Robert, Krisztina - “All That is Best of the Modern Woman”? Representations of Female Military Auxiliaries in British Popular Culture, 1914–1919 Keywords: British popular culture | conflicting representations | female military auxiliaries | First World War | military parades | military women | modern military discourses | wartime popular culture | wartime propaganda battle ISFWWS-Keywords: Britain | Women and War | Home fronts | Society | Gender | Politics | Legacy Abstract: In Britain during the First World War, members of the female auxiliary corps became th…

Schiavon, Emma - The Women’s Suffrage Campaign in Italy in 1919 and Voce Nuova (“New Voice”): Corporatism, Nationalism and the Struggle for Political Rights Keywords: feminism | interventionism | Italian women movement | Milanese feminists | nationalism | Voce Nuova | World War I ISFWWS-Keywords: Italy | Society | Politics | Legacy | Masculinity | Gender | Culture Abstract: This chapter focuses on the Italian women's movement after World War I with particular reference to the experience of the Milanese feminists, who were the leading group in…

Red Cross The red cross on a white ground signifies neutrality in war, and thus protection. The Ottoman Empire introduced the alternative symbol of the red crescent on a white ground during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/1878, and also used it during the First World War. The red crescent continues to be used by Muslim states in place of the red cross, in order to avoid using the Christian symbol. The associations that had assumed the voluntary, and most importantly unpaid, task of caring for the wounded in war, as well as preparing for that activity in peacetime, w…

Field Hospitals (Germany) At the start of the war, 12 field hospitals were available for each infantry corps, and four to eight reserve field hospitals for each reserve corps. Two replacement field hospitals were assigned to the replacement divisions, and in the winter of 1914–1915 two Territorial Army field hospitals were assigned to the Territorial Army brigades. A total of 461 Prussian, 64 Bavarian, 44 Saxon and 23 Württemberg field hospitals were set up (no new ones were created in 1918). In ad…

Prelinger, Elizabeth; Hacker, Barton C. - “The Spirit of Woman-Power”: Representation of Women in World War I Posters Keywords: Visual Arts | Gender | Home fronts | Politics | Science, Technology, and Medicine | Economy | Society | Women and War | Masculinity | Children and War A Companion to Women’s Military History Barton C. Hacker and Margaret Vining , (2012) Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2012 e-ISBN: 9789004206823 DOI: 10.1163/9789004206823_016 © 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Prelinger, Elizabeth and Hacker, Barton C.

Rea, Ann - From “Free Love” to Married Love: Gender Politics, Marie Stopes, and Middlebrow Fiction by Women in the Early Nineteen Twenties Keywords: feminism | Marie Stopes | Married Love | middlebrow fiction | post-war culture ISFWWS-Keywords: Britain | Great Britain | Literature | Society | Legacy | Gender | Culture | Politics Abstract: This chapter considers the role that Marie Stopes played in influencing vast numbers of women to turn away from the radical alternatives, towards what was known as 'New Feminism' ultimately a conservativ…

Russian Revolution Neither the Russian army, nor their economy, nor their political system was equal to the demands of the World War, contributing to the end of the Russian Tsarist Empire. Another major reason was the rapid loss of trust, at all levels of society, which the regime had endured during the war years. As the situation at the military front continued to worsen, an even deeper conflict developed between Tsar Nicholas II and the State Duma. The subsistence crisis engendered by the wartim…

Acsády, Judit - Diverse Constructions: Feminist and Conservative Women’s Movements and Their Contribution to the (Re-)Construction of Gender Relations in Hungary after the First World War Keywords: feminists (FE) | First World War | Hungarian Women's National Federation (MANSZ) | prisoners of war (POWs) | remobilisation | women organisations ISFWWS-Keywords: Austria-Hungary | Legacy | Society | Literature | Religion | Prisoners of War | Gender | Intellectuals and the War Abstract: The issue of changing gender relations was handled very differently by the two …

Acton, Carol - Best Boys and Aching Hearts: The Rhetoric of Romance as Social Control in Wartime Magazines for Young Women Keywords: aching heart | best boy | Our Girls | romance | The Girl's Friend | wartime magazines | young women ISFWWS-Keywords: Britain | Women and War | Literature | Society | Politics | Masculinity | Gender | Home fronts | Culture Abstract: Two very similar weekly one-penny magazines, The Girl’s Friend and Our Girls, targeting working- and lower middle-class girls in the fifteen-to-twenty age group with their combination of advice columns, fa…

Sharp, Ingrid; Stibbe, Matthew - Introduction: Women’s Movements and Female Activists in the Aftermath of War: International Perspectives 1918-1923 Keywords: female activists | Joan Scott | political rights | women's contribution ISFWWS-Keywords: Women and War | General | Legacy | Politics | Gender | Home fronts Abstract: This chapter gives an account of the role played by organised women and female activists in the aftermath of war, and addresses the question identified by Joan Scott in her essay for the seminal volume Behind the Lines (1987), asking not simply what impact …

Todd, Lisa M. - The Hun and the Home: Gender, Sexuality and Propaganda in First World War Europe ISFWWS-Keywords: Gender | Home fronts | Violence against civilians | Germany | Visual Arts | Belgium | Britain | Prisoners of War World War I and Propaganda Troy R.E. Paddock , (2014) Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2014 e-ISBN: 9789004264571 DOI: 10.1163/9789004264571_008 © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Todd, Lisa M.

Zetkin, Clara ( July 5, 1857, Wiederau [Saxony] – June 20, 1933, Arkhangelskoye, Russia), German politician and feminist. Zetkin was an active leading representative of both the international workers’ movement and the socialist women’s movement in Germany, and their leading theorist. She had led the editorial offices of the socialist women’s newspaper Die Gleichheit (Equality) since 1892. Zetkin belonged to the left, antimilitary wing of the Social-Democratic Party (SPD). Right up to August 1914, she agitated against rearmament and war. Unlike the…

Monuments War memorials do not function solely as monuments to the war-dead, but also to “affirm the identity of the survivors” (Reinhart Koselleck). They construct the past in order to cope with the present. War-memorials thus say more about their architects than about the fallen, and the wars they are supposed to commemorate. In the age of mercenary armies, there were no monuments commemorating the common soldier; this honor was reserved for officers and commanders. In Prussia at the beginning of the 19th century, with the introduction of genera…

Home Front In today’s usage in English and German (German Heimatfront), in terms of the geography of the First World War, the term signifies the home territory, defined essentially as the civilian sphere, as opposed to the battle zone and in particular the military front. Used in this sense, with the rise since the 1970s of the social and economic history of war as a subject of study, and also the growing significance of approaches based on sexual and cultural history, it has achieved broad currency in th…

Japan Japan rose to become a Great Power in East Asia during the two centuries preceding 1914. Although the Japanese Empire had become the object of Western imperialism during the late 19th century, they had resisted all attempts at colonization. After victories in both the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, Japan itself stepped into the imperialist arena in East Asia as the new colonial power. As Japan expanded its empire upon the Asian continent before 1914,…

Psychiatry The science that is concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of cerebral illnesses and functional brain disorders that primarily manifest themselves through psychological symptoms. Psychiatry constitutes a major aspect of the medico-military study and analysis of the effects of the World War on human beings. In 1916, the German psychiatrist Robert Gaupp (University of Tübingen) summarized the scientific-empirical value of the war for psychiatry in the following manner: “For psychiatr…

Volunteers In the strict sense volunteers were men who enlisted in the wake of mobilization without having been liable for military duty or without having been previously called up as draftees. In Germany these could include men who were either too young or too old to be drafted (under 18 or over 45), but also those men who were of an age to be drafted but had not yet received a draft notice. Volunteers were also all those who voluntarily enlisted in the further course of the war. After the beginning of the war, reports of an enormously high number of volunteers (between one and tw…

Social Policy (Germany) In 1914–18 this was understood as including all legal and administrative measures of the German Reich, the federal states and the communal administrations for the regulation of the labor market and the welfare of soldiers’ relatives, war victims and surviving dependents. In addition, social policy extended in the war years to ensuring food supplies, regulating the residential property market, and amending previous social security conditions. After the outbreak of war, German…

Barbarians In all warring societies, the topic of the Barbarians played a central role. In this war, it seemed to hinge upon nothing less than the survival, and the critical importance of humankind. Thus, there developed a script that depicted the war as a conflict between one’s own, idealized nation and a demonized enemy. “Civilization” was thereby commonly juxtaposed against “Barbarity.” This dualism was a powerful concept for two reasons. First, the nation-states of the 19th century were defined through a cultural construct that defined one’s own natio…

Vukov, Nikolai - The Aftermaths of Defeat: The Fallen, the Catastrophe, and the Public Response of Women to the End of the First World War in Bulgaria Keywords: Bulgarian public life | cultural demobilisation | female activists | post-war stabilisation | women movements ISFWWS-Keywords: Bulgaria | Women and War | Society | Politics | Gender | Home fronts | Economy | Pre-war period Abstract: This chapter seeks to examine the role of female activists and organised women's movements in Bulgarian public life after the war, focusing in particular on th…