and the uncertainty whether their achievements
would be noted in the BEF must have all been concerns, as would the
Canadians’ deserved reputation, at least well into 1916, for political
interference. From the Canadian officers’ perspective, the presence of British
professionals, while welcome in principle, temporarily blocked advancement
and exposed them to British ‘regular army culture’. Thus, beyond being a
necessary experiment in military professionalization, it was a socio-cultural
experiment on a grand scale. This paper will explore nature of the
relationships – professional and personal – established by (and between) these
British and Canadian officers. From the warmth and respect evinced toward
General Byng by all his Canadian subordinates from his successor Arthur
Currie on down, to the friction between the two brilliant artillery staff officers,
McNaughton and Brooke, to a near revolt by the 3rd Division’s brigadiers
against General Lipsett, it is a story of considerable goodwill and
understanding undermined at times by ego, cultural misunderstanding, and
outright dislike.
29
Dr. Ian Brown
“Logistic and transport problems and solutions on the ‘periphery’”
Transportation and logistics are at the heart of modern industrial warfare.
While problems occur at all levels of war, it is the theater level that is the
critical one for the conduct of land operations. Once war materiel arrives in a
theater, it needs to be moved, stored and distributed effectively to troops in that
theater. The more transparent this effort is to those troops the more successfully
military formations in the theater can conduct operations. The western front
dominates the literature, but the Entente and Central Powers contested on many
fronts (theaters) around the Eurasian and African landmasses during the Great
War. Many of these have been largely ignored, but from the perspective of
logistics and transportation they can be fascinating. The British and Ottoman
empires battled each other in Mesopotamia from November 1914 through the
armistice four years later. This was one of five theaters that the Ottomans
supported during the war and, furthermore, it amounted to a de facto overseas
theater for both empires. The eventual British successes came from the effort
they put into creating and maintaining the infrastructure their forces needed.
Ironically, it also came from the fact that while they had to ship everything into
Basra from overseas, the Ottomans had to ship it across the desert as they had
no rail line connecting Baghdad to Constantinople. The importance of the
Persian Gulf region means that the outcome in Mesopotamia had an impact out
of proportion to what might otherwise be considered a theater on the periphery.
30
Dr. Peter Busch, War Studies, King’s College London
“Witnesses then and now: a critical engagement with the original BBC
interviews recorded for the 1964‘The Great War’ documentary”
In February 2014 the BBC released a collection of 13 interviews with veterans
and civilians filmed in the 1960s for the documentary series ‘The Great War’.
This paper engages with this newly available source in three ways.
First, it analyses the BBC’s ‘framing’ (Goffman 1983, Entman 2003) of
the release of the more than five hours of archive footage online. The paper
argues that the BBC did not only ‘sell’ the interviews as ‘archival gems’. The
release was also framed as a BBC achievement of using modern technology to
transfer items from a forgotten archival collection to active, canonical
(Assmann 2008) remembering. Moreover, this helped cement the BBC’s place
in the telling and re-- telling of British history. ‐
Second, the paper analyses the interviews themselves. The focus will be
on their content as well as their tone and style. The aim is to tease out the main
narratives developed. Particular attention will be paid to any expressions of the
‘horror’ of war and depictions of ‘the enemy’. An attempt will be made to
determine ‘silences’, i.e. what was not articulated or avoided.
Third, the use of these interviews in the original 26-- part ‘The Great‐
War’ series will be investigated. The intention is to ascertain how the
interviews were contexualised; if, for instance, they were used ‘as evidence’ or
if they were to inject ‘personal’ and ‘emotional’ elements into the documentary.
It will also be addressed which parts of the interviews were not included in the
original series.
31
Dr. Daniel Byers, Laurentian University
“Who Really Captured Hill 145? Vimy Ridge, the 85th Battalion, and the
Battle for History, 1936-1943”
The story of the contribution of Canada's 85th Battalion to the Battle of Vimy
Ridge has become almost mythical. After other units of 4th Canadian Division
suffered heavy losses on the morning of April 9, the untested formation was
called upon to capture Hill 145, where the Vimy Memorial is now located.
When a hastily-arranged artillery barrage failed to materialize, two of its
companies attacked anyhow, seizing the high ground against withering fire.
Yet this was not the story that was being told by the Canadian Army's
Historical Section as it began to search its records of the battle in the mid-
1930s. When Harvey Crowell, the company commander who had led the
above attack, took part in the Vimy Pilgrimage in 1936, he was surprised to
discover no battalion being credited with taking the position. Only after
several years of lobbying on his part, aided by his former commanding officer,
J.L. Ralston (who was by then also the political head of the Historical Section
as its Minister of National Defence), did the Director, A.F. Duguid, come to see
the wisdom of adding the 85th's version of events to the historical record.
This paper is based on recently-discovered correspondence in the files
of J.L. Ralston. As it reminds us, the writing of history is often influenced by
factors beyond simply dispassionate professionalism. In keeping with the
conference mandate, it will offer a new historiographical perspective on an
event that has become a central part of Canadians' memory of the Great War.
32
Tony Comer, Government Communications Headquarters
“The Invention of British Sigint, 4 August—8 November 1914”
Why was there no Sigint organisation in the UK prior to the First World War?
What happened between 4 August and 8 November 1914 to allow the Frist Sea
Lord, Winston Churchill, to issue a Charter to Room 40 in which the
foundation for the national Sigint organisation can be recognised today?
Pre-1914 records show the Royal Navy’s technical interest in the
communications of other navies, but while this technical interest produced
thinking about counter-communications strategies, the fact that those thinking
were communicators themselves, aware of the limitations of the new
technology, prejudiced them against the idea that interception could be a source
of intelligence.
There had been no dedicated cryptanalytical organisation in the UK
since 1844. Some efforts were made by Fleet Paymaster Rotter of the Naval
Intelligence Division between 1910 and 1912 to collect enough information to
carry out a cryptanalytic attack on them but he was unsuccessful, and the effort
petered out. Purchase of a German codebook from an agent proved to be
fruitless as the Admiralty purchased a worthless forgery.
Because there was no way of reading the content of messages in the
first weeks of the war, those called in to study the voluminous quantities of
logs of German intercept tried other analytical techniques—sorting and
classifying—that were the first steps in what would become traffic analysis.
And the content of the first decrypts after the Magdeburg codebook showed
that decrypted messages alone would not magically produce high grade
intelligence.
Churchill’s Charter reveals that Sigint was already seen as
qualitatively different from Humint. It would require collection and analysis of
all German traffic if any intelligence would be produced, using an
understanding of the network itself to contextualise the scarps of information
being produced.
33
Beau Cleland, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
“Continuous Voyage:” The Influence of the American Civil War on Neutral
Rights and Britain’s Blockade of Germany during the First World War”
At the outset of the American Civil War, the governments of the United States
and Britain found themselves curiously juxtaposed from their usual maritime
roles as a neutral and a belligerent, respectively. In 1806 the U.S. Senate
declared that British seizure of American ships going into belligerent ports was
an “unprovoked aggression upon the property of the citizens of these United
States, a violation of their neutral rights, and an encroachment upon their
national independence.”1 During the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, however,
the United States found itself eating those words as the US Navy blockaded
Southern ports, while British vessels and shipowners were now cast into the
Americans’ usual role of aggrieved neutrals. British observers, especially in the
Foreign Office and the Admiralty, watched the Union blockade with great
interest and forethought, looking for advantage that they, as the premier
maritime power, might one day seize upon. That day came upon the outbreak
of the First World War, as they turned the doctrine of “continuous voyage,” put
forth by American prize courts during the Civil War, to their own advantage.
Developed to justify the seizure British-flagged vessels heading into
Matamoros, Mexico, and other nominally neutral ports during the Civil War,
“continuous voyage” represents one of the enduring international legal and
policy legacies of the Civil War, one which accrued directly to British
advantage in the period before the United States entered the war in 1917.
34
Dr. Lawrence Clifford
“Tukhachevsky on the Eastern Front 1914-1915”
A detailed investigation of Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky’s early World War I
experience on the front lines fighting the Austro-Hungarian forces first and
then Ludendorff’s eastern army reveals a better picture of the combat and
logistics situation on the Eastern Front. It is clear that the Imperial Russian
logistic system was beset by corruption, malfeasance and the lack of
transportation infrastructure in Western Russia. What is new is that among the
Imperial Russians’ elite guardsmen there were a number of officers at company
grade rank who performed exceedingly well. Their performance at combining
and pulling together their existing resources, including munitions, weapons,
some communications and mixing and matching units, allowed them to resist
the overwhelming prepared Germans to a much greater degree than previous
historical graphical information has suggested. According to the Schlieffen
Plan of 1904, that formed the basis for the German invasion of France and
what to do about the Russians if they joined against them. As is well known,
the Imperial Russian mobilization took a much shorter period of time than the
Schlieffen Plan expected. The Schlieffen Plan did not know the extent to which
corruption, malfeasance and lack of infrastructure would influence the total
Imperial Russian Army effort. This paper will discuss, describe and explain the
bravery, courage and superior intellectual planning delivered by company
grade officers at the outset of combat on the Eastern Front that, in the end,
caused the German Eastern Front to endure until the onset of the Bolshevik
Revolution
35
Terri Crocker, PhD Candidate, University of Kentucky
"A brief window opened into a world of peace": The Christmas truce in British
documentaries, 1964-2012
The renowned 1914 Christmas truce is an event much celebrated for its
symbolic value as a protest against the First World War. An examination of
letters and diaries written by truce participants, however, reveals that they
generally viewed the event as a welcome but temporary break from fighting
rather than an act of rebellion. This paper will examine four documentaries
featuring the holiday armistice which were shown on British television
between 1964 and 2012, assess how they reflect the evolution of the truce’s
narrative during those five decades, and demonstrate the way the truce’s altered
discourse mirrored the post-1960 narrative of the First World War.
From a brief mention in 1964’s The Great War, through Peace in No
Man’s Land (1981), Days that Shook the World: the Christmas Truce (2004)
and Find My Past (2012), documentary filmmakers have used highly selective
versions of eye-witness accounts (sometimes of dubious provenance) of the
1914 holiday cease-fire to present a monolithic version of the truce that depicts
the British and German soldiers involved – and even some military leaders – as
victims of a senseless and futile war. These documentaries created a “memory”
of the Christmas truce that is not only at odds with the recollections of those
who took part in it, but reinforces certain myths of the First World War, turning
a brief holiday for the troops involved into a shorthand for the futility of the
entire conflict.
36
Dr. Robert Cupido, Mount Allison University
“The Politics of Pedagogy: The Great War in the Canadian Classroom”
My proposed paper explores aspects of how the First World War has been
taught and commemorated in (mainly) English-Canadian elementary and high
schools since 1918. It draws on research I have undertaken in connection with
an ongoing larger project on “the Great War in the Canadian classroom.” The
project combines an historical survey of history textbooks, curriculum
documents and commemorative rituals with an analysis, based on a
questionnaire, of how New Brunswick schools will observe the centenary of
the war and in particular of certain key iconic events, such as the Battle of
Vimy Ridge. My proposal for this conference compares how the First World
War was taught in English-Canadian schools during the interwar years with its
treatment in current Social Studies and Modern History curriculum documents
and textbooks. It also explores the issue of how the war has been represented
and remembered in the so-called “hidden curriculum” of commemorative
rituals and ceremonies, especially those associated with Remembrance Day.
More broadly it analyzes the relationship between the teaching of history--in
particular the history of Canada’s wars--and the shaping of Canadian
citizenship and identity. It argues that in English-Canadian elementary and
secondary schools (most of my evidence is drawn from Ontario and New
Brunswick) the history of Canada’s participation in the First World War is,
compared with the treatment of other topics, more concerned with
commemoration and the inculcation of patriotism than with encouraging the
“critical thinking” and “active citizenship” so earnestly invoked by modern
current curriculum documents. More surprising perhaps, it claims that during
the interwar years Canadian schoolchildren were exposed to a much broader,
more ambivalent range of narratives and interpretations, reflecting a variety of
ideological perspectives--imperialist and nationalist, Christian and pacifist; and
that the positive, optimistic, nation-building interpretation (encapsulated in the
familiar claim that “Canada was born on Vimy Ridge”), which has become the
dominant orthodoxy in contemporary public discourse, only gradually evolved
since the end of the Second World War.
Public memory, the ways in which societies construct and use the past,
is, as cultural historians never tire of reminding us, shaped by the needs and
concerns of the present. The paper concludes by considering whether recent
attempts to reassert the heroic nation-building interpretation of the Great War
and to promote a narrowly patriotic approach to history teaching (abetted by
such self-appointed gatekeepers of our collective memory as the Vimy
Foundation and the Historica-Dominion Institute) is related to a shift in our
political culture that privileges traditional, conservative, arguably Anglocentric
“core values” at the expense of a more inclusive multicultural concept of
citizenship.
37
Marc-André Dufour, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto
“Securing Germany’s future against internal and external threats: The war aims
of the Pan-German League throughout the war”
During the Kaiserreich, the Pan-German League represented one of Germany’s
most extreme nationalist organizations, known for its constant urging for
conquests and expansion. Under the chairmanship of Heinrich Class, the
League repeatedly criticized the government’s foreign policy as being weak
and inadequate and attacked Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg’s position at every
opportunity. The outbreak of the First World War brought little change to this
tense relationship, despite the proclamation of the Burgfrieden in August 1914.
With the instauration of censure and a tighter control of public opinion
regarding government policies (especially in the case of the war aims), the Pan-
Germans had to adapt their strategies to promote their expansionist ambitions.
This paper will examine the war aims’ program of the League and the
means with which they tried to disseminate and publicize it throughout the war.
For the Pan-Germans, the war brought a chance to secure Germany’s position
inside Europe (and the world) by weakening their enemies and adding large
strips of territories to the German soil. In domestic politics, it was a welcome
opportunity to strengthen the health of the Volk through political, economic
and social reforms made possible by wartime necessity. If the content of their
war aims’ program remained remarkably consistent until the very end, the
means they used to promote it varied. During the first half of the war, due to
censure, they tried to stay within the limits of legality in their criticisms of the
government: they restricted themselves mainly to letters and petitions.
However, when discussion of war aims was permitted, they produced a flurry
of pamphlets and articles advocating their ideas and denigrating the
government. As the war effort was radicalizing, so were their attacks on
Bethmann Hollweg and his successors. They kept faith in their mission and
relentlessly called for major annexations, even in the face of imminent defeat.
38
Kyle Falcon, PhD Candidate, Wilfrid Laurier University
“Sights of Ghost, Sites of Memory: Haunted Landscapes of the Great War”
Historians such as Jay Winter and Tim Cook have studied examples of the
supernatural in the Great War, but it remains an undeveloped topic in the
historiography. While wartime spiritualism and some of the more famous
examples of angelic intervention have received serious study by scholars,
haunted places have not. Historian Coll Thrush however, has demonstrated that
ghost stories can be grounded in the historical context of a place. My paper
examines how place-based events associated with the First World War
(battlefields, German occupied villages, and ruins), have haunted physical and
civic landscapes. Catastrophic historical events have embedded on geography
metaphors and memories conducive to the cultural phenomenon of haunted
sites and sightings of ghosts. Using three case studies of haunted places
towards the end of the war and after, my paper demonstrates that ‘literal’
stories of haunted sites have their origin in social metaphors of a war’s
‘haunting’ memory. The grounding of paranormal stories to specific places
creates unusual sites of memory where experiences and understandings of the
war have not only been ‘preserved’ but also culturally transformed and
constructed. In the cases presented, the ghosts serve as symbols for feelings of
guilt in the case of fallen soldiers at Gallipoli, anger in the story of a doomed
German soldier who committed atrocities in Belgium, and nostalgia in
historical sites ruined by modern industrial war. These stories offer a new
means to assess the memories of the Great War and its geographic and cultural
impact.
39
Dr. Brigit Farley, Washington State University
“War and remembrance on the western front: Ireland on the landscape of
commemoration, l921-present.”
Irish commemoration of the Great War was long a one-sided affair. Protestant
northern Irish religiously commemorated the Battle of the Somme and the
heroics of the 36th Ulster Division each July from l9l7 and Remembrance Day
in November. But Catholic Irish in the north and the republic shunned such
civic remembrances. For them, the conflict mainly recalled the treatment
meted out to Ireland after the Easter Rising. As a Belfast MP memorably
declared, Ireland “kept the faith” during the war, but “faith was not kept with
her.”
With the passage of time, attitudes began to soften. In the l980s, some
Ulster Catholics joined Protestants in visits to Great War sites, as their
representatives sporadically participated in Remembrance Day activities. The
l993 publication of Michael Hall’s book, Sacrifice on the Somme, pointedly
reminded everyone that Catholic and Protestant Irish fought and died side by
side. The l998 Good Friday accords gave rise to hopes that both traditions
would come to see the Great War as a joint campaign.
While the narrative of commemoration in the country is well
documented, there is a dearth of material covering Irish memorial sites on the
western front. Accordingly, I will survey Irish monuments on the Somme and
Ypres battlefields in order to determine whether the landscape of memory in
Belgium and France reflects changing views in Ireland regarding the nature
and character of the Great War.
40
Ben Fischer
“James F. Carty, DSC: A Citizen-Soldier in the Great War”
Most histories of World War I, or any other war for that matter, take a top down
rather than bottom up approach. We see campaigns and battles through the
experience and memoirs of commanders rather than ordinary soldiers. Dennis
Winter (Death’s Men) declared, however, that “neglect of the individual soldier
and of the records he left is a pity.” My presentation will draw on an
unpublished memoir, “Hände Hoch!” (“Hands Up!”), to underscore the
contribution of one such record to the history of World War I.
The manuscript was written by Sgt. James F. Carty, my great uncle,
shortly before his premature death as a result of wartime wounds. Carty was an
intelligence officer (forward observer) in the US Army’s 26th (Yankee)
Division. Carty and a private captured forty German officers during the St.-
Mihiel offensive. The first division to reach France intact and the first to “go
into the line” against the Kaiser’s forces, the 26th was formed from state
militias in New England.
I will use Carty’s memoir to discuss the following themes:
Contribution of the American citizen-soldiers to the final phase of the
war.
Rivalry and conflict between the US Army regulars and National Guard
divisions.
Evolution of tactical intelligence and the role of forward observers in
battlefield command-and-control.
Form and content of wartime commemoration.
Abandonment and neglect of ordinary soldiers après le guerre.
41
Trevor Ford, PhD Student, Wilfrid Laurier University
"An Unfamiliar War: The Canadian Militia’s Intelligence Branch in Military
District 5"
Prior to the First World War, domestic intelligence operations in Canada were
carried out by an assortment of individuals and organizations, all fighting off
what they believed were threats to the Dominion of Canada and the British
Empire. Institutions such as the Dominion Police and the Royal North West
Mounted Police engaged Fenian rebels, anarchist nonconformists, and imperial
refugees without any clear direction from Ottawa. Once the War began,
however, this drastically changed. The Canadian Militia, along with the
Dominion Police, and the Royal North West Mounted Police engaged in a
highly coordinated manner to eliminate any known threat to the Canadian state,
or Allied war effort. It was the Militia, however, that underwent the most
drastic change in the war years. Their expansion effectively created an
intelligence organization that encompassed all of Canada. During and
immediately after the First World War, the Canadian Militia established the
Military Intelligence Branch (MIB) to conduct intelligence gathering
operations against perceived domestic threats. This organization was spread out
among the many Military Districts of Canada. In turn, each district reported to
the government in Ottawa who recognized and encouraged this new powerful
tool of the state. For The Great War’s Shadow conference, I intend to focus on
the growth and establishment of the MIB in Military District 5, which
constituted Eastern Quebec, including Quebec City. By examining this one
district, I will illustrate how the MIB rapidly grew in strength and ultimately,
how it had a lasting effect on national domestic security in the years following
the Great War.
42
Dr. Jill Frahm, Dakota County Technical College
“'To Help the Great Cause': Canadian Telephone Operators in France during
the Great War”
During World War I, gender roles and expectations shaped what wartime work
Canadian women were able to do. Although men were strongly encouraged to
join the fight, women were urged to serve in a supportive role, usually at home
in Canada. However, for thirteen women in Canada and twenty-one Canadian-
born women living in the United States, gender roles opened up a unique
opportunity to serve with the American army in France as part of the fighting
machine. When the U.S. Army put out a call for bilingual telephone operators,
Canadian women answered, both challenging and maintaining the expectations
of what a woman should do in wartime.
After the U.S. Army went to Europe in 1917, it was forced to rebuild
the French telephone system which had been shattered in three years of
fighting. While the army originally planned to use soldiers or local French
women as operators, neither group had both the language and operating skills
required for the job. In fact, because of gender expectations of the time, most
soldiers were unwilling or unable to take on this “woman’s work”. Although
filling a woman’s role as operator, these Canadian women soon became part of
the action in a war far from home. They connected vital calls during battle and
acted as interpreters during conversations between French- and English-
speaking officers!
Based on personnel records and other primary sources, this paper
examines the experiences of the Canadian telephone operators in France during
World War I and how their work both maintained and expanded existing
gender roles.
43
Mark Froment, PhD Candidate, University of New Brunswick
“Looking Beyond the "Sharp End":The Centrality of the Royal Engineers in
the Innovations of the First World War”
Over the past three decades, the “learning curve” debate has fundamentally
changed our understanding of the nature in which the First World War has been
fought. However, most of the historiography has focused on the “sharp end” of
armies, mainly the infantry and artillery. This paper argues that a focus on the
Royal Engineers(R.E.) could critically change our understanding of how the
war was fought. Using the official histories of the Institution of Royal
Engineers as a guide, it will argue for the fundamental importance they held in
maintaining and improving the fighting capabilities of the B.E.F.in general and
Canadian Corps in particular. This war was a benchmark in a long process that
saw combat units thinned in favour of expanding engineer, communication,
logistic, and support services which were essential for increasingly technical
modern armies. The R.E. was central to pioneering the early development and
staffing of many of these new services as well as being behind the refinement
of many of the key technical developments that sponsored them. The static
nature of trench warfare also gave the engineers an unprecedented importance
that arguably has not been seen since then. This affirms the significance of
their work in understanding the evolution of armies during the war. The
primary aim of this paper is to show the critical role the R.E. held in many of
the innovations of the First World War in the B.E.F. through a case study that
focuses on the Canadian Corps.
44
David Gallant, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
“Imagining Armageddon: Canadian Newspapers and the Approach of “World
War,” 1914”
Canadian newspapers, part of a transatlantic telegraphic news network,
provided extensive coverage of European affairs from the assassination of
Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28 to the declaration of war by
Great Britain on Germany on August 4. As Austro-Serbian war erupted in late
July, raising the possibility of a wider European war, Canadians, through the
ubiquitous newspaper, the central medium of the age, evoked the spectre of
Armageddon, the great conflict ushering in the end of times and the Second
Coming, to make sense of the impending calamity. On July 30, the Toronto
Daily Star feared that “Should international war come, it would mean a new
story in the history of civilization—a kind of death grapple in the darkness, a
cosmic catastrophe.” On August 3, the Edmonton Daily Bulletin, displaying
war charts echoed in many other Canadian newspapers, realized the enormity
of a war involving the world’s great powers, carrying the headline “20,000,000
Men May Fight 14,000,000 in the World’s War.” To Christian Canada,
European war meant Armageddon.
It was in this well-informed age of telegraphy, with one hundred million
newspapers in yearly circulation, that Canadians responded to the approach of
a “world’s war” in 1914. With serious, calm, patriotic, resolute and grim
determination, Canadians prepared for war, aware that the conflict could be
long and costly. Thus this paper will present a new interpretation of the
outbreak of war in Canada, challenging the orthodox view that ill-informed
Canadians, infused with “war enthusiasm,” marched innocently to war in 1914,
expecting to be “Back by Christmas.”
45
Dr. Nikolas Gardner, Royal Military College of Canada
“A Race Against Time: British Operations in Relief of Kut-al-Amara, January-
April 1916”
Historians of the Mesopotamia campaign have traditionally viewed attempts to
relieve Major-General Sir Charles Townshend’s besieged 6 Indian Division in
the town of Kut-al-Amara as exercises in futility. In response to Townshend’s
messages emphasizing the approaching depletion of his food supplies and the
fragile morale of his troops, British and Indian units were hastily despatched up
the Tigris River without adequate rations, medical supplies or even staff
officers. Most writers have concluded that these units stood little chance of
dislodging experienced Ottoman units entrenched downriver from Kut before
starvation compelled the surrender of the garrison trapped inside the town. It is
only very recently, however, that scholars have examined the war diaries of the
units involved in the relief efforts. These documents reveal a complex picture
of rapid tactical innovation occurring simultaneously with the deterioration of
morale among the units involved. This paper will examine British efforts to
relieve Kut-al-Amara during the first four months of 1916. It will demonstrate
that despite poor weather, inadequate supplies, and inexperienced officers, the
tactics employed by the relief force became increasingly sophisticated, as
commanders introduced ideas employed in other theaters. Notwithstanding
their effectiveness, however, these tactics contributed to declining morale in
the force, as both British and Indian soldiers transferred from the Western
Front reacted negatively to the relatively austere and dangerous conditions they
faced in Mesopotamia. Ultimately, collapsing morale incapacitated the relief
force before it could break through to Kut. In addition to shedding new light on
the outcome of the siege of Kut-al-Amara, this paper offers insights into the
evolution of British tactics during the First World War, particularly the way in
which ideas transferred from one theater to another. It also considers the
response of British soldiers and particularly Indian sepoys to service in
Mesopotamia.
46
Dr. Ian Germani, University of Regina
"Representations of the Soldier's Death: France, 1914-1918."
French artists and writers of the First World War, many of them soldiers
themselves, struggled with the problem of how to represent the theme of the
soldier’s death. The brutal experience of mass, industrialized killing bore little
relation to the idealized images of the soldier’s death as a glorious or ennobling
sacrifice inherited from the nineteenth century. Despite the publication of
photographs depicting the realities of death in battle, most artists shied away
from such representations. A few, however, resorted to a revived Realism to
represent the soldier\s death. A consideration of soldiers’ writings reveals a
similar reticence. Trench newspapers concentrated upon the poilu’s cheerful
and resourceful attitude toward the hardships and dangers of the front rather
than upon his experience of death. Many of them echoed the official discourse
in paying tribute to dead comrades as having died gloriously on the field of
honour. Some challenged that discourse, however, scorning the bourrage de
crâne of the patriotic press and representing the soldier’s death as both banal
and futile. Henri Barbusse’s 1916 novel, Le Feu/Under Fire was an angry
rejection of the notions that French soldiers joyfully sacrificed themselves or
that the soldier’s death could ever be beautiful. Even Barbusse’s apocalyptic
vision of war, however, conceded a redemptive value to the death of the
soldier. In the aftermath of war, novels like René Naegelen’s Les Suppliciés
(1927) and Roland Dorgelès’s Les Croix de Bois (1931) insisted upon the
soldier’s death as a symbol of the war’s futility. The sculptors of monuments
aux morts, however, generally declined to provide realistic representations of
the soldier’s death; such images offered little consolation to bereaved
communities. Images of the soldier’s death reveal the ambiguous legacy of the
First World War for twentieth century French culture.
47
Dr. Reena Goldthree, Dartmouth College
“Fighting for a ‘Negro Democracy’: Veterans’ Activism in the Interwar
Caribbean”
On May 2, 1919, Sir Leslie Probyn, Governor of Jamaica, stood on the deck of
HMS Helenus to address the first contingent of British West Indies Regiment
(BWIR) soldiers to return from World War I. Welcoming home the group of
over 1,200 enlisted men and officers, he congratulated them for demonstrating
Jamaica’s unfailing loyalty to Britain. Assuring the returning soldiers that the
colonial government appreciated their sacrifice, the governor presented an
unprecedented array of state-sponsored work, welfare, and land settlement
programs for soldiers and their families. Governor Probyn closed his brief
address by linking the fate of Jamaica to the soldiers’ postwar progress: “…I
want Jamaica to become prosperous; and I want all people, in the future, to
reckon that this prosperity began to run from the day on which Jamaica’s brave
sons came back home from the War.”
While Governor Probyn valorized BWIR troops as paragons of imperial
loyalty, Afro-Caribbean activists envisioned ex-soldiers as the vanguard of
anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles in the region. In a 1919 editorial
addressed to returning veterans, the Belize Independent declared that the
“masses throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world are
determined that Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity shall no longer be mere
catchwords; Democracy shall be no empty romance.” Even more
provocatively, Afro- Cuban activist Eduardo Morales called on BWIR veterans
to fight for an “everlasting Negro Democracy” in their home territories after
having risked their lives to secure a “White Democracy” abroad.
This paper will examine BWIR veterans’ activism between 1919 and
1920, when nearly 14,000 exsoldiers returned to the colonies after serving in
World War I and revolutionary upheavals in Europe and North America
contributed to a mood of popular militancy in the Greater Caribbean. It will
explore how BWIR veterans and their civilian allies employed the language of
democracy to articulate bold demands for equality, social citizenship, and
economic opportunity.
48
Erin Gregory, Canadian Aviation and Space Museum
“Valuable Service: Women's Work at Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd., 1917-1918.”
Women’s role in the First World War has been discussed at length over the last
40 years, examining and celebrating their efforts and contributions to the war
effort from the home front, taking up jobs that would normally have been filled
by the men fighting overseas. Women were the primary workforce in munitions
factories and in the production of uniforms, among other things, but very little
has been written on the role of women in aircraft manufacturing in Canada.
The only aircraft manufacturing company in Canada during the First World
War was Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd (CAL), run by the Aviation Division of the
Imperial Munitions Board IMB). There, women played a key role in the
production of aircraft in the covering department, sewing fabric on the
fuselages and wings of the aircraft. Interestingly, CAL seems to be one of the
few national companies under the IMB umbrella that had a strong compliment
of both men and women in its workforce. In this paper I will explore the
unique situation of the female employees of CAL, working side by side with
men on the factory floor, contributing to the manufacture of a new technology.
Interpreting existing archival and photographic materials in new ways, this
paper explores gender relations on the factory floor of CAL, filling a gap in the
existing research on aircraft manufacturing in Canada during the First World
War.
49
Dr. Dagmar Hájková, Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Academy of
Sciences of the Czech Republik
“The First World War and Czech Experience: Creating the Czechoslovak
„official“ memory”
The official memory which was created in Czechoslovakia after the break-up
of the Habsburg monarchy was unified: successful struggle of the Czechs and
Slovaks for independence during the First World War was interpreted as the
rectification of their defeat at White Mountain (1620) and the end of 300 years
suffering under Habsburg domination. The main commemorative sites of
Czechoslovakia’s national-patriotic cult during the interwar era were October
28, celebrating independence, together with July 2, commemorating the 1917
Battle of Zborov on the Eastern Front, and March 7, the birthday of Tomáš G.
Masaryk, the country’s co-founder and first president. In some cases they grew
out of wartime mythology. The skilled system of commemoration tried to
construct unit “Czechoslovak” identity, but the official memory did not include
individual living memory of the all inhabitants of the multinational state.
Despite its brief existence the First Czechoslovak Republic left behind
significant traces in the cultural memory of Czech/Czechoslovak society owing
to the elaborate commemorative system that developed between 1918 and
1938. After 1989 the official memory of the First Czechoslovak republic has
adopted the First Czechoslovak republic pattern. But the military tradition has
been changed. Celebration of the day of the battle of Zborov, now in Ukraine,
unquestionable site of Czech memory during the interwar period, was not
returned into the spectrum of national holidays. Instead it, the day when French
president Poincaré handed over the flag to the Czech legionnaires in France in
June 1918 is commemorated. Since 2001, November 11 is celebrated as a new
holiday, which was not a part of the Czech collective memory after the First
World War.
50
Louis Halewood , MA Student, University of Calgary
“Anglo-American Naval Co-operation during the First World War”
The historiography of the First World War at sea has been dominated by the
study of a single event: the Battle of Jutland (1916). Similarly, until recently
the study of the war has focused on the Western Front at the expense of other
theatres. However, in recent years scholars such as Hew Strachan have aimed
to broaden our historical perspective by viewing the war in its true global
context. My study of Anglo-American naval co-operation through 1917-18
seeks to expand the field of naval history by shedding light on an understudied
yet significant aspect of the First World War.
Specifically, I seek to shift focus away from the North Sea to the critical
First Battle of the Atlantic, and the naval campaign against the Central Powers
in the Mediterranean. In both theatres American and British naval forces co-
operated together in order to overcome their mutual enemy and achieve
victory, ensuring Britain was not throttled and their superiority at sea remained
in tact. However, beyond establishing the mere form of collaboration, my paper
will explore how and why two maritime powers which had endured tense
relations between 1914-16 co-operated so effectively in 1917-18, only for
relations to cool dramatically following the conclusion of hostilities – largely
due to disputes over freedom of the seas. In doing so, I will demonstrate that
this co-operation was not the result of mythological 'Anglo-Saxon
brotherhood', but rather the product of the exigency of the situation.
51
Dr. Bill Hanigan, Central Mississippi Medical Center
“Touchstone for a New War: Aviation Medicine and the 'Right Stuff' on the
Western Front"
Even before the war the stress on aviators was enormous. As early as 1911
risks associated with the “intense nervous strain” of flying had been noted as
well as the possibility of “psychical” training for students. In 1912 the British
discontinued monoplanes after the wings kept falling off during flight. By
1913, 12 American officers and an enlisted man out of 22 licensed pilots died
in crashes; 14 of 42 fatal accidents in Germany were military pilots.
Nevertheless volunteers enthusiastically stepped up. Men were selected for
training who were “keen on motoring […], riding, hunting or exciting sports
with an element of danger.” These were aviators with the “Right Stuff”. This
talk will argue that the recognition and protection of this indefinable quality
was critical to the development of aviation medicine during World War 1.
Originally described in student pilots in 1915, medical officers (MOs)
rarely compared the aviator’s “aerosthenia” with its loss of confidence, anxiety,
and insomnia to the infantry’s shell-shock. Firstly, the new specialty of aviation
medicine required unique medical problems which were best solved by
professional experts. Ad hoc preventative measures and psychiatric
intervention had some success. Secondly, aviators were for the most part
zealous, educated volunteers. The motivation and ability of a trained aviator
was not usually in question. Thirdly, the risks of flying were obvious and
severe. Consequently there was far less pejorative bias in the medical approach
to staleness. Finally, military aviation was a small but expensive element of the
armed forces. MOs were not concerned with pensions as frequently alleged
with the infantry, but with keeping a pilot in the air. (The British cost/benefit
ratio declined after 100 flying hours.) They were there to prevent individual
failure as well as the loss of a skilled pilot. Consequently the military allowed
the air forces disciplinary and financial leeway to restore the aviator’s
confidence and emotional equilibrium. The “Right Stuff” became a valuable
commodity for all concerned during World War 1.
52
Dr. Holger Herwig, University of Calgary
“A Drama Never Surpassed: The Marne 1914”
The Marne was the most decisive land battle since Waterloo (1815). Winston
Churchill called it simply “a drama never surpassed.” For, between 5 and 11
September 1914, France and Germany each committed nearly two million men
with 6,000 guns to a desperate campaign on a front just 200 kilometers wide.
The Marne was also the bloodiest battle of the Great War: 200,000 casualties
per side in the Battle of the Frontiers in Alsace-Lorraine in August; and another
200,000 per side along the Marne in September.
Chris Hyland, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
“The Canadian Corp’s Long March: Logistics, Discipline and the Occupation
of the Rhineland”
In the winter of 1918-1919, 1st and 2nd Divisions marched to Cologne and
Bonn and participated briefly in the occupation of the Rhineland. This
operation was a first for Canada as the Dominion had never before been asked
to garrison the home terrain of a European enemy. In this paper I examine the
reasons for Canadian participation in the occupation, assess the impact of
logistics on decision making and service conditions, and explore the
experiences of Canadian soldiers while marching across Belgium and
performing garrison duties in the Rhineland. In this paper I argue that the
logistical situation which existed in the immediate aftermath of the First World
War, particularly the lack of shipping, prevented the Canadian Corps’ timely
demobilization so Canadian leadership sought temporary duties for the corps
which would gain prestige for the Dominion. Canadian participation in the
occupation was never meant to be a long term commitment, but was rather a
product of the unique circumstances that existed in the immediate aftermath of
the First World War. Moreover, I explore General Sir Arthur Currie’s great
attention to discipline and troop comportment during the march to and
occupation of the Rhineland linking strict military discipline to a desire to
protect the corps’ hard won reputation as one of the best formations on the
Western Front.
53
Dr. Teresa Iacobelli, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow
“Creating Memory: Commemoration, Popular Media and Evolving Narratives
of the Great War.”
In Canada, two competing social memories of the Great War co-exist.
Canadians generally think of the war as a tragic and futile event, a view that
has been popularized since the 1960s. However, Canadians also regard the
First World War as the symbolic “birth of the nation.” The Canadian experience
at Vimy Ridge, as well as Canada’s enhanced international reputation and
increased independence from Great Britain in the post-war era does much to
support this view.
I intend to show how these competing memories have been constructed
since the war’s end, and the ways in which these memories continue to shape
commemorative activities, especially as we approach the war’s centennial. I
am especially interested in the ways in which these social memories have been
shaped by, and are reinforced in popular media. Of particular interest is the role
of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The CBC plays a pivotal
role as a national broadcaster in both developing in its own historical
programming, and in televising commemorative events and providing analysis
of them. The CBC has been central in shaping the national narrative of
Canada’s wartime experience, and in constructing Canadian identity and social
memory as it relates to the Great War.
My interest in this topic extends from a post-doctoral project entitled,
“Presenting the Past: Public History, Popular Media and Two World Wars.”
This SSHRC-funded project uses an interdisciplinary approach combining the
fields of military history, social memory and media studies in order to explore
the relationship between memory, public history, popular media and
constructed nationalism.
54
Dr. Norman Ingram, Concordia University
“A Not-so-Sacred Union? The Ligue des droits de l’homme and the debate on
War Origins and War Aims, 1914-1918”
All of France lined up squarely behind the Union sacrée in August 1914, or at
least that is the Dichtung of French historiography. One of the Republican
organisations most intimately involved in promoting and defending the French
war effort was the Ligue des droits de l’homme (LDH). The Ligue was the
quintessence of the Republican synthesis in early twentieth-century France.
Formed in 1898 at the height of the Dreyfus Affair, initially to defend the cause
of one man unjustly condemned for treason to a life sentence on Devil’s Island,
by 1914 the Ligue had become the great meeting point for defenders of human
rights and convinced Republicans of all sorts: Protestants, Jews, Freemasons,
Radicals and Socialists. In fact, by August 1914 the Ligue and the Third
Republic had become virtually synonymous. The advent of the Great War
prompted the Ligue to extend its defence of the individual to that of what it
called “collectivities”, namely Belgium in the first instance.
The Wahrheit, however, is somewhat different. Almost from the outset
of the war, the Ligue was riven by doubts and divisions over the question of
war origins and war aims. A growing minority within the LDH questioned the
validity of the dominant, official position of the Ligue that France was fighting
a defensive war. But of equal importance was the ongoing debate over the
justification of French war aims. The minority raised troubling questions about
the Franco-Russian alliance, the treatment of minorities, particularly Jews and
Poles within the Russian Empire, and the categorical refusal of the Ligue’s
leadership to countenance a negotiated peace in the face of the blood-letting on
the Western Front.
This paper explores these divisions, as well as the dominant views the
minority inveighed against, and suggests that the LDH’s positions on war aims
and origins were shot through with inconsistencies. Despite rhetoric to the
contrary, which continues to make its presence felt one hundred years later, the
Sacred Union of 1914 was neither so united, nor perhaps even so sacred, as is
usually assumed.
55
Dr. Geoff Jackson, University of Calgary
“Making Armies in Wartime: A Comparative Study of the 62nd (West Riding)
and 4th Canadian Divisions on the Western Front”
During the early- and mid-war years, both the British and Canadian
Expeditionary Forces confronted the daunting problem of creating competent
fighting divisions, not from trained reservists but raw recruits, most with
limited or no peacetime military training, and with only a thin cadre of
reasonably experienced senior officers to provide professional leadership, and
doing so as quickly as possible. That both Expeditionary Forces manifestly
succeeded still begs the question – how was it done? This paper focuses on a
variety of factors that contributed to the division-making process, but
ultimately settles on three as critical to its outcome – the training templates
employed by the divisions, the capacities of their senior leadership, and the
aforementioned operational effectiveness which was, after all, the criterion
which understandably mattered to contemporaries. While there are excellent
studies focusing on the raising of the ‘New Armies,’ the evolution of the
tactical ‘learning curve,’ and the role of command, none of these thoroughly
explore the entire story of how divisions were raised, trained, and committed to
battle during the war. Furthermore, until now, scholars have studied the BEF
and CEF in isolation from one another, with the emphasis in Canada (and on
occasion in Britain) on dissimilarities rooted in socio-cultural differences, the
most obvious being a distinctive Canadian identity and the supposedly more
creative military thinking that accompanied it.4 The question of combat
superiority, Dominion versus Imperial, much discussed but little researched,
has been subsumed in – one might say obscured by - this underlying debate. In
fact, it is too easily forgotten that the British Empire’s forces on the Western
Front – despite the presence of a sizable contribution from the far-flung
Dominions – was a single army employing many commonalities in command,
weaponry and doctrine, with its officers and men drawn, to a significant
degree, from a broadly shared culture aptly dubbed the ‘British World’ by
cultural and intellectual historians. Starting from this perspective, a
comparative study of two divisions, the British 62nd (formed in late 1915) and
the Canadian 4th (formed in early 1916) reveals that by the winter of 1917-18,
in sufficient time to make a significant contribution to the war effort, both
divisions were fully integrated into the British system, having similarly
experienced commanders and comparable training regimes and doctrine, and
both had become consistently effective on the battlefield. Differences there
certainly were, but overall the similarities seem to have far outweighed them.
In an imperial military coalition where combat efficiency dictated divisions be,
as far as possible, interchangeable parts, this goal had been achieved.
56
Dr. Peter Jackson, University of Glasgow
“Contending Conceptions of Peace and Security in France during the Crisis of
1917”
IN LATE MAY 1917 Paul Morand, a junior official at the foreign ministry,
reflected on the seismic changes in both the domestic and international
contexts in which France was waging the First World War: ‘I have been re-
reading our initial war aims, the instructions given to Paul Cambon by Briand.
How we are far from all that (the Left Bank, the Saar Basin Constantinople,
etc.)’. The first six months of 1917 had brought about a profound
transformation in the political character of the war. Revolution in Russia in
February and October, combined with the decision of the United States to enter
the war on the side of the Allies in April, laid the foundations of a new world
order that would endure in its essentials through to the end of the twentieth
century. To these international developments were added an unmistakeable
wavering in the French nation’s resolve to see the conflict through to victory.
By October of that year the Union Sacrée lay in ruins, Russia had left the war
and the prospect of final victory seemed more remote than at any time since the
disastrous opening phases of the war.
The grinding frustration and unending losses that characterised the
middle phases of the war had a profound effect on both popular and elite
understandings of its purpose. French decision-makers instead came under
intense pressure to alter their policies in response to proposals emanating from
Petrograd and especially from Washington. At the same time, domestic
advocates of both socialist and juridical internationalism within both
parliament and the public sphere were emboldened to articulate alternative
visions of future international order that revolved around the creation of
Society of League of Nations. This internationalist current would carry through
to the armistice and into the post-war period until it emerged as a crucial force
in the making of French national security policy in the mid-1920s. But it has
been ignored almost entirely by historians of both the First World War and
French strategy and foreign policy. It is therefore the focus of this paper.
57
Sheragim Jenabzadeh, PhD Student, University of Toronto
“Iranian-German Relations during World War One The Quest for National
Independence by the Kaveh Group”
The centennial anniversary of the First World War will provide the perfect
opportunity for the reexamination of the meaning of the war for the parties
involved by not simply looking at the experience of the European powers, but
those that were inevitably affected by the truly global character of the conflict.
It is in this area that I believe I can make a contribution to the existing and
developing scholarly material on the war.
The paper which I seek to present at “The Great War’s Shadow”
conference will be an excerpt from my continuing research that I began at the
University of Toronto. Much of my research was based on the journal Kaveh
published in Berlin from 1916-1922 by the Persian Council, composed of
Iranian nationalists who gathered in Germany at the request of the Foreign
Office. The purpose of this council – like their Indian and Georgian
counterparts as highlighted by Fritz Fischer – was to garner support among
Iranian nationalists and intelligentsia for the German cause and overthrow
British and Russian domination over Persia. During my research of Kaveh, I
discovered that the German policy of Weltpolitik was increasingly viewed as
the anti-thesis of British and Russian imperialism by nationalist groups such as
the Persian Council, who sought to gain national sovereignty. Support for
Germany was not viewed as replacing one great power with another, but a
necessary precondition for liberation. Additionally, much emphasis was placed
on Germany’s role as the moral great power whose conquest of Poland and the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk were not evidence of an aggressive power bent on
world imperialism, but the product of a virtuous militarism that sought material
victory for the purposes of moral triumph. There existed, therefore, a
convergence of interests between German imperial ambitions and the
aspiration of nationalities subjugated by Britain and Russia.
I believe that this conference will be a great opportunity to receive
feedback on my ongoing research and hopefully provide fresh insight into a
largely unexplored chapter of the First World War.
58
Geoff Keelan, PhD Candidate, University of Waterloo
“Digital Commemoration and the Canadian Memory of the First World War”
In the centenary year of the First World War it is worthwhile for historians to
turn their gaze to the newest medium of its commemoration : the digital sphere.
There are dozens of useful educational or academic websites exploring Canada
and the First World War, and many more amateur ones. Some explore archival
documents, others focus on cultural ephemera, while others on individual
stories. While some of these examples were once archival resources, when put
online for public viewing they all become incorporated into Canada's
remembrance of the Great War. For a new generation of Canadians, they are
the primary source of information on the conflict.
This paper examines how technological developments have influenced
Canadian commemoration of the First World War. Influenced by Marco Adria's
Technology and Nationalism, which describes the implications of technology
on the conceptualization of Canadian nationalism, this paper will analyze
intersections of technology and First World War commemoration. It assesses
the impact of the CBC radio series Flanders Field that aired in December of
1964 where Canada's ageing Great War veterans told their story in their own
words. Then, it examines the CBC television documentary The Great War that
aired in 2005 where descendents of soldiers played their ancestors on-screen.
Finally, it presents example of digital commemoration and contrasts the
differences between radio, television and digital. Although it examines how
technology affected Canada's commemoration of the Great War, this paper
primarily explores how the advent of digital media affected it.
59
Dr. Sean Kennedy, University of New Brunswick
“A Forgotten Crime Wave? Delinquent Youth in Wartime France”
In July 1917 France’s interior minister wrote to his counterpart in the ministry
of justice, requesting information about the connection between cinematic
depictions of crime and juvenile delinquency. Forwarding this request to the
various general prosecutors in unoccupied France, the justice minister received
a series of mostly affirmative replies. Some prosecutors were cautious about
imputing causation, but for most of them novels and above all films clearly
played a critical role in encouraging youth crime. They cited numerous
incidents, from various regions of France as well as Algeria, where theft,
violence, and even murder committed by young people appeared to be inspired
by novels and scenes from movies, notably Les Mystères de New-York, the
French version of the 1914 American film The Exploits of Elaine.
Drawing upon police and judicial archives as well as the contemporary
press, this paper will explore the significance of these neglected events. Much
of the historiography of the French home front during the Great War has
focused upon the forging and fragmentation of the “sacred union.” But more
recent scholarship by historians such as Tyler Stovall have suggested that
specific wartime incidents, such as the 1917-18 race riots that he studied, can
shed light not only on the limits of French home front solidarity but also the
inception of broader trends in the nation’s history that continued through the
20th century and beyond. Exploring government and media reactions to
wartime youth crime in 1915-1918, this paper will assess growing anxieties
about the social impact of the Great War as well as longer-term trends such as
the rise of an American-influenced youth culture.
60
Erna Kurbegovic, PhD Candidate, University of Calgary
“The Unknown Enemy: Serbia and the typhus epidemic of 1914-1915”
Despite the fact that the First World War began with hostilities between
Austria-Hungary and Serbia, the latter has received remarkably little attention
amidst the fighting between the Great Powers. The First World War not only
led to high battle casualties but also created favourable conditions for
microbiological pathogens which generated new and serious health problems.
In the winter of 1914, a Serbian counterattack pushed Austro-Hungarian forces
out of Valjevo. Amongst the captured Austrian prisoners there was an outbreak
of an unfamiliar disease: Typhus. The disease quickly spread to the Serbian
army, and eventually to the civilian population. The Serbian typhus epidemic
raged from December 1914 until late spring 1915, causing high mortality
numbers due to inadequate sanitary conditions, overcrowding, poor medical
facilities, and insufficient medical staff. The severity of the outbreak brought
international attention and led to aid in the form of medical personnel,
monetary assistance, and medical equipment from various countries.
While historians have analyzed medicine in the First World War in
Western countries, there has been little discussion of Serbia in general. Serbia
played a key role at the start of the conflict and without it we cannot fully
understand the events in 1914-15 and beyond. From the medical perspective,
the Serbian situation in 1914-15 led to the development of an international
medical agenda, and showed the close relationship between medicine and
military strategy in combating typhus. Using Serbo-Croatian and English
language sources, this paper will analyze the impact of the typhus epidemic on
the Serbian war effort, it will highlight some of the measures that the Serbian
army employed to rid itself of typhus, and it will contribute to a discussion of
military medicine and public health during the First World War.
61
Dr. Whitney Lackenbauer, St. Jerome’s University, presenting.
Dr. Timothy Winegard, Colorado Mesa University, co-author.
“Indigenous Participation in the Great War across the British and American
Empires”
Our comparative work on the histories of indigenous participation in the
military efforts of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States
during the war frames indigenous contributions as an extension of ongoing
efforts to shape and alter social and political realities, to resist cultural
assimilation, and to attain equality through shared service and sacrifice.
Although indigenous groups’ reasons for going to war varied, their acceptance
into military forces and forms of service reflected prevailing laws and
discretion of national governments. Our work contends that the various states’
calculated inclusion or exclusion of indigenous people at points during the war
continued the pragmatic tradition of imperial and national governments, which
used them in a military capacity only when it suited their interests or specific
needs. Accordingly, colonial perceptions of the martial prowess of indigenous
men were reflected in policies governing their service and measured against
their performance as soldiers on the battlefield. In turn, many indigenous
people – both individually and collectively – believed that wartime
contributions would allow them to win the respect of the settler societies and
secure greater recognition of their rights.
Dr. Kimberley Lamay, Siena College
“World War I in the Pulps: 'Fiction Cannot Ignore the Greatest Adventure in a
Man’s Life!'”
My research interest is predominantly American collective memory of
the First World War as represented in official histories, works of fiction,
soldiers’ memoirs and film. Most of my findings suggest that World War I is
poorly represented in American collective memory because of an anti-war
backlash that arose shortly after the armistice. I propose presenting the portion
of my findings that, in some ways, run contrary to this premise. Pulp fiction
was widely read in postwar America and war pulp magazines circulated to
potentially one million readers monthly. As such it influenced collective
memory, largely that of boys and young men, but was ignored by some because
it was considered pop culture. Pulp stories of heroism and camaraderie
encouraged young Americans to look at the war as a boys’ adventure, complete
with guns, planes and high jinks. These stories also allowed older Americans
to separate some of the redeeming experiences from the disillusionment and
anger that was prevalent in the immediate postwar years. The stories of
adventure and camaraderie conflicted with the more serious fiction written by
an idealistic Willa Cather and a cynical Ernest Hemingway but their
widespread popularity suggests that they better reflected the perceptions of
most Americans. My presentation would focus on the scope and popularity of
war-related pulp fiction and how they affected American collective memory.
62
Dr. Christine Leppard, Historical Specialist, Calgary Stampede
“The Victory Stampede: Honouring Great War Veterans in Calgary, 1919?”
In 1919, the Calgary Exhibition and Calgary Stampede—two separate festivals
held in July and August, respectively—were organised to celebrate the end of
the First World War and honour Canada’s returning veterans. The Annual
Calgary Exhibition from June 28-July 5 included a number of military-themed
events to compliment the traditional fairgrounds. Canadian flying ace Captain
Fred McCall landed Brigadier General H.F. McDonald in the centre of the race
track to officially open the festival, and in the subsequent days McCall and
Captain W. May demonstrated aerial stunts daily for the grandstand crowds.
Encouraged by the success of the Exhibition and similar festivals being held in
the United Kingdom, the “Victory Stampede” was held in August. It was to be
a fundraiser for veterans and children orphaned by the war, and veterans of the
Canadian Expeditionary Force led the Stampede parade. Unfortunately, in a
year of economic depression in the Prairie west, and with the steep entrance
fee of $1.00, the Stampede only broke even, with no money left over for the
Great War Veterans’ Association.
Today, the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede is a multi-million dollar
festival and a staple of Calgary’s identity, but in 1919, Calgary was a small but
rapidly growing prairie city. What Calgary meant--its history, its culture, etc.--
had yet to be defined. The end of the First World War pointed out in stark terms
the absence of an essence. It was a cultural vacuum waiting to be filled, and the
Calgary Exhibition and Stampede sought to occupy this space, while, and
through, honouring veterans. The then home of "American Hill", Calgary
needed better to define its place as a manly, patriotic, frontier city, the
quintessence of Canadian identity, and the virtues associated with First World
War Veterans. This paper will examine the negotiation cultural identity in the
1919 Exhibition and “Victory Stampede.”
63
Dr. Sebastian Lukasik, Air Command and Staff College
“Military Service, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Great War: Toward
a Transnational Perspective”
Seminal accounts of the Great War consistently highlight its contribution to the
crystallization of national identities in places as diverse as Canada, Turkey, and
Australia, the formation of new nation-states in Eastern and Central Europe,
and the expansion of centralized, interventionist forms of state power in the
transatlantic world. In particular, historians have identified military service in
mass armies during the war as a nationally unifying experience for the
belligerents. Wartime service in a common cause is said to have diluted the
power of the parochial, sub-national identities and divisive socio-economic
distinctions that soldiers carried over from civilian life. In their place, there
emerged the cultural construct of the idealized, allembracingnational
community whose members’ social and cultural cohesiveness derived fromthe
memory of shared suffering on behalf of the nation, and aspired to reflect the
purposefulness and unity of the war’s soldierly frontline communities.
Taking as its basic point of departure a synthesis of recent scholarship
on the social, political, and cultural dimensions of military service in the years
1914 - 1918, this paper advances an alternative interpretation of the nexus
between mass armies, citizenship, and identity during the Great War. An
analysis of that relationship from a transnational perspective illuminates the
limitations of wartime service as an integrative mechanism capable of
assimilating soldiers into broader constructs of national identity and
legitimizing the power of the nation-state. Throughout the transatlantic world,
military service in mass armies that had been mobilized and maintained by
national governments frequently reinforced, rather than eroded, long-
established sub-national identities and fault lines of stratification and
distinction, whether social, cultural, or political. Ultimately, the institution of
compulsory military service in the Great War impeded the creation of coherent
national identities as much as it advanced them.
64
Avram Lytton, PhD Student, King’s College London
“Planning Ambiguity? British Preparation for Blockade 1907-1914”
When Great Britain went to war with Germany in the summer of 1914, it
implemented pre-existing plans for blockade. Blockade, to one extent or
another, was part of the ‘strategic culture’ of the Royal Navy,1 but it was
unclear how to best implement it and what it could achieve. As the war went
on, blockade efforts were increasingly tightened and more specialised
organisation, infrastructure and intelligence apparatus was established. The
current literature on the blockade, and economic warfare generally, leaves
something to be desired. While the blockade has been studied from an
operational and organisational perspective, and its efficacy analysed, little
attention has been paid to contemporary intelligence assessments of the effect
of the blockade; in other words how British decision makers viewed it at the
time, and what they thought it could accomplish. In this presentation, I will
explore British intelligence assessments and how and why they changed.
Looking at the intelligence that surrounded the blockade effort, and how
it evolved, provides critical linkage with all of the existing blockade literature.
It would enlighten us about the discord between the Foreign Office and the
Admiralty, and throw light on the critical middle of the war by evaluating the
change in British intelligence assessments. How did British assessment affect
strategic outlook and policy? How did it fit into the concept of strategic
attrition? Could intelligence have played a role in war termination long before
the war ended by shaping the very concept of what constituted victory? These
are important questions that are either entirely unanswered or only approached
in a fragmented fashion by a largely compartmentalised body of literature.
Dr. Jatinder Mann, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Alberta
“A comparison of Canada and Australia’s experiences during
the First World War”
The First World War had a tremendous impact on Canada and Australia both
domestically and internationally. Their societies were put under considerable
pressure due to the exigencies of war and they were forced to adopt a more
international role due to their war efforts, especially within the British Empire.
This paper will compare the experiences of Canada and Australia during the
First World War in terms of ‘Recruitment, Conscription and its Aftermath’,
‘Finance and Loans’, and ‘Working in the Imperial System’. The paper will
begin with putting the whole issue into some sort of historical context, it will
then turn to discussing the existing historiography briefly, before exploring the
three main themes identified above in relation to the two countries and
comparing them.
65
Major Bill March, RCAF History and Heritage
“Out of the Hangar: The Impact of Aviation on Canada, 1914-1919”
In 1914 military aviation was in its infancy, but a mere five years later it had
become a decisive element on the modern battlefield.
The merits of that statement may be debated. However, nations that
regarded aviation as a technological curiosity at the start of the Great War were
faced with an aeronautical “genie” that could not be placed back in a bottle.
Flimsy contraptions of wood and wire that were of as much danger to the flyer
as they were to the enemy in 1914 gave way by 1919 to purpose designed
aircraft that were capable of crossing heretofore impregnable boundaries of
water and land while raining down destruction from above. Combatant nations
that fielded large air services were amongst the first to feel the effects of this
tidal wave of technological change. Yet even nations such as Canada, that
would field no air force of its own until the closing days of the war, were not
immune to the ripples brought forth by the need to fight in the air.
In five short years, aviation would have a profound impact on Canada in
the realms of defence, industry and international relations. Thousands of
young Canadians would see combat in one of the flying services of Great
Britain while within the Dominion a new industry would be created to feed the
growing need for aircraft, aero-engines and parts. As well, allied collaboration
with respect to air training would bring Canada and the United States closer
together. Endeavours that would sow the seeds from which the Royal
Canadian Air Force, a Canadian aerospace industry and Canada’s civil aviation
presence would grow. Finally, aviation would create its own sub-culture of
Canadian historical myth and identity where Billy Bishop and Billy Barker
would become household names.
Using specific examples dealing with defence, industry, politics and
culture, this paper will examine the impact of aviation on Canada during the
Great War, as well as offer a few observations on how this period influenced
aviation in Canada during the inter-war years.
66
Dr. David Marshall, University of Calgary
"Canada’s Best-Selling Novelist, “Ralph Connor”, Goes to War”
Ralph Connor was the pen name of the clergyman, the Rev. Charles Gordon, a
Presbyterian minister in Winnipeg. He wrote many best-selling novels
including two about the First Word War, The Major (1917) and The Sky Pilot
in No Man’s Land (1919). For the most part these Connor novels have been
dismissed as crude recruitment novel and guilty of unrealistic romanticism
about the war. Little reference is made to Gordon’s experiences as a chaplain
during the war and how his experiences attending to the soldiers at the
battlefront shaped the novels. Major Gordon’s battalion –the 43rd, Cameron
Highlanders- saw action during the Battle of the Somme at the Regina Trench,
where most of it was wiped out. Shortly after, Gordon returned to Canada
where he became a major voice for recruitment and conscription. In early
1917, he was part of a cross country tour in the United States to drum up
support for the war. His wartime novel, The Major, can only be understood in
the context of Gordon’s dismay over the carnage at the front. The Sky Pilot in
No Man’s Land is an account of how a chaplain comes to grips with the fact
that while many soldiers appeared to be outwardly irreligious and immoral,
they possessed many virtues and qualities that made them closer to true
Christianity than the traditional morality and doctrines preached by the Church.
Gordon was keenly aware that the war had altered the moral and religious
outlook of many, who had directly experienced the war. The novel announced
the necessity of a spiritual reawakening based on broader and more tolerant
morality and the less doctrinal religiosity of the soldier.
67
Steve Marti, PhD Candidate, Western University
“Fight or Pay for an Ambulance: The Anti-Modern Modernization of the AIF
and CEF”
The dominions of Australia and Canada entered the First World War without
the means to fight a modern war. The formation of Australian Imperial Force
and the Canadian Expeditionary Force, each initially numbering 20,000
soldiers, stretched the capability of each dominion’s military establishments.
Without a strong central government or a military-industrial complex, officials
relied on voluntary contributions to mobilize men and resources. As men
volunteered to fill the ranks, wealthy individuals and voluntary societies
pledged funds to donate motor ambulances, automobiles, aeroplanes, and
machine-guns to the expeditionary forces. These donations brought
complications, as patriotic gifts were not given freely. Donors often felt they
had a right to attach conditions to their contributions, such as specifying which
units would benefit from their effort, or what make or model of equipment they
wished to supply.
This paper will explore the paradox of modernizing dominion
expeditionary forces through a very anti-modern reliance on voluntary
donations of materials. A study of patriotic contributions in Australia and
Canada reveals the importance of modern military hardware in the public
mind. The correspondence surrounding these donations will be examined to
reveal how donors understood their relationship to the state and the wider war
effort.
68
Dr. Evan Mawdsley, University of Glasgow
“Revolution, Civil War, and 'Long' First World War in Russia”
The relationship between the World War, the 1917 Revolution, and the Civil
War of 1918-20 was a complex one at both the political and military levels. In
recent years a theme of Western historiography has been a ‘continuum of crisis’
in Russia from 1914 to 1921. This paper will delineate the phases of that
continuum. [1] From Aug. 1914 to Mar. 1917, when the stresses of wartime
mobilisation and the consequences of unsuccessful military operations against
the Central Powers had profound social, economic, and political effects,
culminating in the March (‘February’) Revolution. [2] From Mar. to Nov.
1917, the pivotal year, when the struggle for power in Petrograd can be seen –
at least politically – in ‘World War’ terms, between ‘defensist’ and
‘internationalist’ elements. The outcome – the Bolshevik Revolution - was
possible only under conditions of a general European War. [3] From Nov. 1917
to Nov. 1918, the first year of the Civil War, when the consolidation of Soviet
rule was made possible by earlier wartime developments within Russia and by
the defeat of the Central Powers. Limited forces from the Central Powers and
the Allies operating on the territory of the former Russian Empire had a
significant - but not decisive - effect. [4] From Nov. 1918 to Nov. 1920, a time
of full-scale civil war, when the victory of the ‘Entente’ failed to restore the
political and economic ‘normality’ of Russia. This was so despite the
leadership of the anti-Bolshevik forces by the some of the ablest World War
commanders. Hopes in the Soviet leadership for general European post-war
revolution were also stymied. The geographical status quo of the Eurasian state
was to a considerable extent eventually retained, however, while the World War
explained many features of the new Soviet system.
69
Dr. Jessica Meyer, University of Leeds
“Observations of Orderlies: New perspectives on the provision of care in the
British armed forces”
The organisation of medical evacuation along the lines of communication in
the British Army during the First World War involved several organisations,
both military and voluntary, and numerous personnel, including those from the
RAMC, the RASC and the British Red Cross. The work and roles of many of
these groups, including medical officers, female volunteer doctors, professional
and VAD nurses, conscientious objector volunteers, stretcher bearers and
ambulance drivers have been studied in various levels of depth. One group,
however, has yet to be examined in any detail, namely the medical orderlies
who served in the RAMC as part of ‘tent’ units in field ambulances. Their
roles involved a variety of work ranging from setting up and running dressing
stations to organising regimental bathes to assisting with the running of
casualty clearing stations and hospital trains.
This paper will examine the roles and status of the RAMC medical
orderlies during the war. Drawing on official orders, military training manuals
and personal narratives of orderlies themselves, it will explore the changing
nature of these men’s roles and status as the organisation of the RAMC
developed over the course of the war. In doing so, it will argue that this often
forgotten group of men formed a key element of British military medical care
throughout the war, despite pressures placed on their role by increasing
demands for combatant manpower.
70
Mike Miller, Marine Corps History Division
“The Forgotten Front, Marines in the Caribbean and Mexico, 1914-1918”
Overlooked and forgotten in the history of the First World War, the significance
of Central American and Caribbean countries to the security of the United
States can be gauged by the number of American Soldiers and Marines who
were stationed in the area from 1914-1918. Initially, over 20,000 soldiers were
stationed on the Mexican Border, which was almost 1/3 of all of the Army
deployable strength within the United States at that time. Over 5,000 Marines
were stationed in Vera Cruz or on the west coast of Mexico in 1914, more than
half of the entire strength of the Marine Corps.
In 1917, more than 68,560 soldiers were on the border as part of
Southern Command and more soldiers stationed on the California Border with
Mexico with Western Command. These forces reached almost 100,000 men by
March 1918. Concurrently, the Marine Corps deployed four brigades of eight
regiments in Texas, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Cuba, doubling the four
regiments which reached France by 1918.
Although small in comparison to the more than 2 million Americans
who were transported to France at the same time, these soldiers and Marines
represented a significant response to the perceived German threat to destabilize
this area of great importance for the United States, diverting attention from
Europe. This paper will examine the American War Plan Black against
Germany, and the Marine deployments in Mexico in 1914, Haiti in 1915,
Dominican Republic in 1916, and Cuba in 1917.
Were the deployments a result of American Business interests, or simply
“Banana Wars?” I will also examine and evaluate these civilian military
relationships, the perceived German attempt to gain a foothold in the
Caribbean and evaluate how this theater of war fits into World War I
historiography today.
71
Alexia Moncrieff, PhD Candidate, The University of Adelaide
“The medicalisation of Australian casualty evacuation on the Western Front.”
Australian medical evacuation in the First World War was complex. Whilst the
AAMC had achieved a greater degree of autonomy and self-government after
the Dardanelles Campaign it was still required to function in cooperation with
other medical services. As a result of this autonomy the AAMC on the Western
Front had increased responsibility for Australian medical arrangements and it
was able to exert greater control over those arrangements. The decision-making
processes and control of medical evacuation have been largely overlooked in
previous Australian medical histories of the First World War and provide a new
lens through which the intersection of British and Australian responsibility can
be viewed.
This paper will analyse the arrangements for the evacuation of
Australian casualties on the Western Front, trace the changes made to those
systems and outline who was responsible for planning medical arrangements.
Utilising official orders and reports it will examine the reasons given by
AAMC officers for the success or failure of the plans and assess how much
past experience informed planning for future battles. Consequently, it will
argue that there was an increasingly medicalised approach to Australian
casualty evacuation on the Western Front which was the result of learning from
past experiences.
72
Dr. John H. Morrow, Jr., University of Georgia
“African American and Senegalese Soldiers in the French Army in
World War I”
In 1918 American commander John J. Pershing released four regiments of
African American soldiers for attachment to the French army, where they
fought for the duration of the war. These four regiments, which the American
Expeditionary Forces had designated as “pioneer,” or labor troops, thus became
infantry regiments in French divisions. The most famous of these regiments,
the 369th U.S. Infantry Regiment, established records equaled by no other U.S.
unit—its soldiers never lost ground or prisoners to the Germans, and they were
in the line for 191 uninterrupted days. Professors Jeffrey T. Sammons’s and
John H. Morrow’s forthcoming book, Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War:
The Undaunted 369th Regiment and the African American Quest for Equality
(University Press of Kansas, March, 2014) offers an unprecedented
examination of the history of the 369th.
This paper proposes to examine French attitudes toward and the
experience of these African American soldiers compared to soldiers from
French West Africa, generally called Senegalese infantry, who had served in
the French colonial and metropolitan forces on the Western Front in increasing
numbers since 1914. The paper will conclude with a comparison of the success
of African American and Senegalese soldiers in affecting the rights of their
respective populations at home in the United States and West Africa
respectively.
73
Dr. Jeremy Mouat, University of Alberta Augustana Campus
“Modern warfare rests upon a metallic basis”: The British Empire, the German
Octopus, and base metals production during the First World War.”
In March 1916 the Australian prime minister told members of the Empire
Parliamentary Association assembled in the House of Commons at
Westminster that “Modern warfare rests upon a metallic basis”. He spoke from
experience. When war came in 1914, he found that German metal traders
largely controlled the output of zinc from Broken Hill, New South Wales. He
soon discovered that remedying this situation was not straightforward although
eventually his government cancelled the German contracts and encouraged
facilities for refining zinc both in Australia and the UK. Canada was in a
similar situation. Cominco, the mining company that dominated base metals
production in British Columbia, struggled to find ways to treat its own zinc
concentrates. Nickel production in Sudbury, Ontario was also mired in
controversy over its treatment, corporate ownership and Germany’s ongoing
ability to acquire the metal in wartime. These controversies were significant
since both zinc and nickel were now strategic minerals, vital components in
munitions and armament. This topic was widely discussed in Australia, Canada
and the UK during the war, by politicians, journalists, mining engineers and
others, all of whom routinely denounced what they saw as the ubiquitous
presence of the “German Octopus”. Commissions of inquiry, parliamentary
debates, and endless newspaper columns provided public discussion of the
issue and proposed various ways to end German involvement in the metals
industry. Despite this prominence, historians of the First World War have
largely ignored the metal trade. Thus my paper provides a new perspective,
examining both the significance of the metal trade and the controversies that
surrounded it.
74
Philipp Muench, German Institute for International and Security Affairs
“On the relationship between speech act and action: Re-reading German
middle class soldiers’ war letters”
Statements from the correspondence of World War I soldiers are frequently
taken to illustrate the mood of the time – be it war enthusiasm or war wariness.
A closer look at series of letters by single authors, however, often reveals that
they expressed quite different attitudes towards different addressees. It
therefore seems to be questionable to take their expressions at face value
without further considerations and additional sources. This raises the question
of how to generally interpret the correspondence of ordinary World War I
soldiers.
Taking German middle class soldiers as an example, I will therefore
discuss how to deal with the problem of interpreting their expressions. To this
end, I contrast their discourse as found in their correspondence with their actual
praxis. My research is based on a comprehensive collection of hundreds of war
letters from a team of 30 gymnasts who were successively drafted into the war
from 1914 until 1918. As soldiers and civilians alike, they mostly wrote letters
to the team leader who published their correspondence for an internal private
report, but also to single members of the team or even their parents.
It becomes evident that while most of the authors displayed a positive
attitude towards the war effort in general and an obviously genuine hope for
victory, few were eager to voluntarily join the military. Instead, several actively
searched for ways to evade or quit military and front line service. By
contrasting the personal background of the writers and their position takings a
social order becomes visible in which it was seen as legitimate for some groups
to evade service, while others were expected to risk their lives. The latter
competed for the most self-sacrificing self-portrayal.
75
Dr. Tony Mullis, US Army Command and General Staff College
“From Lawrence to Louvain: Massacre and Memory in Total War”
Massacres have occurred in every major war. The American Civil War and
World War One were no exception. Of the many massacres that occurred
during the American Civil War, perhaps the most infamous was Quantrill's raid
on Lawrence, Kansas in August 1863. Quantrill's raiders killed approximately
200 males and destroyed most of the town during their assault. World War One
had its fair share of massacres as well. The focus of this paper is on the Belgian
communities of Louvain and Dinant in August 1914. Hundreds if not
thousands of civilians died at the hands of the German Army as it made its
push for France in accordance with the Schlieffen Plan. The circumstances that
separated these massacres are noteworthy, but each shares a common link – the
intentional killing of non-combatants. Quantrill's motives and those of the
German Army were certainly different, yet each massacre left a profound
legacy on those that participated and those that survived. The goals of this
paper are to assess how Americans and Belgians remember these massacres
and how each culture saw the other’s experience from their perspective. By
comparing and contrasting how Americans remembered Lawrence and how
they perceived Louvain and Dinant, we can gain insight into how different
cultures view massacres in total war. Belgian's remembrance of Louvain and
Dinant combined with their perceptions of the Lawrence massacre should also
inform our understanding of how each people remembered massacres in a total
war context.
76
Dr. Gaetano La Nave, Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Naples
“L’Orientale Regia Marina” for the Italian entry into the Great War (1913-
1915)"
Within a few years the Kingdom of Italy passed from a twenty-year alliance
with the Central Empires to entry into the war, following the signing of the
Treaty of London, in this way joining the Triple Entente. This proposal will
focus its attention on a short chronological period of three-years, from the
Triple Alliance Naval Convention to that of Paris (1913-1915). The latter
ratified collaboration between the French, British and Italian fleets, handing
over to the Savoy Navy the active role in coping with the Kriegsmarine Austro-
Hungarian Navy in the narrow Adriatic theatre during the Great War. The paper
will aim to analyse the role and the influence of the Regia Marina with respect
to the different strategic options, describing the reflections by the specialists of
that time on the military gap between the Savoy Navy and those of other
powers, and how the Regia Marina attempted to overcome that gap,
understanding their limits and debating the different consequences which
would have ensued by choosing one or other of the alliances on option. In
particular, the proposal will concentrate its attention on the studies and the
evaluations produced by the Regia Marina, and other competent structures,
relating to the inter-connection between the Mediterranean sea and naval lines
of communications and the geopolitical position of the Italian peninsula,
focusing on Italian internal limits and weaknesses, and evaluating these
shortcomings, which expressed themselves concretely in the deficit terms of
the Italian infrastructural system, specifically in its ports and in its logistics,
and especially in the case of a naval confrontation with one of the parties, and
what measures were taken by Italy to solve those problems. The paper aims to
verify, in accordance with the use of an interdisciplinary research approach and
using specialized publications of the time and primary sources from different
Italian and foreign archives, whether, and how, the internal and external
geostrategic evaluations produced by the Regia Marina and other structures
exercised their influence on political decisions of international importance by
the Italian ruling class, which led to a change of alliance and its subsequent
entry into the war.
77
Dr. Michael Neiberg, United States Army War College
"If You Are in Favor of the Kaiser, Keep it to Yourself: American Reactions to
the World War, 1914."
Traditional understandings of initial American responses to the outbreak of war
in Europe have disproportionately followed the words of President Woodrow
Wilson, who urged his countrymen to remain neutral in thought and deed.
Scholars have rarely looked beyond Wilson to analyze the actual responses of
the American people. When we do, we find a nation with strong, clearly un-
neutral reactions to the war. Although few wanted the United States to join the
war in 1914 or 1915, the American people clearly saw the dangers, and the
opportunities, that the war presented.
When we look at the reactions of American immigrant communities, we
see that over time, their reactions came to mirror those of the American people
more generally. For reasons internal to their own communities, Italian-
Americans, Irish-Americans, and Jewish-Americans all moved from a position
of clear neutrality or even support for the Central Powers in 1914 to support for
the Allies by 1916. This movement had little to do with the coercive “100%
Americanism” campaigns from the top.
These American views toward the war in Europe help to explain the
nation’s reactions to the unfolding events in Europe and give us a far better
explanation of the American road to war than a focus on the words of President
Wilson. By looking “bottom up” instead of “top down,” an entirely different,
and far more powerful, explanation for American behavior comes into view.
In the summer of 1941, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly bemoaned the
lack of what he called the “crusading faith” of the last war. This paper will
show that the crusading faith came not from government coercion or
propaganda, as traditionally assumed, but from the reactions of the American
people themselves to the terrible tragedy in Europe.
78
Michael O’Hagan, PhD Candidate, Western University
“Exploiting Old World Forests with New World Forestry: The Canadian
Forestry Corps in Britain during the First World War”
Despite the mechanical and scientific innovations of the early twentieth
century, one of the most basic resources of the First World War was wood.
However, by 1916, Britain was on the verge of a timber crisis; while it had
forests to provide the necessary timber, it lacked the harvesting manpower.
Coming to the realization that Canadian forestry was better suited to the
required production, the British Government requested assistance to help
“exploit” Britain’s forests. Thus, the Canadian Forestry Corps was born.
Taking an environmental history approach, this paper examines how the
transplanting of Canadian foresters and forestry methods directly contributed to
an Allied victory. By transplanting Canadian forestry, Great Britain was not
only able to sustain its armies on the Western Front but did so in a more
efficient manner than British forestry methods. By November 1918, the
Canadian Foresters produced seventy per cent of the timber used by the
Western Allies and, to understand how this was achieved, this paper will also
make use of digital methods, specifically Historical GIS, to examine a number
of the forestry camps and their roles in timber production.
The work, however, came at a high cost. By 1918, British forests had
been ravaged and struggled to recover. In briefly examining post-war forestry
policies, I will demonstrate how the wartime timber industry and the work of
the Canadian Forestry Corps promoted afforestation and forestry preservation
as Britain once again realized that national security became inextricably tied
with the state of its forests.
79
Dr. Heather Perry, University of North Carolina
"'Making Tax-Payers out of Charity Cases': Disabled Germans in
War and Peace"
This paper examines the German medical response to the wholesale
“disabling” of an entire generation of young, otherwise healthy, men during the
First World War. Through an analysis of wartime medical journals and
government regulations, I show how the war-time experience of “total
mobilization” transformed national thought and rhetoric about the injured body
—a transformation which significantly impacted the subsequent location of
disabled Germans within “national community” (Volksgemeinschaft). Whereas
at the outset of the war, disabled soldiers were considered heroes who had
made the ultimate sacrifice for the empire’s defense, by war’s end they could
be charged with treason for not continuing to contribute to the economic well-
being of the nation at war. Indeed, during the war welfare rhetoric focused on
what the disabled soldier continued to owe the nation.
This paper then traces how, after the war, these social perceptions of and
demands on the war disabled were subsequently mapped onto the nation’s
civilian disabled, as well. Through an analysis of medical and welfare
guidelines, I show how government officials extended access to these new
therapies to all disabled citizens—so-called “war cripples” and “peace
cripples” alike. However, while these social developments certainly
democratized rehabilitation, they also revised national expectations regarding
the civilian disabled. Now doctors and other “social hygienists” were charged
with “making tax-payers out of charity cases.” In the newly democratic
Weimar Republic, all disabled Germans were expected to contribute to the
Volksgemeinschaft.
Finally, on a historiographical note, this paper marks an initial attempt
to close the gap between historical scholarship on disabled veterans and
disabled civilians by examining how developments in one population
significantly affected developments in other.
80
Dr. Paul Robinson, University of Ottawa
“Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and Popular Support for the First World War
in Russia”
The Eastern Front in the First World War has received very little attention from
historians when compared to the Western Front. This is the case not only in the
West but also in Russia, where the First World War is largely ignored in
preference for studies of the revolution, civil war, and Second World War.
Recently, however, the opening of the Soviet archives, along with new
approaches to historical study, have allowed some historians to view Russia’s
First World War from new perspectives. Among other things, new sources have
enabled a re-examination of popular attitudes to the war. These have
challenged the view that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was spurred by
hostility to the war; rather, it was a reaction against a government which was
believed to be running the war incompetently, and was thus initially meant to
produce a government which would prosecute the war more effectively. This
paper examines and confirms that thesis through an analysis of the popularity
of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Supreme Commander of the Russian
Army in 1914-15 and March 1917. The paper will provide evidence of the
Grand Duke’s popularity, which remained strong even after the fall of the Tsar,
and show that it derived not from battlefield success but from the perception
that the Grand Duke was resolutely anti-German and determined to fight the
war à l’outrance. It was precisely the fact that the Grand Duke was pro-war
which made him popular. This conclusion poses a serious challenge to how
historians have traditionally viewed the interaction of war and politics, and
attitudes to the First World War in Russia.
81
Dr. Pinaki Roy, Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University
Paper Presented in Absence
“Erinnerungen gleichermaßen schmerzhaft: German War Poets of the Great
War”
To millions of readers literary memories of the First World War (1914-18)
mostly occur as writings by the English (and, in some cases, American)
soldier-litterateurs like Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Thomas,
Ivor Gurney, Julian Grenfell, Alan Seeger, and Joyce Kilmer, who fought
against the Central Powers and mostly perished. However, several historians
opine that the Kriegssshuld, which the Germans had to admit after losing the
Great War, could have been applied to some of the Allied countries as well,
whose imperialistic interests led to the aggravation of hostilities. A hundred
years after the declaration of the 1914-18 global belligerence, readers and
critics of the period’s memories and literary works still often forget that several
talented German soldier-poets willingly fought for der Vaterland and Kaiser
Wilhelm II, and were annihilated in action. Chronologically arranged, German
combatant-writers of the First World War include such luminaries as Adolf
Petrenz, August Stramm, Albert Michel, Wilhelm Klemm, Ernst Stadler,
Gottfried Benn, Friedrich Wolf, Alfred Lichtenstein, Gerrit Engleke, Kurd
Adler, Anton Schnack, Franz Janowitz, Ernst Toller, and Wilhelm Runge,
whose publications and literary excellence easily match those of their Allied
counterparts, but their achievements are often overlooked or underrepresented
in a postcolonial literary milieu which, interestingly, has come to favour the
victorious. Stefan George and Heinrich Mann survived the Great War, but
unlike another war-survivor Rudolf Georg Binding, attracted general Western
attention only after rejecting the fervours for National Socialism. The paper
“Erinnerungen gleichermaßen schmerzhaft: German War Poets of the Great
War” proposes to offer a new rereading of different Great War German soldier-
poets and their important wartime publications. Attempts would be made to
highlight the similarities and dissimilarities of their writings vis-à-vis the
writings of English, American, or Canadian combatant-litterateurs. It requires
mention even after the passage of a century from the declaration of the Great
War, German war-poetry has failed to achieve international critical attention,
and Stadler, Benn, and Adler are still considered to be merely Kriegstreibers
just like the Second World War-German poets Josef Magnus Wehner, Hans
Zöberlein, Edwin Erich Dwinger, Eberhard Wolfgang Möller, and Kurt Eggers.
82
Jeffrey T. Sammons, New York University
“The Strange Career of Valdo B. Schita: A Study in Shifting Identities, Clever
Deception, and Military Desperation”
Valdo B. Schita is a man of questionable identity as he shifted it to the situation
and his needs. He falls into a well-known category of those who create and
transform self-identities, but war gave him the rare opportunity of fashioning
himself as a combat hero on an international stage. By becoming entrapped in
his web of lies the New York National Guard, desperate for experienced, battle-
hardened men, unwittingly facilitated the positioning and arming of a man with
murderous capacity not so much for the enemy but for those within.
This is the story of a cunning individual who gains favor by claiming to
be a British subject who identified closely with his colonial masters, including
service in the local constabulary in southern and east Africa. That service
allegedly continued into the Boer War and WWI in its early stages. Evidence
has not been found to support any of these claims, and the chronology and
circumstances defy plausibility. He did serve in the Canadian army, inflated
his resume, and finessed the basis for his discharge on the eve of deployment
overseas.
This “history” was accepted by the leadership of the 15th New York
National Guard and resulted in his promotion to sergeant and a role as a
provost marshal in which he gained a reputation for overzealous pursuit of his
responsibilities. Eventually he killed a fellow soldier but, at court martial, put
the Regiment on trial by claiming race fanaticism on the part of its officers that
led to a complete breakdown of military discipline and unit cohesion.
Although convicted of premeditated murder, the court cited mitigating
circumstances in recommending life at hard labor rather than the warranted
execution. A review panel accepted the reputation because this man had
convinced the authorities that he was doing them a service especially in
confirming their prejudices about the inadequacy of black soldiers especially
officers. His claims to foreign origins seemingly played an important role in
the sentence.
He would serve in federal prisons from 1918 until his death in 1945.
Late in his incarceration, he waged a desperate fight for his freedom based on
substandard legal representation and violation of due process. His appeals
were heard and resulted in decisions that established important precedents
regarding collateral attacks on military justice. Although a psychopath, Schita
is remarkable for what he reveals about identity, survival, military standards,
and prejudicial attitudes of white authorities.
In addition to the international/multinational dimensions of his story,
even if largely fantastical, it requires a treatment that considers history, law,
and human psychology to apprehend this complex human being in the volatile
and revealing context of race and war.
83
Jessica Sandy, MA Student, University of Calgary
“Names in Stone: A Connective Methodology”
Approximately half of the communities in British Columbia and Alberta
that chose to build war memorials in the interwar period also made the
deliberate choice to engrave names upon them. The names of First World War
soldiers engraved on these memorials provide a unique window for historical
inquiry that has scarcely been touched in the study of the memory and
commemoration of the First World War. The names in stone have been widely
identified as important because it was the first war for which individual
soldiers were honoured and commemorated with such equality. However, they
also serve as distinct identity markers that connected community members to
the war in Europe, and when used in research, allow for this relation to be
extended through history.
As the centennial anniversary of the war approaches, much of the
historiography regarding the First World War has centred on the topics of
memory and commemoration. This paper proposes a methodological
framework to explore these themes in a way that effectively bridges the home
front with the war in Europe; the names engraved on local war memorials can
be used as a forum for the study of these two separate worlds. Specifically, it
will use excerpts of research from my master’s thesis to demonstrate how this
methodology can be employed as well as posit other research themes that
would benefit from a similar approach. Such research would be well situated in
historical discourse as the world reflects back on the century-ago Great War
and the passing of its living memory.
84
Jonathan Scotland, PhD Candidate, Western University
“Hagiographic history?: George Drew and the Popularity of
Postwar Aviation in Canada”
Paper presented in absence.
The technological destruction of the First World War undermined ideas about
progress. In Canada, the importance and popularity of airmen and aerial
exploration proved an important exception to this postwar disenchantment. By
taking the war to the air the country’s aviators had done more than master the
skies; they proved men could still triumph over the de-humanizing destruction
of total war. Moreover, they had done so by becoming leading 'aces' of the
British Empire. After 1919, many Canadian aviators had flown as part of the
war's aerial arms. The resulting popular descriptions of their exploits evoked
their achievements as Canadian wartime airmen.
George Drew wrote the most successful of these stories. His articles
for Maclean’s magazine and his resulting book, Canada’s Fighting Airmen,
cemented ties between Canada’s wartime achievements, its airmen, and
aviation’s postwar possibilities. This paper argues that Drew’s work was
effective because it filled an important gap in Canada’s postwar ideas about its
time at war. Unlike other inter-war writers, Drew gained access to the files of
the Army Historical Section and, combined with in-depth correspondence with
the airmen and their families, his profiles provided Canadians with one of the
first histories of the war based on archival documentation. The resulting
descriptions of Canadian airmen provided readers stories with far richer
historical detail and factual accuracy than anything published in newspapers or
magazines. Drew's work offered Canadians a nationalist, popular description of
Canadian airmen’s that portrayed the country's pilots as master of the air and
the Canadian frontier.
85
Dr. Mark Sheftall, Auburn University
“Men, Myths and Machines: Industrialized Warfare in the First World War
Nationalist Narratives of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, 1914 – 1939”
By the end of the First World War, some of the most vaunted reputations
among the British Empire’s forces on the Western Front belonged to fighting
formations from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Typically, observers
during the war years and inter-war period explained these troops’ remarkable
battlefield achievements as the product primarily of innate character and
physical attributes associated with their perceived origins in “New World”
“frontier” societies and environments. The legend of triumphant citizen
soldiers from the “bush” or backwoods – military amateurs but inherently
gifted at war - lies at the heart of Australia and New Zealand’s Anzac Myth,
and a similar “Myth of the Soldier” prevalent in inter-war Canadian culture.
However, wartime and post-war primary sources reveal that a more
accurate image of the Dominion soldier, particularly by 1917-18, might be that
of a highly-trained professional or technician; the master of the industrialized
battlefield, but not because their “mettle” enabled them to transcend it. Rather,
their specialized knowledge and skills – established through a rigorous and
painful process of becoming adept with the tools and techniques of modern
warfare – allowed them to thoroughly integrate with the setting. This
Dominion soldier is almost entirely missing from wartime and inter-war
culture. The primary explanation for this is that the idea of Dominion soldiers
as paragons of industrialized warfare contradicted certain deeply-ingrained
notions of identity associated with “British World” settler societies.
86
Dr. Dennis Showalter, Colorado College
“Made Up As They Went Along: The Grand Strategies of World War I”
Grand strategy as a term and concept is a product of the twentieth century. As
Williamson Murray says, it has no precise definition. It is affected by a state’s
geography, history, government, and leadership. It incorporates political,
economic, social, and military realities. BH Liddell-Hart described grand
strategy’s purpose as coordinating and directing a nation’s total resources
towards the objectives of national policy. Michael Howard adds enlisting the
support of allies. Hew Strachan offers a warning that grand strategy so defined
tends to seek goals “more visionary and aspirational than pragmatic and
immediate”, in other words to neglect contingency. Murray takes that point
further, asserting that grand strategy can only be understood in historical
contexts that emphasize the ambiguities and uncertainties influencing specific
policies and decisions.
The starting point of this discourse is August 1914. None of the
combatants had anything resembling a grand-strategic perspective on the
conflict they entered. The opening period of World War I was unique in the
intensity of its tactical focus at the expense of operations, strategy, and policy
alike. With the arguable exception of Britain, there were no plans for economic
mobilization. Allied coordination functioned in an atmosphere of mutual
exploitation. Governments abandoned political direction, allowing policy
considerations to be defined by generals—who in turn implemented strategy
and operations in the context of an obsessive search for a single decisive
victory.
The collapse of this inverted pyramid confronted governments, armies,
and polities alike with a blank slate. The years from 1915 to 1918 can be
defined in terms of the combatants’ efforts to develop the instruments and
attitudes of what became grand strategy on the rubble of prewar illusions and
delusions. Like all jury-rigging, the process was characterized by dead ends
and false starts. This presentation proposes to discuss the development of
grand strategy during the Great War in the context of the theoretical matrices
that have grown around institutions and ideas “made up as they went along.”
87
Don Smith, PhD Candidate, University of Queensland
“Constructing an authentic and enduring family memory and identity of those
who enlisted underage in the First World War”
This paper will examine the enlistment of underage boys in the AIFi in the
First World War, their coming of age experience and the contemporary interest
of succeeding generations in constructing their identity and preserving their
memory.
In spite of official policies on minimum enlistment age, official denials,
threats to those who may make false declarations and public concern, lax or
intentional enlistment practices allowed underage boys to volunteer to join the
AIF throughout the First World War, as occurred in all armies. Prevailing
circumstances and pressures made enlistment desirable and almost inevitable
for many underage boys.
Their motivation was multi-faceted. They sought adventure; they
sought entry into a man’s world. Knowingly or unknowingly, they experienced
their coming of age during the war. Those who survived, particularly those
still underage, returned home to resume their lives, with unique impact on their
fragile and elusive sense of identity and that of their families.
If they were killed, they are ‘forever boys’; if they returned home, it was
as 18/19 year old men, or still 16/17 year old boys – maimed, psychologically
damaged and silent about their experience. While their wasted lives are
strongly symbolic of the futility of war, the quickly ageing and dying next
generations seek to construct and preserve the memory and identity of their
First World War relative and vicariously so, of themselves.
88
Megan Smith, MA Student, New York University
“Finding Space and Meaning for the Irish Allied Soldiers of World War I in
Irish History”
In Irish history, events for national independence such as the 1916 Easter
Rising dominated the historical narrative of the 20th century and pushed the
memory of the Great War and consequently the Irish soldiers who served with
the Allies to the historical sidelines. Although the Irish soldiers who fought
with the Allies have been marginalized by a narrative focusing on Irish national
independence, recent historians have tried to incorporate the Irish WWI
soldiers into Irish history in meaningful ways. Some historians such as John
Morrisey in his article “Ireland’s Great War: Representation, Public Space and
the Place of Dissonant Heritage” have suggested the Irish Allied soldiers were
patriotic, but were following a different path to Irish independence and were
fighting for the independence of all small countries in the Great War. While
some takes on Irish history emphasized the Great War as a British experience
and thus Irish soldiers who served were part of the British memory and not the
Irish, recent historians such as Keith Jeffery in Ireland and the Great War have
sought to show that the Great War impacted Ireland and the Irish veterans
represent part of Ireland’s history of the Great War. Historians have realized
that Irish history suffers a lost by not including WWI veterans. This paper will
explore the ways historians have treated the memory and identity of Irish
Allied soldiers and how historians have attempted to place the Irish Allied
soldiers within Irish history, even when doing so complicates the narrative of
Irish history.
89
Andrew H. Smoot
"Never Has Legend Reaped As Rich A Harvest: Sir Edmund Ironside, German
Radio Intelligence, and the Battle of Gumbinnen"
Everyone with an interest in cryptologic history has read how German
communications intelligence (COMINT) won the Battle of Tannenberg in
August 1914. However, before Tannenberg, there was Gumbinnen, the battle
COMINT did not win. Fought on 20 August, it was the second in a series of
encounters between Russian and German forces ultimately culminating in the
Battle of Tannenberg. In his book Tannenberg: The First Thirty Days in East
Prussia, published in 1925, Sir Edmund Ironside wrote that German radio
operators intercepted the orders for the Russian 1st Army in the early hours of
19 August, implying that the intercepted messages formed the basis for the
German commander's decision to attack the Russians near Gumbinnen. Anglo-
American writers have often followed Ironside's account, with some variations.
Ironside gave no source for his information and he is the only source credited
by anyone else for the actual intercept of the messages, if any source is given at
all. German- and Russian-language accounts and documents, however, provide
good reasons for questioning the role of COMINT in German decision-making
at this point in the campaign. On the German side, limited collection
resources, a shortage of personnel familiar with the Russian language, and the
lack of a coordinated system for reporting information derived from
intercepted messages hindered the effort to turn them into actionable
intelligence, casting doubt on Ironside's tale. Russian-language material,
including copies of the actual messages in question, suggest that they were sent
by ordinary telegraph - by wire - rather than by wireless, and that they were
sent much later in the day than stated in Ironside's account. Information from
the 8th Army's war diary for the first three weeks of August suggests that other
forms of intelligence, especially aerial reconnaissance, largely overshadowed
COMINT at this point in the campaign. The decision to engage at Gumbinnen,
the way the battle was fought, and the decision to break off the action after one
day were all affected by flawed information and the flawed assessments
derived from it.
90
Betsy Rohaly Smoot, Center for Cryptological History
“Chut, J'ecoute: The AEF's Radio Section and Communications Intelligence
Collection”
A great deal of attention has been given to the work of the cryptanalysts and
code breakers of the American Expeditionary Foreces - those that worked in
the G2A6 Radio Intelligence Section. Less study has been given to those that
collected the intelligence - the communications intelligence collectors of the
Radio Section of the Signal Corps. The Radio Section personnel established six
types of collection facilities, worked closely with their French colleagues,
partnered with the intelligence officers of the G2A6, and developed the arts of
direction finding and traffic analysis. The need for some stations to be very
close to the front lines led to these cryptologists experiencing the war in a very
different way from their headquarters-based colleagues. There were many
more stations established than some sources indicate, and they were often
moved to better serve combat operations. This paper will look at the work of
the Radio Section and the experiences of the men who manned the collection
facilities, with a particular focus of better understanding how and where
communications intelligence was collected.
91
Hanna Smyth, MA Student, University of Leicester
“Mourning, Memory, and Material Culture: Colonial Commemoration of the
Missing on the Great War's Western Front"
The upheaval of the Great War complicated the relationship between Britain
and her empire, and the war’s aftermath left Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
and South Africa to navigate new aspects of their identities and connections to
the metropole. A product of postwar recovery for each of these colonies was
their creation on the Western Front of memorials to their missing. This paper
examines these sites as manifestations of an entirely new stage in British-
colonial relations. It demonstrates their centrality to the questions of personal
and national identity, as well as collective memory, which defined the postwar
era and have shaped postwar scholarship ever since. Through the detailed
analysis of four specific memorials, a new analytical framework is presented
which shifts our understanding of these broader themes. Thus, this paper is an
innovative contribution to the topic of ‘Memory and Identity’ identified as one
of this conference’s themes, by providing new perspectives on material culture
and the changing nature of commemoration.
Drawing upon material culture theory, colonial and WWI history, the
study of mourning processes, and the changing nature of memory, identity, and
remembrance, this paper examines the processes by which affinities to Britain
were often incorporated within, not repudiated by, early national identities
formed by the colonies. This paper argues that there was no cohesive colonial
identity for these memorials to either express or suppress: to better comprehend
the meanings ascribed to them, these memorials must be analyzed as sites of
hybridity, at which many identities- personal and collective, colonial and
imperial- have intersected over time.
92
Dr. Frank Stahnisch, University of Calgary
“Looking for Microscopic Changes in the Brain: Neurohistologists at the War
Effort of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.”
Medical histories of the “Great War” have been largely preoccupied with the
striking psychological problems that tens of thousands of soldiers displayed
after having been subjected to the new industrialized forms of trench warfare.
“Shellshock” was the condition that Charles Samuel Myers (1873–1946)
coined in an article in the Lancet in 1915, a condition for which medical
communities of other countries had their own terminologies for, such as
“névrose de guerre” (France) or “Kriegszitterer” (Germany). Despite the
differences in terminology, military physicians appear to have almost
unanimously shared the belief that shellshock was of psychological origin. In
Germany, a well-known – though lonely – clinical dissenter from this
psychological aetiology was Berlin neurologist and psychiatrist Hermann
Oppenheim (1858–1919) at the Friedrich Wilhelms University. However, his
argumentation for a somatic origin of shellshock was primarily philosophical
and not grounded in pathological laboratory-based research. It is probably no
coincidence that less than 20 km away from the Charité in Berlin,
neurohistologist Max Bielschowsky (1869–1940) also worked on proving the
somatic origins of shellshock at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain
Research.
This presentation focuses on Bielschowsky’s particular case, in which
the concept of “traumatic regeneration” became transferred from military
hospital settings to the hygienic, quiet and well-equipped laboratory systems of
contemporary brain research, in which Bielschowsky placed the question of the
normal-pathological distinction on trauma and regeneration into the new
epistemic context of “degeneration and exhaustion” towards the end of World
War One and the beginnings of new Weimar Republic social discourses.
93
Dr. Bill Stewart
“An Intolerable Burden Of Work And Responsibility:” Recasting the Canadian
Demobilization Plan, 1918-1919”
Canadian Great War demobilization failed in several important respects.
Thirteen riots tarnished the sterling reputation of the Canadian Expeditionary
Force and resulted in the deaths of five Canadians and one British policeman,
many injuries, and large property losses. Troop repatriation was also marked by
multiple prolonged delays, an inquiry into deplorable shipping conditions, and
much frustration, all of which were hallmarks of an extemporized and poorly
conceived plan. There was, however, already in place a carefully prepared plan
based on work started in early 1917 and coordinated with the British. It
featured agreements with the British on shipping standards, leave policy, and
repatriation through French ports. Nevertheless, in November 1918, the
Canadian Corps commander persuaded the Canadian Prime Minister, Sir
Robert Borden, over the objections of his cabinet, to overturn this plan and
substitute a scheme based on unit seniority. This meant the British acceding to
Canadian demands to overturn previous arrangements and further stress their
already overtaxed transportation system. Surprisingly, the British cabinet
agreed to these demands.
This paper examines the Canadian demobilization planning process and
resulting plan – a topic that has received little scholarly attention. The key
portion of the study analyzes the factors that drove Borden to countermand the
existing plan and why the British were so accommodating to Canadian
requirements. The paper uses both Canadian and British archival information
to get multiple perspectives on this important transition period in Imperial
relations.
94
Dr. Lisa Todd, University of New Brunswick
“'The Inner Enemy of Sexual Promiscuity' Controlling Soldier-Civilian
Encounters in First World War Europe."
This paper examines sexual relationships between soldiers and civilians in First
World War Germany. By visiting the major sites of illicit contact between men
and women– brothels, bars, cafes, and prisoner-of-war camps – the paper
demonstrates how deeply the German state ultimately intruded into private
lives under the guise of military necessity. For instance, in the first three
months of 1917, twenty-five Leipzig women were arrested for “unauthorized”
contact with foreign prisoners-of-war and charged with treason. Such stories of
immoral German war wives became public knowledge when newspapers
printed thousands of sensational accounts of local women cavorting with
enemy men. The legal crackdown on this so-called crisis of female infidelity
was only one example of civil-military interventionist powers demanding
further regulation of wartime private lives.
From the “tail parade” medical inspections of soldiers to the enforced
concentration of “enemy” women into brothels, this paper argues that fear was
the prime motivator for the heightened control of wartime sexual activity: fear
of venereal diseases that threatened the reproductive capabilities of the nation;
fear of the disintegration of marriages at a time when the family was being
exalted as the bedrock of postwar renewal; fear of falling birth rates when the
human cost of war made them most crucial; and fear of war wives cavorting
with precisely those foreign male warriors who were killing male Germans in
unprecedented numbers. Increasingly, as a stable home front was deemed a
military necessity in this first “total war” and sexual disorder signaled social
disorder, private concerns of the bedchamber became public issues of health
and security.
95
Dr. Yves Tremblay, Directorate of History and Heritage
“A.P. Jarvis, 2nd Division A.P.M., and the occupation of
the Ypres Salient, 1915-1916.”
The 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions were deployed in the Ypres Salient from
February 1915 to August 1916. During the aforementioned months, at a time
when the zone behind the front was still inhabited, they “occupied” a territory
populated by Belgian and French civilians. Since the cohabitation was not
planned, a modus vivendi had to be devised between the inhabitants and the
newcomers about the use of land, the ownership of flocks and vegetables,
bicycles and work dogs, about frequentation of the ever growing industry of
estaminets and female “companions.”
This state of affairs is described with minute accuracy by the assistant-
provost marshal of the 2nd Division, major A.P. Jarvis, in the official war diary
of his unit. This war diary is unlike any other, because it is really Jarvis’ voice
we hear; the voice of a good storyteller. Jarvis was a former RNWMP inspector
with 31 years of service. Indeed his long service on the “frontier” prepared him
well to deal with locals. In France he had under his command a MP section
complemented by a detachment of cyclists or cavalry and two squads of
Belgian and French gendarmes.
Jarvis would search weeks for chicken thieves or beehive vandals and
get their owners compensated for their loss. He regulated estaminets’ permits
and opening hours in spite the opposition of local authorities, fined the
recalcitrant and put shops out-of-bounds. His office became a point of
convergence for all who had some damage claim against Canadian military
personnel garrisoned in the area – real or imaginary… He hunted spies
knowing well that that they were likely the spring of fertile imaginations.
He took a lot of initiatives, often offending Belgian and in particular French
authorities. When the CEF left for the Somme in the summer of 1916, Jarvis’
powers were drastically reduced. It is perhaps the reason why the 2nd Division
A.P.M. war diary ends.
96
Dr. Jonathan Vance, Western University
“1914-2014: The War Isn't What It Used to Be”
The advent of the centenary of the First World War in August 2014 ushered in
what will likely be an unprecedented period of commemoration involving
victors and vanquished, former colonies and former colonial powers, the
descendants of participants and the descendants of bystanders. Will there be
any common threads, or does the sheer variety of war experiences make that
impossible? And how will official, national commemorations connect with
private or local acts? Can the centenary bridge the gap between the individual
and the state? Professor Vance will explore the competing narratives of the
Great War that might emerge over the next four years, and consider what is
behind the imperative to commemorate the war a century later.
Marian Vlasak, PhD Candidate, Syracuse University
"Of Fodder and Fuel-- the AEF and the Other Quest for Mobility in the Great
War: A Logistical Reconsideration"
Much study has been done of the various heroic combat oriented initiatives
(i.e. tanks, airplanes, large guns, etc.) taken towards restoring mobility to the
static war of position experienced in the Great War. Less attention has been
paid towards the homely logistical issues involved in the transition from
muscle-powered transportation provided by horses, mules, and wagons to that
of motorized cargo vehicles during a time of war. This paper assesses the
difficulties and complexities of the AEF simultaneously operating essentially
two types of supply and maintenance systems, for animals and motors, though
both modes were geared toward the provision of this basic and unglamorous
form of martial mobility. This paper further explores the supply and
maintenance issues experienced by the AEF and how they affected these two
mobility modes, animal and motorized. For the AEF, this meant trying to
integrate new technology while at war, overseas, with an inadequate oceanic
supply line. It was a seemingly simple matter to seek trucks to replace horses,
mules and wagons. It was another issue to keep them running with exacting
mechanical parts, when failure rates under combat support conditions were
relatively unknown. For the AEF, it seems the Atlantic line-of-communication
problem may have had a more nuanced influence on the quest for mobility than
has been previously appreciated.
97
Dr. Steven Wagner
“Intelligence, Secret Diplomacy, and the dynamics of British war aims in the
Middle East 1914-18”
British war aims in the Middle East evolved during the course of the First
World War according to Britain’s interactions with allies, locals, and the
Ottomans. Britain used Islam against the Ottoman Empire as the latter
attempted to raise Jihad in Egypt, while the Ottoman army nearly destroyed the
Suez Canal – the lifeline of the British Empire. British policy became one of
regional domination as a means to reconcile the vulnerability of the Empire.
Studies of British policy have not paid enough attention to the role of
Arab nationalist secret societies in galvanizing support for a wartime Anglo-
Arab partnership. The role of Salafist intellectuals in these approaches to
Britain also has been underemphasized. The intelligence record reveals that
until the setbacks of 1915, British decision makers rejected approaches
regarding an Arab revolt or future statehood. It also reveals that British policy
never accounted for the aims and means of Arab nationalists during the final
year of the war, because they lacked homogenous interests and existed in secret
until the armistice.
It was during this critical period that the modern Middle East was born in a
state of confusion, conflict, and contradiction. Key British policymakers,
namely Herbert Kitchener and Mark Sykes, never lived to see the
consequences of their decisions. The intelligence record reveals how Allenby’s
intelligence staff implemented their decisions in the fog of war, but with an eye
to a peace conference which might produce a result favourable to British
interests.
98
Dr. Randall Wakelam, Royal Military College of Canada
“Air Power and the Great War: Learning While Doing”
The paper seeks to examine the learning associated with the introduction of
aircraft to warfare. From the first experiments in powered flight in 1903
soldiers and sailors were thrust into a new operating environment with almost
no time to think through technology, doctrine, tactics and organizations before
the commencement of hostilities in 1914; from that point on things got even
more frantic in the expansion of roles and organizations. How might aircraft
best be used; how would flying units be organized and equipped and to whom
would they report? These and other questions were part of the learning curve.
Many of the events and accomplishments associated with the
introduction and use of various air technologies up to the end of the Great war
have been amply described in existing discourse; this paper will seek to
identify how new ideas were collected, analysed and disseminated so that
aviators might optimize the potential of the aircraft. In this sense the paper is
more about organizational culture and identity than it is about exploits and
daring-do. It will also explore the world of ideas, technology and combat in
which men like Guilio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard and Billy Mitchell were
immersed for up to four years. It was in this laboratory that their post war
ideas, with which we are much more familiar, were first conceived.
The paper will concentrate on the British and French experiences but
where possible will include the discussion of German, Italian and American air
services.
The paper will be based on the few non-operational histories that exist
as well as official histories and archival material, particularly at the UK
National Archives. It will also make use of the prominent British aviation
periodicals, The Aeroplane and Flight.
99
Jonathan Weier, PhD Candidate, Western University
“Transcending the National Boundaries of Conventional Military History: The
International YMCA and the First World War”
During the First World War, the YMCA played a significant role providing
recreational, religious and medical services to combatants and POWs. YMCA
secretaries were present in training camps, on battlefields, in rear areas, and in
POW camps on every continent. Though the YMCA was active globally during
the First World War, and national YMCAs from dozens of countries
participated in First World War work, some national YMCAs were involved
much more prominently and fill a larger space in this history.
For the YMCA the First World War was an important moment in
defining the subsequent one hundred years of association work and character.
The First World War was also a key moment in which the international
leadership and character of the YMCA gave way to ever more important
national federations and identities, an evolution that has continued to the
present.
Though this history could also be written as national histories of YMCA
federations, this topic, and the nature of the YMCA as a global organization,
lends itself more effectively to a transnational history. Although in the context
of the First World War, national YMCA’s tended to act as subsidiaries of larger
national war efforts, the YMCA entered and left the war as an international
federation with a shared Christian mission directed towards young men. This
paper will discuss the importance of transnational histories in discussing the
history war and culture, especially when writing the history of global religious
and social institutions.
100
Jenny Wilkinson, Research Fellow,
Australian Council for Educational Research
“Perspectives on commemoration: schools in 2014”
In 2013, the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne Australia commissioned the
Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) to review its educational
programs for schools. The aims of the review were to consider the current
programs and to make recommendations about future programs.
ACER staff became more familiar with the programs by observing
various aspects, discussing the programs with key staff and others in the wider
community, and reviewing existing documentation and material, including a
range of relevant websites. Selected overseas sites were also reviewed via a
web search for the purposes of the review.
The interviews with Shrine staff and others focused on what they see as
the purposes of the Shrine’s educational programs, how these purposes are
realized, and issues and challenges that the programs currently face. Data
collected included teacher evaluations and records of school visits. ACER also
developed a survey for a sample of teachers
Findings from the research led to a range of recommendations. Some of
the major findings related to the role and deployment of Shrine educators, the
role of accompanying teachers, curriculum links and resource materials,
training and professional development for staff, volunteers and teachers, access
and diversity and the best ways to share with young people the purpose and
historical significance of the Shrine, particularly in light of the lead up to the
centenary of Australian New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) forces landing at
Gallipoli in modern day Turkey on April 25th 2015.
101
Gavin J. Wiens, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto
“As a brave and honourable Soldier of both King and Kaiser: Duke Albrecht
and the Problem of Prusso-Württembergian Military Relations before the First
World War”
In the autumn of 1870, at the height of the Franco-Prussian War, King Karl of
Württemberg signed a military convention with Prussia which prepared the
way for the inclusion of Württemberg in the German empire. One of the most
contentious issues which emerged from this agreement concerned officer
appointments. While Karl retained the right to assign, dismiss, and promote
almost all officers serving in Württembergian units, the appointment of the
commanding general of the XIII (Württembergian) Army Corps required the
approval of the King of Prussia in his capacity as German Kaiser and
commander-in-chief of the new imperial army, or Reichsheer. The subordinate
position of Württemberg in the military structure of the empire nevertheless
ensured that, more often than not, the commander of the Württembergian
troops was a Prussian and not a Württemberger. From the mid-1870s onwards,
this situation created considerable discomfort at court in Stuttgart, as well as in
Württembergian diplomatic and military circles. Ultimately, the question of the
appointment of a commanding general resulted in a serious conflict in Prusso-
Württembergian military relations between 1904 and 1908. This conflict,
triggered by the desire of Karl’s successor, King Wilhelm II, to appoint the
catholic heir to the throne of the predominantly Protestant kingdom of
Württemberg, Duke Albrecht, as commanding general of the XIII Army Corps
against the wishes of the Kaiser, exposed the fault lines between northern and
southern Germany and highlighted the fact that, almost forty years after its
proclamation in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles in January 1871 and less than
a decade before the Reichsheer would be tested on the battlefields of the First
World War, the unification of German-speaking central Europe was still very
much a work in progress.
102
Dr. Jim Wright, University of Calgary – Presenter and Co-Author
Leland B Baskin, Calgary Laboratory Services – Co-Author
“Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Services in World War 1 in the US Army
Medical Corps.”
Historical research directed at outlining the scope of pathology and laboratory
medicine services in WW1 as well as the value these services brought to the
war effort has been very limited to date. In the Spanish American War, these
efforts were primarily focused on tropical diseases. WW1 problems that could
be addressed by pathology and laboratory medicine were strikingly different.
Significant advances in blood transfusion techniques allowing brief blood
storage occurred during the War. Changing war tactics and trench warfare
created new issues. Autopsies were performed to better understand battlefield
injuries, effects of chemical warfare agents, and the influenza pandemic;
autopsies also generated teaching specimens for medical museums.
Bacteriology services focused on communicable diseases and laboratory
testing for social diseases was now feasible. In this paper, we will explore
available primary and secondary sources related to British and American
laboratory services as well as contrast these with the German approach which
was radically different based upon fundamental differences in the philosophies
of pathologists in Germany vs North America. We will discuss in detail the
United States Army Medical Corps Division of Laboratories and Infectious
Disease (DLID). The USA entered the War in April 1917. Dr. Louis B
Wilson, Head of Pathology at the Mayo Clinic, entered the Medical Corps in
September 1917 and was assigned to Dijon, France. Over the next year, Wilson
organized 300 efficient laboratories to support the American Expeditionary
Force (AEF), for which he later received the Distinguished Service Medal with
a citation that read in part "by reason of his exceptional organizing and
executive ability he organized most efficiently a pathologic service throughout
the A.E.F. that was of inestimable value to the medical and surgical services."
103
Joseph Zeller, PhD Candidate, University of New Brunswick
“The Limitations of Coal: How one Resource Defined the Naval Operations of
Nations During the First World War”
A hundred years ago the Great War began and I hope to explore a single aspect
of that global conflict and revisit the pivotal role played by Britain’s near
monopoly on coal within the First World War in supporting the operations of
Britain and her allies, hurting their enemies and manipulating neutral nations
during the course of the conflict.
Coal made up two-thirds (by tonnage) of Great Britain’s exports even as
late as 1914 and on this and the many British way-stations within which it was
stored the majority of maritime trade relied. As hostilities severed the
traditional European land-bound trade routes British control of the sea lanes
came to occupy an ever greater importance. The resulting Blockade by Britain
of Germany had a decisive role in bringing about its defeat and limiting its
military effectiveness.
My presentation will discuss some of the most recent findings of my
ongoing doctoral research. Explaining how coal became a central commodity
defining the operations of the German raiders as well as the evolving nature of
the blockade. While the changing nature of the war, international diplomacy
and other commodities, such as produce, all had their own significance coal
remained a primary means of restricting access and defining the nature of naval
operations that occurred. This presentation will explore the operational impact
that coal played within the First World War.
104
Jennifer Zoebelein, PhD Candidate, Kansas State University
“Lest Kansas City Forget Its War Heroes:” The Liberty Memorial and Early
Post-World War I Memory Construction”
The First World War occupies an oft-neglected place within the United
States’ collective memory, negatively associated with the perceived failure to
“make the world safe for democracy” and the country’s ‘retreat’ into
isolationism. Contrary to this portrayal, which I argue stems from Americans’
collective memory of the “greatest generation,” the Interwar years witnessed an
outpouring of memorials and literature dedicated to remembering the Great
War. My research seeks to illuminate the prominent position held by the First
World War in early twentieth century American society. Through the study of
several local war memorials and examples of soldier poetry, I will illustrate
how various modes of remembrance served to create different, even
competing, forms of collective memory while also having a strong impact on
American society in the decades following the Armistice.
My conference paper represents an important component of my
research, examining early efforts at collective memory construction as seen
through Kansas City’s Liberty Memorial. Initiated prior to the cease-fire of 11
November 1918 and dedicated on Armistice Day, 1926, the Liberty Memorial
stands as a testament to the 441 Kansas Citians that lost their lives during the
First World War. From its inception, the memorial existed as a means of
remembrance only; citizens overwhelmingly rejected all utilitarian functions,
thus perpetuating a traditional form of commemoration dating to the nineteenth
century. I argue that the motivations behind such actions were twofold. First,
Kansas Citians actively sought to create a permanent reminder of the sacrifices
their soldiers had made in the name of liberty. The Liberty Memorial thus
serves as a physical contribution to the collective memory of World War I.
Second, the civic leaders of Kansas City – all founding members of the Liberty
Memorial Association – wanted to promote the city itself, situating the
memorial directly across from the newly built Union Station. This unique
combination of civic pride and somber reflection, modern competition and
traditional memorialization, serves to illustrate the conflicting and tumultuous
nature of the postwar world.
