Our Journal: First World War Studies

The interest in Russian memory of the First World War grew significantly in the last ten years. Karen Petrone’s breakthrough book The Great War in Russian Memory has done a remarkable service to the field by examining the war remembrance practices that existed in the Soviet Union, but at the same time, it has opened new perspectives for the following research. By looking closely at the commemoration of the Russian Expeditionary Force in Russia and in France (predominantly by the Russian émigrés) this paper analyses the mechanisms of the memory shaping used to create two strikingly different history narratives of an episode of Russian history. Though a minor military force, the REF was a significant political gesture that later was relatively widely recalled in Russia and in France, thus leaving a substantial amount of various historical sources to conduct a comparative case-study. This research explores different ‘sites of memory’ created within two different narratives of the REF history: cemetery of Russian Soldiers in Champagne, used by the Russian émigrés to underline Russia’s loyalty to the Allied cause; and memoirs of the REF soldiers published in USSR in 1919–1961, focusing on the opposition of the Russian soldiers to the French attempts to send them back to the front. It argues that despite all the differences, both in France and in Soviet Russia the story of the REF was used as an argument in a much broader discussion about Russia’s place in European history. The example of the REF shows that the First World War was perceived within the framework of the broader questions it has posed not only by the Russian émigrés and the former Allies, but by the Bolsheviks as well.

Key Words: First World War, Russian émigrés in France, collective memory, Russian culture, commemorations

This paper argues that British theatre-makers played an important role in recruiting men to the armed forces in 1914 and 1915. It identifies a progression from the use of extra-dramatic interventions in the first weeks of the war, to the blurring of boundaries between stage and auditorium, drawing on plays such as In Time of War, A Call to Arms and England Expects. It ends with an examination of the messages promulgated in these recruiting dramas. Examining a range of plays addressing both men’s reluctance to enlist, and women’s reluctance to let their men enlist, the paper argues that recruiting plays offered a far more sophisticated response to the experience of enlisting than has previously been recognized.

Key Words: Theatre, drama, recruitment, enlistment, Britain, women, 1914, mobilization, atrocities

With the emergence of computer games focused on the First World War, representations of the conflict have begun to reach brand new audiences in ways it has been unable to before. The portrayal of the war in an interactive setting has exposed millions to new information about its origins and methods. To understand the reach and impact of these games it is necessary to also understand their backgrounds and historiography. This article presents the first in-depth examination of the source material for two of the biggest First World War focused computer games in existence; Valiant Hearts: The Great War, and Battlefield 1. Through discussions with the developers behind these games and analysis of the sources which provided them with their information, it becomes possible not just to chart the provenance of their historical messages but also to understand how themes within academic history are being disseminated by the modern media. However, it is also possible to see the extent to which understandings of the war and how it was waged are not being incorporated by games developers or their products. This article argues that more work and cooperation is needed between historians and developers if the narratives of these games is to be influenced by historical research in the same way that the visual authenticity has been.

Key Words: Computer games, First World War, representation, historiography, popular culture

Historians have generally analysed the commemorative activities of the Imperial War Graves Commission in terms of their symbolic function for a nation traumatized by the horrors of the First World War. In this article, I shift the focus to the dead bodies of British soldiers, whose repatriation was prohibited, and which were buried in appositely built military cemeteries near the battlefields where they had died. By exploring the large-scale exhumations performed by the IWGC and the British responses to the ban on repatriation, I argue that the Imperial War Graves Commission negotiated the demands of public opinion for adopting civilian notions of decency in the burial of soldiers with the difficulties posed by the necessity of exhuming, transporting, and burying hundreds of thousands of cadavers. This research is located at the intersection between the cultural history of the body and the anthropology of body-politics. By focussing on dead soldiers as bodies, the treatment of corpses yields insights into changing notions of decency, class conflicts, and the demands of a vocal public opinion which was closely concerned with the fate of casualties that needed to be commemorated both as civilians and as soldiers.

Key Words: Body politics, military commemoration, memory, cemeteries, war graves commission, anthropology of death