Our Journal: First World War Studies

This article examines the impact made by the extraordinary political conditions of the Great War on the evolving relationship between the Labour Party, the broader labour movement and the monarchy. It establishes the historical context by summarizing labour’s ideological inheritance from nineteenth-century radicalism, the reasons behind the limited appeal of republicanism and recent political events involving the monarchy which had affected labour’s attitude towards it. During the war, the monarchy became the object of even greater attention than usual, as the King was the head of a state at war, a symbol for national unity and patriotism, and a member of a family with German connections. The powers of the Crown were employed in a way which caused concern in some quarters. Finally, the latter years of the war witnessed a revival of republicanism, inspired by events abroad. All of these developments are considered, as are the range of responses elicited from labour. An attempt is made to assess the extent and character of anti-monarchical sentiment within labour, and to determine why the monarchy emerged from the war stronger than ever and more favourably regarded by labour than it had been in 1914.

Key Words: labour, monarchy, Great War

After the First World War, five plebiscites were held to delineate the borders of Germany, Denmark, reestablished Poland, Austria, Hungary and newly established Yugoslavia. The territories subjugated for the plebiscites were border territories, where national identification had not been clear during the nineteenth century. Here, we analyse the German and Danish plebiscite campaign in the Schleswig region on the basis of visual material used of both sides. The focus lies on the iconic use of national and regional symbols to create a certain type of national identification. In the Schleswig case, it is evident that both sides used concepts of Heimat and region and tried to apply them to their national projects. There was a stronger focus on regional identity in the German campaign, though. It used the regional, Schleswig–Holstein heritage and symbols of the region’s 1848 revolt against the Danish kingdom, but clearly tied it to a national, German identification in contrast to the factual historic context of the plebiscite area being a cultural and linguistic border zone between the evolving Danish and German national sphere. Thus, the plebiscite functioned as the final nationalizing measure in a hitherto transnational and transcultural border zone.

Key Words: plebiscites, self-determination, First World War peace settlements, Schleswig, Heimat, regional identity, national identity, nationalization

Australian readers consumed with great interest the fruits of the war books boom that began in Europe in the late 1920s. But it was not until the early 1930s that returned soldiers in Australia began to consider the war in memoir and fiction. This article examines the nature of Australian writing about the Great War during the 1930s and seeks to explain why the conflict produced little work of enduring interest or literary merit. It argues that literary representations of the war, which gave emphasis to its tragic and traumatic elements, were overwhelmed by those remembering a war that challenged but did not defeat its Australian participants. The article traces the reason for the triumph of what can be called ‘middlebrow’ representations of the Great War to the nationalist boon delivered by the experience of war to a colonial settler society of uncertain status. In prosecuting this argument, the article challenges the transnational emphasis of contemporary scholarship about literary modernism and seeks to reassert the significance of the nation-state as a category of analysis.

Mass death in World War One had significant costs on the home front, including disruption of marriage and bereavement practices. Home front novels, women’s fiction written with an aim of depicting this disruption as well as supporting the war effort, provide a lens through which to examine discursive attempts to reconcile personal love and loss with nationalist imperatives to suppress grief and make willing sacrifices for the good of the nation. Authors failed to achieve a consistent, clear prescription for their readers: their attention to personal pain and the war’s effects on broad sections of society made adherence to collective ideologies, including nationalism and socialism, difficult to maintain.

Key Words: bereavement, widowhood, home front novels, marriage, nationalism