Our Journal: First World War Studies

The study of the First World War in the Middle East has been dominated by diplomatic and military scholars. A new breed of historians and sociologists has attempted to look at the ways in which Middle Eastern societies were reshaped by the war. This article seeks to demonstrate how specialized historical, cultural and social knowledge was put to use by the French intelligence in the Middle East, during the First World War. By looking at the case of Dominican Father Antonin Jaussen, this article will reveal the limits of the use of Oriental knowledge as a mechanism of modernity as well as its impact on this period on the history of the Middle East, suggesting that this method became a leading principle in the post-war era. The case of Father Jaussen suggests that Orientalist knowledge for calculating wartime exigencies set the stage for the use of these very methods in the post-war, state-building era. This essay is finally intended to serve as both an opening to further research on specific subjects such as Jaussen, and as a call to develop new historiographical tactics when dealing with issues that connect European and Middle Eastern actors and structures. Jaussen and many other European actors still to be examined in depth, also inadvertently implanted and encouraged the seeds of bureaucratic and intellectually hierarchical statecraft by the very methods they used.

Key Words: intelligence, power, knowledge, France, Middle East, Church

This article argues for a more nuanced cultural history of religion for the losing powers by looking comparatively at Catholicism in two different imperial frameworks. The article supplements imperial and national perspectives with local and supranational elements, thus contributing to a new historiographic generation of transnational conceptualization. The study of Catholicism allows one to examine the category of the nation, but also to get above and below it with imperial, ecclesiastical and local elements. By probing the similarities and differences of wartime Catholicism for the losing powers, a transnational history of religiosity allows scholars to go beyond standard histories of religion during the war that unjustly merge individual religious belief with ultimate collective defeat. The essay examines the figure of the Catholic military chaplain as a symbolic focal point of discussions of religion and warfare, both in literature and in scholarly discourse. The article begins by reconsidering the position of Catholicism in Germany and Austria-Hungary. Next, the essay examines the literary portrayal of chaplaincy during the war. From here, the essay looks at military chaplaincy in comparative imperial contexts. The heavily Catholic region of Tyrol serves as a case study highlighting many of the issues under consideration. Finally, the article suggests ways to move beyond chaplains towards a cultural history of religion for the losing powers.

Key Words: war, religion, transnationalism, catholicism, empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary

Elizabeth von Arnim wrote Christine (1917) during the Great War under the pseudonym, Alice Cholmondeley. As an English woman married to Count Henning von Arnim-Schlagenthin, a Prussian Junker, in the years immediately before the First World War, von Arnim’s writing offers particular insights into the culture and politics of the pre-war period and in the midst of the Great War. Nevertheless, her work has been largely unexplored. When Christine appeared, however, the book became the subject of sustained critical interest in both Britain and the United States. There were many, for instance, who considered the book a compelling and valuable first person account of life in Berlin at the outbreak of war. Others thought the book ‘remarkable’ and significant – a judgement that reflects the wider literary preoccupations and fascinating publishing contexts of the time, some of which remained secret during the First World War, but that are examined in detail here.

Key Words: Elizabeth von Arnim, Great War

During the First World War the Netherlands remained neutral. The Dutch did not fight, kill, die or in any way suffer to the extent the belligerents did. The chief problems and questions raised by the First World War accordingly had a comparatively limited impact on Dutch society. The question remains, however, to what extent a neutral country like the Netherlands did experience the First World War. That question is addressed in this article by looking at Dutch public debate on the war during the period 1914–1919. Despite political and military neutrality the war and the specific Dutch position and identity in relation to this war and its possible outcomes were passionately discussed in public debate. The ways in which this debate developed demonstrate how the Great War, when defined as a cultural war, heavily influenced nations that were not militarily involved. Moreover, this approach shows us how neutrality was (re-)defined in this period, both by neutral countries themselves and by the belligerent powers. These findings thus help us understand ideas about belligerency and neutrality in the period of the two world wars.

Key Words: First World War, neutrality, cultural mobilization, identity, public debate, the Netherlands

Historians of modern Britain are familiar with the upper-class notion that a uniquely talented generation was wiped out by the First World War. They are also aware that, at least in part, it is a demographic exaggeration. This article, analysing the activities of the cohort of Etonians of potential combat age (1871–1917), interrogates both perceived wisdoms. It follows both the post-Eton lives of the most talented boys intellectually – namely those who won the prestigious King’s and Newcastle Scholarships, and went on to fight in the war – and physically, the Eton Eights Rowing teams. It compares not only casualty rates amongst such individuals, but also the previous academic records of those who survived the conflict, and went on to achieve political prominence after 1918. Finally, the implications of these numbers as they relate to the wider demographic and political concerns of the interwar years will be considered in relation to the British eugenics movement. Specifically, the fact that Eton’s most talented and honoured students were disproportionately killed in the conflict, as these data demonstrate, recontextualizes the claims of demographers and eugenicists who for the first time began to argue that warfare was intrinsically dysgenic rather than racially desirable. In turn, this rhetorical shift helped create an environment in which scientific practitioners concerned with such issues committed themselves to preventing another international conflict that risked undoing much of what they had been working for since 1918. The statistics included here can be cut many ways (though similar patterns do indeed emerge), but there is clear utility in providing numbers to a subject – Great War loss – that is often shrouded in mystery.

Key Words: Great War, eugenics, Eton, public school, casualty rates, demography