Internment During the World War, the notion of internment referred both to the sheltering of sick or invalid war prisoners in neutral states and to coercive measures against so-called enemy aliens. This conceptual ambiguity resulted from the fact that the large-scale repressive measures carried out against the civilian citizens of enemy countries were a relatively recent phenomenon. The reason for this was a fundamental redefinition of the “enemy” that went far beyond any military conception. As …

Raw Materials, Rationing, and Procurement The war had scarcely begun before the mass armies ran short of vital raw materials and replacement supplies. State intervention in the procurement and distribution of raw materials followed in the warring nations’ economies with the goal of making maximum use of the raw materials available for the war effort. This effort was linked with intense efforts to depress private consumption. To this end, the state intervened in the economy to requisition and distribu…

Advertising As an instrument of company trade policies, advertising underwent a lasting change during the World War. In August 1914 sales collapsed. Despite a partial recovery, sales figures were not to return to prewar levels before 1918. There were five reasons for advertising’s loss of importance. First, armament production came ever more strongly to the foreground, supplanting many heavily advertised consumer goods. Second, advertising was superfluous for many products. Some were scarce, so t…

Fourteen Points Fourteen Points stands for the peace aims of American President Woodrow Wilson, who made them public in a speech before the United States Congress on January 8, 1918. The basic reasons for American participation in the war were already clear. To justify America’s joining the war in April 1917, Wilson stressed that the United States was not interested in realizing any narrowly defined national demands. Rather, he meant to for liberal political principles to be implemented globally, …

Djemal Pasha, Ahmed (May 6, 1872, Constantinople – July 21, 1922, Tiflis [assassinated]), Ottoman general and politician. Djemal Pasha was educated in military schools. He concluded his training at the general staff academy in 1895. He was a member of the Committee for Unity and Progress, and used his position as inspector of railways to expand the railway network. After the Constitutional Revolution of 1908, as a member of the Central Committee Djemal Pasha was seen as one of the most influential …

July Crisis Few topics from the history of the First World War have been discussed more intensively by historians and in the public arena than the July Crisis of 1914. Into the 1930s in Germany, the foremost question was that of the justice of the accusation of “war guilt” as expressed in Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty. In this case the predominant opinion initially, and even after the Second World War, was that all the powers “stumbled” into war. In the 1960s, Fritz Fischer brought to the c…

Kiggell, Sir Launcelot (October 2, 1862, Ballingarry [Limerick] – February 23, 1954, Felixstowe [Suffolk]), British general. A general of traditional views and a confidant of Sir Douglas Haig, Kiggell was promoted to the rank of major-general in 1914 and served in the War Office until November 1915. Summoned to France by Haig in December of the same year, he was appointed chief of staff of the British Expeditionary Force. However, the Sandhurst-educated Kiggell had until then never had an opportuni…

Hentsch, Richard (December 18, 1869, Cologne – February 13, 1918, Bucharest), German officer. After a private education in Berlin, Hentsch joined the 103rd Infantry Regiment (4th Saxon) in Bautzen in 1888. In 1899 he was posted to the Imperial General Staff, initially for two years, and then transferred there in 1902. He was promoted lieutenant colonel on April 20, 1914, and at the outbreak of war took up the post of head of the intelligence department to the chief of the General Staff of Field Fo…

Jaurès, Jean (September 3, 1859, Castres – July 31, 1914, Paris [assassinated]), French politician and political commentator. He came from a middle-class family in southwest France, and was probably the most important French Socialist of the prewar period. Originally Professor of Philosophy at Toulouse, he was not only active as parliamentarian, party leader and political commentator. As no one else, he also successfully programmatically left his mark on the French Socialist movement as a theorist and historian. Jaurès’s thinking and action revolved around the two poles …

South Africa The Union of South Africa came into being on May 31, 1910, with the coming into force of the South Africa Act, a common constitution for the British Cape Colony, Orange Free State, Natal, and Transvaal. Ruled by white settlers, the Union was granted the status of a self-governing dominion within Britain’s African Empire. South Africa was thus constitutionally bound to adhere to British foreign policy, including the event of a war. Although the question of the country’s joining the Fir…

Peace Initiatives In the course of the World War there were repeated attempts to end hostile activities. However, right until the end the war aims of the two sides were irreconcilable so that the chances for the success of peace initiatives remained small. The first serious attempts to bring the European belligerents to the negotiating table were made by American President Woodrow Wilson, who in the spring of 1915 sent his trusted “Colonel” Edward M. House to London, Berlin and Paris to hold exploratory talks. The trip foundered on the G…

War Letters War letters from soldiers were already published in large numbers during the war, but also in the postwar period. Just after the outbreak of hostilities, war letters were almost immediately published in all warring countries, at first in newspapers and later in book form. In the beginning, they were mostly intended to satisfy the population’s longing for eyewitness accounts, but also to support the public image of the war-enthusiastic nation and of the successful war in a propagandisti…

Sports When the World War broke out, the Burgfrieden (Fortress Truce) between Turner (German workers’ sports movement) gymnasts and other athletes crumbled in the face of the possible awarding of the 1916 Olympic Games to Berlin. The Turner movement was critical of the ‘international Olympiad,’ rejecting its games as “English attempts to break records,” and not for Germans. Once it became clear that the war would last awhile, the idea grew of replacing the Olympiad with “German war games” as their “national Olympic games.” Accordingly in 1917, the Deutscher Reichsausschuss für die …

War Interpretations During the first days of the World War people already began to suspect that this was not an ordinary conflict that might be seen as a continuation of 19th-century European wars. This perception of the war called for an interpretation, which the writers, intellectuals, philosophers, and scholars of all warring nations were only too willing to provide. The prominent public persons (though seldom women) of all major powers and of their former colonies …

Jones, Heather - Encountering the ‘Enemy’: Prisoner of War Transport and the Development of War Cultures in 1914 Keywords: Prisoners of War | Home fronts | Society | Published memoirs and biographies | Politics | Germany | Britain | France ‛Warfare and Belligerence’ Pierre Purseigle, Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2005 e-ISBN: 9789047407362 DOI: 10.1163/9789047407362.006 © 2005 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Jones, Heather

Zeppelin (Airship) Aircraft of a streamlined shape that is kept aloft by the aerostatic buoyancy of the lifting gas (hydrogen or helium) in its body. Forward thrust is provided by propeller engines that are housed in nacelles mounted outside of the body. Derived from Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who in 1900 had produced the first practicable airship of a rigid design that was motorized and steerable, the name also became a synonym for other technical solutions. Against the backdrop of a possible war with Britain, the development of zep…

Pan-German League Radical nationalistic organization in Germany. The Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband, ADV) was founded in Berlin in April 1891 and (until 1894) operated under the name Allgemeiner Deutscher Verband (“General German Association”). It was formed as a non-party organization on the initiative of a small circle of activists that included representatives from the community of “ethnic Germans” living outside of the German Empire ( Volksdeutsche), several colonial propagandists with ties to Carl Peters, and Alfred Hugenberg, who was still a yo…

Motor Vehicles The technology of motor vehicles had already been progressing at a tremendous pace before the outbreak of the war. Dissatisfied with their cumbersome, horse-drawn supply convoys, all the armies were greatly interested in trucks. However, the technological advances were so rapid that motor vehicles soon became obsolete, which spoke against their acquisition for the army. Instead, most nations decided to help the private economy purchase trucks in exchange for the obligation to place …

War Guilt The question of responsibility for the First World War was actually the subject of controversial discussion even before the outbreak of war, during the July Crisis of 1914, and was even answered propagandistically, to justify positions taken. Proclamations at the outset of the war, such as the “balcony speech” of Kaiser Wilhelm II on August 4 (“It is not the desire for conquest that drives us . . .”) or Poincaré’s “ Union sacrée” address on the same date (“In the war now breaking out, France has right on her side.”) always emphasize the defensive character of…

Foch, Ferdinand (October 2, 1851, Tarbes – March 20, 1929, Paris) French field marshal. In the course of the large-scale German offensive in March of 1918 the Allies realized that the lack of a central military command on the Western Front might result in a defeat. Up to that point, British generals (with some exceptions) had categorically refused to serve under French command. Now, however, General Foch was given the task of coordinating the operations of the French and British armies; later he r…

Colonial War The war against the German colonies of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, led by the forces of Japan, Great Britain, France, Belgium, and their respective colonies. The spread of the war to the colonies was undertaken by Great Britain and France, primarily for strategic reasons. By occupying the German colonies, their respective ports would be closed to the German navy. Also, the German worldwide communications network, which depended upon the wireless stations erected there, would be dis…

Grey, Sir Edward (April 25, 1862, Fallodon, County of Northumberland – September 7, 1933, Fallodon; from 1916 First Viscount Grey of Fallodon), British politician. Grey was foreign secretary from 1905 to 1916, and chief architect of Britain’s foreign policy before the war. After studying at Balliol College, Oxford, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1885 as Liberal member of parliament for the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Grey retained this seat for his entire political career. As par…

Colored Troops German war propaganda described the nonwhite colonial troops employed by the Entente Powers in the First World War in general terms as “colored auxiliaries.” The very use of such units in Europe caused a considerable sensation. All in all, some 485,000 nonwhite soldiers from the French colonies and 160,000 from the British colonies fought in the ranks of the Entente Powers in the European theater. Important contingents came from Algeria (173,000), India (153,000), French West Africa…

Scapa Flow A body of water in the Scottish Orkney Islands. On June 21, 1919, at 11 in the morning, the German Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter issued the order to scuttle the 16 battleships, eight cruisers, and 50 destroyers and torpedo boats lying in Scapa Flow. Within a few hours 64 ships, totaling about 400,000 tons, were destroyed, eight further vessels having been beached in time by the British. Nine Germans were shot and killed and nine wounded by Royal Navy guards in connection with the scutt…

Peace Movements Social and political movements, at first based in the middle class, appearing from the early 19th century. “Pacifism” was organized in the form of peace societies and unions on national and local levels. In Germany the Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft, DFG (German Peace Society), was founded in 1892. Their aim was cooperation with peace organizations in other countries, at first by means of international peace congresses, and from the end of the 19th century through the International Peace Office in Bern. The expectation of so-called organized pacifism, accordin…

War Damage Damages and costs incurred during the war through the destruction of military equipment and weaponry, but also as a consequence of property damage in the regions directly affected by the war. War damage thus refers to the material costs of the war in the narrow sense. The calculation of war costs in the wider sense as well as of material losses in the narrow sense is so fraught with difficulties that all figures can only be seen as rough approximations. This already became evident during a first general assessment carried out for t…

Moltke, Helmuth Johannes Ludwig von (the Younger) (May 25, 1848, Gersdorff [Mecklenburg] – June 18, 1916, Berlin), German general; chief of the Army General Staff and nephew of Field Marshal von Moltke. In 1869 Moltke joined Fusilier Regiment the Queen’s No. 86 (Schleswig-Holstein), taking part in the Franco-Prussian War as a lieutenant. In 1872 he succeeded in transferring to the 1st Foot Guards Regiment. Moltke’s later military career was shaped by his closeness to his famous uncle – Moltke was his a…

Lichnowsky, Prince Karl Max (March 8, 1860, Kreuzenort [near Ratibor, Upper Silesia] – February 27, 1928, Berlin), German diplomat. In some ways Lichnowsky was a typical representative of the Imperial German diplomatic class, which consisted overwhelmingly of members of the nobility. Nevertheless, Lichnowsky was an independent and shrewd individual. Wilhelm II appointed him ambassador to London in the autumn of 1912, against the objections of the German Foreign Ministry. The Kaiser’s hope that the appointment of an Anglophile as his representative might ensure Br…

Ponce, Javier - Propaganda and Politics: Germany and Spanish Opinion in World War I ISFWWS-Keywords: Spain | Politics | Naval Warfare | International Relations during the War | Economy | France | Germany | Literature | Portugal | The French and British Empires World War I and Propaganda Troy R.E. Paddock , (2014) Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2014 e-ISBN: 9789004264571 DOI: 10.1163/9789004264571_015 © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Ponce, Javier

Delcassé, Théophile (March 1, 1852, Pamiers [Ariège] – February 22, 1923, Nice), French politician (foreign minister). Delcassé was a journalist who entered politics as a disciple of Léon Gambetta. He remained deputy for his home department of Ariège from 1889 until 1919. His uninterrupted seven years’ service as foreign minister, from 1898 to 1905, was the most important period of his political career. Although his stance was for a long time anti-British rather than anti-German, it was during his…

Bouloc, François - ‘War Profiteers’ and ‘War Profiters’: Representing Economic Gain in France during the First World War Keywords: 'War | Economic Gain | France | Representing | war profiteer | war profiter | World War ISFWWS-Keywords: Society | French society during the war | Home fronts | Economy | Politics | Legacy Abstract: This chapter analyzes questions, how wartime practices were understood, both internally and externally and how moral judgement operated in wartime societies to include or exclude various behaviors or attitud…

Allenby, Edmund (April 23, 1861, Brackenhurst Hall, Nottinghamshire – May 14, 1936, London; from 1919, Viscount Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe), British field marshal. After completing his training at the Royal Military College in Sandhurst, Allenby initially served with the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons (1884–1888) in South Africa. He took part in the Boer War of 1899–1902 (5th Lancers). At the beginning of the World War, he was inspector general of the cavalry. Allenby was a man of powerful stature; both this and his violent temper earned him the nickname “The Bull…

Assault Battalions Army formations that were raised specifically to be used in trench warfare and as training units. Beginning in 1916, the Germans deployed assault battalions primarily on the Western Front. France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary also fielded assault troops from 1917. The first German unit of this type, “Assault Battalion Rohr,” was organized in 1915 and initially comprised two pioneer companies. Its success led to the creation of 16 more assault battalions of this type, with infantry and pioneers p…

War Enthusiasm In August 1914, the Germans went to war in a wave of general enthusiasm – or so it was claimed until recently in schoolbooks and in a number of representative works written by German historians. This stereotyped conception has, in the meantime, been increasingly challenged and corrected in a number of crucial points. Accordingly, it can now stated with certainty that an “August Experience” in the sense of an enthusiastic, nationwide approval of the war that would have mobilized all social classes did not take place. …

Rainbow Books Official printed texts or collections of diplomatic documents, appearing on an ad hoc basis treating primarily questions of foreign policy. A government published “rainbow books,” frequently during or after an international crisis, in order to inform its parliament and/or public, to legitimize its own policy, and/or to criticize the policy of a foreign state. The books owe their name to the colors of their bindings, used on a consistent basis by the various governments: Great Britain blue; Germa…

Infantry A branch of the armed forces; infantry is the term for foot soldiers. The infantry served as the main branch of the armed forces in the World War. Despite the increased firepower of the infantry, the concept of war held by the European armies originated in the dogma of the superiority of the offensive over the defensive. Tight formations of battle-hardened riflemen swarming over open terrain was the basis for the attack methods of the German infantry Once the infantry had attained fire s…

Herwig, Holger H., - The Forgotten Campaign: Alsace-Lorraine August 1914 Keywords: French Army and its combattants | Western Front | France | Germany | Published memoirs and biographies | Experience of combat | Science, Technology, and Medicine Abstract: The conclusions drawn from the campaign in Alsace-Lorraine are as follows. First, the German army's prewar neglect of electronic communications and the need to assign royal heirs to command field armies combined against efficient coordination between Koblenz and Hell…

Epidemics None of the classic war plagues struck with their former severity during the First World War. With the exception of the great influenza epidemic of the final year of the war, the series of significant epidemic diseases that arose occurred in the form of concentrated outbreaks of infectious diseases in the various theaters of war, limited in terms of place and time. The following absolute figures convey at least an impression of the rates of infection in the German field armies and occup…

Rolland, Romain ( January 29, 1866, Clamecy [département Nièvre] – December 30, 1944, Vézelay [Département Nièvre]), French writer. Rolland was born in Burgundy to a republican-minded solicitor’s family. In 1886 he passed the entrance examination for the École Normale Supérieure, where he graduated in history and geography. In 1889 he received a grant to attend the École Française in Rome. During his two-year stay in Rome, he made the acquaintance of Malwida von Meysenburg, who introduced him to G…

Students Students were clearly overrepresented among the soldiers of the First World War. The mention of exclusively or predominantly student-recruited military units in wartime and postwar literature, however, belongs to the realm of fiction. Its origins must be sought in the frequently politically motivated idealizations that were characteristic of journalistic publications and commemorative events. The most famous German example is the myth that “student regiments” singing the German national …

Lanrezac, Charles Louis Marie (July 31, 1852, Guadeloupe – January 18, 1925, Neuilly-sur-Seine), French general. In 1905 Lanrezac, who was known as an expert in tactics, became a professor at the École de Guerre – a function he continued to perform until 1914 when, at the age of 62, he was appointed commander of the Fifth Army. In that capacity he saw action during the French opening offensive into Lorraine and was then exposed to the enveloping German counterattacks near Charleroi (August 22–23, 19…

Film, The First World War in ISFWWS-Keywords: Australia | Britain | Canada | Culture | France | Germany | Italy | Russia | The United States of America First published in: Brill's Encyclopedia of the First World War, Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich, Irina Renz, Markus Pöhlmann and James S. Corum, Leiden (2012) Documentaries and feature films, 1914–1943 (a selection) 1914–1918 England Expects (G.L. Tucker, Great Britain, 1914) The German Spy Peril (W. Barker, Great Britain, 1914) The Great European War (G. Pearson & G.B. Samuelson, Great Britain, 1914) It’s a Long Way to Tipperary…

Eastern Front The topography of the Eastern Front differed markedly from that of the Western Front. For one thing, it was twice as long as the Western Front, stretching in an irregular line from the southeast corner of the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea – including the Bulgarian Front and all the way to the Aegean Sea. Although the terrain was mainly gently rolling, or else flat and forested, the Carpathian Mountains along the Polish and Hungarian borders could pose a significant obstacle for militar…

Artillery Next to infantry and cavalry, artillery was the third combat arm of the land forces in 1914. Its task was to support other branches of the service, in particular the infantry. Since modern warfare was thought of as a war of movement, artillery doctrine, equipment and training were designed for mobile combat. It had to be able to follow the infantry in the field. This requirement restricted the weight and thus the caliber and ballistic capability of the guns. The primary weapons of the a…

Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg (December 23, 1865, Vienna – October 29, 1939, Altshausen Castle in the district of Ravensburg), Prussian and Wuerttemberg field marshal. Albrecht had joined the army in 1883; at the start of the war the then colonel general and Wuerttembergian heir to the throne was given command of the German Fourth Army, which he led through the Ardennes into France. In October the Fourth Army was transferred to Flanders where it participated in the fighting at the Ypres salient (Fir…

Food Supplies The supply of food to the civilian population, as well as to the fighting forces, is one of the most important elements in the waging of any war. This applies especially to the First World War, in which food supplies to millions of people had to be assured in the face of mutual blockades that severely compromised trade routes. A deterioration in food supplies was experienced in all belligerent nations and occupied territories during the course of the war, causing governments repeatedly to revise and modify their supply strategies. All sides …

Tank Originally a code name that is still being used in some countries today for a heavily armored fighting vehicle. Already prior to World War I, plans had been drawn up in Europe to develop an all-terrain armored fighting vehicle. Although armored cars had been developed, and the tracked vehicle concept was well, no known, no true armored fighting vehicles had been developed before the war. However, with the onset of positional warfare the question arose of how to achieve an operational breakth…

Birdwood, Lord William Riddell (September 13, 1865, Khadki, India – May 17, 1951, London; from 1919 First Baron Birdwood of Anzac and Totnes), British field marshal. After his training with the Scots Fusiliers, in 1885 Birdwood served as an officer with the 12th Lancers before being transferred to the 11th Bengal Lancers at the end of 1886. He served on Kitchener’s staff during the Boer War and established a personal connection that would be an advantage to him in his career. He went to India as Kit…

Canada Canada was ill prepared for war in August 1914. The affluent were enjoying the August 1–3 civic holiday at their country houses. The less affluent were suffering from the effects of the worst economic depression since the early 1890s. Only the energetic but unpredictable Minister of Militia and Defence Sam Hughes was enthused by the prospect of war. His only concern was that the British might miss the opportunity. Under his command, some 55,000 militiamen and 44,000 cadets were trained in 1913. These men would comprise the bulk of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF). At first re…

Ribot, Alexandre (February 7, 1842, Saint-Omer – January 14, 1923, Paris), French politician (prime minister). A lawyer by profession, Ribot belonged to France’s innermost parliamentary leadership from the beginning of the 1880s as an expert on financial matters and foreign affairs, representing the liberal right wing of the Republican Party (1878–1909 deputy, 1909–1923 senator). As foreign minister between 1890 and 1892 he played a decisive role in bringing about the Franco-Russian alliance and c…

Einem, Karl von (January 1, 1853, Herzberg [Harz] – April 7, 1934, Mülheim an der Ruhr), German colonel general. Educated in the cadet corps, in 1870 Einem joined the 14th regiment of Uhlans, with whom he took part in the war against France. Never having attended military academy, Einem was ordered to the general staff while still a first lieutenant. In 1898 he was transferred as a colonel to the Prussian ministry of war (where he was director of the general war department from 1900). Lieutenant Ge…

Unruh, Fritz von (May 10, 1885, Koblenz – November 28, 1970, Diez), German writer and politician. The son of a general, Unruh was educated at the Cadet School at Plön. After graduation he set out on the typical officer’s career path. Then in 1911 he resigned from active military service so that his play Offiziere, a critique of the traditional military principles of obedience and responsibility, could be published. His next drama, Louis Ferdinand Prinz von Preußen, handled a very different subject. Although it was banned by the Kaiser initially in 1913, the next year in…

Nicholas Nikolaevich, Grand Duke of Russia (November 18, 1856, Saint Petersburg – January 5, 1929, Antibes), Grand duke of Russia and supreme commander in chief. Nicholas was the son of Grand Duke Nicholas the Elder. In 1873 he completed the Nikolaevsky Military Engineering Academy, and then the General Staff Academy in 1876. He took part in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 under his father, the commander in chief. After 1901, he was a general of cavalry. In 1905–1908 Nicholas presided over the newl…

Film (Post-1918) Compared with the largely propagandistic style of films before 1918, postwar films reflected the immense destruction and cost of the war by making a different choice of material and narrative method. With the exception of a boom in explicitly anti-German films in the United States, which lasted a considerable time beyond the Armistice (the most significant of these is probably The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Rex Ingram, 1921), film transferred its main attention to experiences of loss, sorrow, and death. J’accuse (Abel Gance, France, 1919), with its pacifi…

Yudenich, Nikolai Nikolaevich ( July 30, 1862, Moscow – October 5, 1933, Saint-Laurent-du-Var near Nice, France), Russian General. Having entered the Imperial Russian Army in 1879, Yudenich was educated at the Alexandrovsky Military School and at the General Staff Academy. He went on to serve in a variety of staff assignments until 1902. Having participated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, he was promoted to general in 1905. In 1913 he became chief of staff in the Ca…

Compagnon, Olivier - 1914–18: The Death Throes of Civilization. The Elites of Latin-America Face the Great War Keywords: South America | Society | Culture | France | Literature | Legacy ‛Uncovered Fields’ Jenny Macleod and Pierre Purseigle, Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2004 e-ISBN: 9789047402596 DOI: 10.1163/9789047402596.017 © 2004 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Compagnon, Olivier

Forced Labor It is entirely possible to see the development of state-organized forced labor in Germany between 1914 and 1918 as a kind of “trial run” for the Second World War (Ulrich Herbert). It is necessary first of all to distinguish between legitimate military forms of forced labor (in accordance with the laws of war as they stood at the time, for prisoners of war) and forced labor for civilians. The latter affected many civilians forced to work in Germany, and transported to Germany in breach of international law for that purpose. The use of the labor of captured ordinary soldiers…

Bard, Christine - A Bitter-Sweet Victory: Feminisms in France (1918–1923) Keywords: feminists | France | La Garçonne | pacifism ISFWWS-Keywords: France | Politics | Legacy | Gender | Germany | French society during the war | Women and War | Legacy Abstract: Feminists in France were to share in the mass jubilation of 11 November 1918. From the beginning of the 1920s, the pacifist propaganda of women was based on a naturalistic discourse, namely: 'woman' is a pacifist by nature. The degree of naturalisation/essentialisatio…

Australia Australia entered the First World War as a federal dominion of the British Empire (Commonwealth of Australia), having achieved that status in 1901. Although the Australian colonies had sent troops to the Boer War between 1899 and 1902, there was no military tradition in the sense of a high-echelon military leadership and administration and a defense policy, and precious little national experience of war. Yet, by the end of the First World War, almost seven Australian cavalry and infantr…

ANZAC The Allied operations on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli in 1915 marked the first time ANZAC forces fought in the European theater of war. The completion of this mission in January of 1916 also brought to an end the deployment of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) along this front. Troops from Australia and New Zealand were now sent to the more important theaters of the First World War. Initially the corps was transferred to Egypt for rest, training, and expansion. Divided into the I and II ANZAC Corps, the men were ordered in May of 1916 to …

Alpine Warfare When the Italian declaration of war was delivered on May 23, 1915, it plunged Austria-Hungary into a desperate situation. While this move by Italy did not come unexpected, almost all the forces of the Danube Monarchy were tied up on the Eastern Front and in the Balkans, where the Central Powers had in that year taken the initiative. Only weak, improvised forces were available to secure the 600-km long border with Italy, among them almost 30,000 militia reserves (Standschützen). By t…

Famine The long duration of the war, reciprocal blockades of food imports, and the exploitation of regions occupied by the Central Powers all caused occasional dramatic occurrences of famine in the World War. In the German Reich and Austria especially, the food situation during the second half of the war was appalling. In Germany, the lack of planning to maintain the food supply in case of war was partly the blame for the quantitative and qualitative decline in the diet of a majority of the German civilian population. The weekly flour ration fell…

Armed Forces (Russia) One year before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904/1905, the standing Russian army comprised approximately 41,000 officers, 10,000 military service personnel (including army dentists), and approximately 1 million non-commissioned officers and other ranks. There was provision for about 2 million reservists. Some 3 million non-commissioned officers and other ranks could thus be mobilized in the event of war. The guard regiments had a particular role and status in the Russian Imperial Army until the end of the First World War.…

Polish Activism Abroad The term here refers to the activities in particular of the Polish National Democrats under Roman Dmowski and cooperating Polish politicians in the West, who achieved a political breakthrough following the proclamation for an independent Polish state by the Provisional Government of Russia on March 30, 1917, and the ensuing declaration by the French President Raymond Poincaré on June 4, 1917, announcing the formation of Polish army units in France. Thanks to the initiative of…

Barry, Gearóid - “The Crusade of Youth”: Pacifism and the Militarization of Youth Culture in Marc Sangnier’s Peace Congresses, 1923–1932 Keywords: 1923 | Crusade of Peace | International Democratic Peace Congresses | Marc Sangnier | militarization | pacifist movement | Volontaires de la Paix | youth culture ISFWWS-Keywords: Legacy | Children and War | France | Politics | Germany | Religion | Society | Literature Abstract: Focusing on the Freiburg Congress of 1923, the Bierville Congress of 1926, the formation of a new corps of boy scouts called the…

Protestantism In the years before the outbreak of war, Anglo-Saxon Protestantism made repeated efforts to establish closer international relations with other churches. The World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches, financially supported by the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, with Friedrich Siegmund Schultze as its German contact, had called its founding assembly in Constance for the 3rd and 4th August of 1914. However, as the war began all the churches qui…

Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy (November 11, 1869, Naples – December 28, 1947, Alexandria, Egypt), Italian king. As heir apparent Prince Victor Emmanuel pursued the usual, meteoric career in the Italian Army. In 1896 he married Princess Helena, daughter to the Prince of Montenegro, whereupon he acquired an especial interest in Balkan politics. The diminutive Prince Victor Emmanuel was reputed to be great in intelligence, reserved and skeptical. He ascended to the Italian throne in 1900 upon the mu…

Karl I, Emperor of Austria (August, 17, 1887, Persenbeug [Lower Austria] – April 1, 1922, Quinta do Monte [Madeira]), Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary (Charles IV). Due to the death of the heir apparent Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, Archduke Karl was suddenly compelled to assume the role of the successor to the throne without careful preparation, and thus too early. In view of the brevity of Emperor Franz Joseph’s remaining life expectancy, young Karl’s military assignment was above a…

Gerlach, Hellmut von (February 2, 1866, Mönchmotzelnitz [near Wohlau, Silesia] – August 1, 1935, Paris), German journalist, jurist, and politician. As a member of the German Reichstag from 1903 to 1907 (in informal affiliation with the Freisinnige Vereinigung [Free-minded Union]), and since the turn of the century a collaborator and later editor in chief of the Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Gerlach went from being a follower of Adolf Stöcker to an advocate of a social-liberal and democratically oriented power state – a transformation that took place …

Veterans’ Associations Associations for former combatants, established to articulate their social, economic, political, and cultural interests, and to organize social-action initiatives on their behalf. The traditional association for German veterans was the Kyffhäuserbund der Deutschen Landeskriegerverbände (Kyffhäuser League of the German Nation’s Warriors Associations), founded in 1900 as a national confederation of veterans’ organizations. With 3 million members belonging to 27 different national associations at its highest p…

Western Front The most important battlefield of the First World War in Western and Central Europe was the Western Front. The largest and bloodiest battles took place in the north of France and in Belgium, where most German, French, British, Belgian, American, and Portuguese soldiers lost their lives. The front was Western from the German perspective, an indication of the German army’s crucial importance for the progress of the war. It began with the German invasion of Belgium and France in August 1914. The frontier battles fulfilled the expectat…

Versailles, Treaty of The Versailles Treaty was negotiated and signed by the victors and the defeated Germany in the Parisian suburb of Versailles in May/June 1919. On May 7 at the Trianon Palace, the victorious powers, represented by Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, and Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, the prime ministers of Great Britain, France, and Italy, together with representatives of Germany’s other opponents in the war, presented a draft…

Music Theater There were only a very few voices calling for the cessation of public music-making after the outbreak of the First World War. So music continued to be performed for the duration of the conflict. However, musical institutions and music makers did not remain untouched by the effects of the war, which included the drafting of artists, financial restrictions, the changed character of concert programs and repertoires, and state censorship. In all belligerent states musicians were drafted or went to the front as volunteers. But conscription also affected te…

Sexuality The crisis-related effects of the World War also had consequences for the sexual life of human beings. The separation of (married and non-married) couples became a mass phenomenon of hitherto unknown extent. Extramarital sexuality and prostitution reached new dimensions. Even though the frequency with which soldiers sought extramarital contacts during the war cannot be assessed with precision, a number of indications suggest that soldiers no longer felt bound to middle-class sexual morals as a result of their direct experiencing of war and death. The debate over issue…

Intelligence Services Also called the secret service, these government organizations were employed to collect and interpret intelligence information of military, political, economic, and scientific importance about other states. Intelligence services were also assigned sabotage missions and diversion operations, as well as the safeguarding of their own state secrets against enemy espionage. During the age of nationalism between 1860 and 1914, most states established intelligence services. The Worl…

Briand, Aristide (March 28, 1862, Nantes – March 7, 1932, Paris), French politician (prime minister). For a period of more than 30 years Briand remained one of the most influential politicians in France; serving as a deputy in the National Assembly without interruption from 1902 to his death. He was a member of 25 governments, in various posts, and held the office of prime minister several times (e.g. between October of 1915 and March of 1917 in two separate cabinets of the “union sacrée”). Briand…

Louvain (Flemish: Leuven) Belgian university town west of Brussels, celebrated for its university and magnificent Gothic buildings. Here between August 25 and 28, 1914, German troops killed 248 civilians and destroyed a sixth of the buildings. The university library, with its valuable collection of manuscripts from the Middle Ages, was burned to the ground. One of the best known single events of the war, Louvain became known worldwide as a symbol of German war atrocities. The German military leadership explained the destruction of Louvain as a justified punitive measur…

September Program ( Septemberprogramm) A four-page document issued by the Reich Chancellery in its final version on September 9, 1914, with the innocuous title of Vorläufige Richtlinien über unsere Politik bei Friedensschluß (Provisional Political Guidelines for when Peace is Concluded). The September Program bears the signature of Reich Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. It counts as the first, comprehensive war-objectives program of the German Reich leadership in the World War. It resulted from weeks of consultations by the Reich…

Danilov, Yuri Nikiforovich (August 25, 1866 – November 3, 1937), Russian general and military historian. Graduated from the School of Artillery at Mikhailovskoe in 1886, and from the General Staff academy in 1892. From 1908 to 1909 he was quartermaster-general, then senior quartermaster-general. From 1914 he was a general of infantry. Danilov took the leading role in drafting the Russian army’s plan of attack in case of war, entitled “Plan 19.” The plan envisaged a concentration of Russian forces f…

Churchill, Winston Leonard Spencer (November 30, 1874, Blenheim Palace – January 24, 1965, London), British politician. Churchill’s political development in the years leading up to World War I was significantly shaped by the events of the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911, in the wake of which he was named first lord of the Admiralty. Churchill held several ministerial posts after switching from the Conservatives to the Liberal Party in 1904: from 1905 to 1908 he served as under-secretary of state for …

Battle of the Frontiers Collective term for a series of engagements that were fought in Belgium and France in the course of the German invasion between August 20 and 24, 1914. The German operational plan had envisioned a strong right wing enveloping the bulk of the French, British, and Belgian forces in northern France. Following the successful coup de main against Liège this right wing consisting of the First, Second, and Third Armies advanced through Belgium toward the French border. The Fourth and Fifth Armies moved through Luxembourg and the Ardenne…

Troop Strength The initial numbers of soldiers mobilized for immediate wartime service. The peacetime strength of the individual armies before 1914 provided the foundation for troop strength in the war. A cadre of commanders for reserve units and an attachment of reservists for these troop units were included in their mobilization plans. This would make it possible to raise units to wartime strength once the mobilization was begun. The troop strengths planned in the event of war, and the troop str…

Pétain, Henri Philippe (April 24, 1856, Cauchy-à-la-Tour [Département Pas-de-Calais] – July 23, 1951, Port-Joinville [L’Île d’Yeu]), French marshal. Pétain graduated from the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint- Cyr (Specialized Military School of St. Cyr) in 1876. In 1914, he actually was a colonel facing the end of his career as a professional soldier. Moreover, his defensive orientation was not well suited to the then-prevailing offensive doctrine. Nevertheless he was swiftly promoted upon the outbreak of war. By August …

Tannenberg Location of a battle in East Prussia on August 26–30, 1914, which ended when the German Eighth Army enveloped and then destroyed the Russian Second Army. Since the Russian leadership had begun their offensive against East Prussia earlier than anticipated, at France’s insistence, the German war plan for the Eastern Front proved illusory. The Russian Northwest Forces under their Commander General Zhilinski planned a two-pronged advance: the first from north of Lötzen Fortress by the Njem…

Tunnel Warfare Warfare by means of planting subterranean destructive charges. Following the onset of positional warfare, the belligerents soon turned to tunneling and mining along the stationary front lines, especially on the Western Front and in the Alps. A distinction must be made between offensive and defensive mining: offensive mining was conducted for the purpose of destroying key positions or entire sections of the enemy’s trenches immediately before a planned infantry attack. This was accom…

Roques, Pierre Auguste (December 20, 1856, Marseillan [département Hérault] – February 26, 1920, Saint-Cloud [near Paris]), French general (minister of war). Roques first made his reputation during his service in the French colonial army in the 1890s as General Gallieni closest subordinate in the pacification and development of Madagascar, where he was responsible for the creation of a technical infrastructure. General of a division and responsible in the war ministry for technical troops from 1909…

Chantilly Conference The second Interallied Conference in 1915, held in the French headquarters north of Paris. Ever since the beginning of the war, the Allies had fought without really attempting to coordinate their operations. This approach benefited the interests of the Central Powers, whose geographical position allowed them to reinforce their troops in precisely those sectors where it was needed. During the first two years of the war the general situation seemed rather favorable for the Central Powers, even though they were unable to achieve a decisive victory. The Allies were…

Lamszus, Wilhelm (July 13, 1881, Altona [now part of Hamburg] – January 18, 1965, Hamburg), German primary school teacher and writer. In 1912 he published a novel entitled Das Menschenschlachthaus ( The Human Slaughter-House), originally intended for young people. It is still considered one of the few pre-1914 treatments of a future war. It describes in an unheroic and disillusioning manner the scale and brutality of the forthcoming conflict. Lamszus completely dismantled all the hero clichés accepted at that time, creating an …

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (Real name V.I. Ulyanov; April 22, 1870, Simbirsk [from 1924 Ulyanovsk] – January 21, 1924, Gorki [near Moscow]), Russian revolutionary and politician. Lenin was born into an upper class family. A critical youthful influence was the conviction and execution in 1887 of his older brother Alexander, who had taken part in an assassination attempt against the Tsar. Lenin qualified to practice as a lawyer after studying law at the University of Kazan. In 1893 he moved to Saint Pete…

Owen, Wilfred (March 18, 1893, Oswestry [Shropshire] – November 4, 1918, Landrecies [Département du Nord; killed]), British lyric poet. During the World War Owen served on the Western Front with the Second Manchesters. His experiences in positional warfare provided the material for forceful lyrics, which after his death counted among the most significant English-language testimonials of the antiwar movement. Owen had already travelled to France, where he worked as a language teacher. Then in 1915, he returned to England to enlist as a volunteer soldier.…

Stürmer, Boris Vladimirovich ( July 27, 1848, Bezhetsk – September 2, 1917, Petrograd), Russian politician (prime minister). Stürmer entered state service in 1872; he served in the Tsarist Council of Ministers, in the Ministry of the Interior, and as governor of Novgorod and then Yaroslavl. He became a member of the Imperial Council in 1904. On February 2, 1916, on the recommendation of the Tsarina and probably also Rasputin, the Tsar appointed him president of the Ministerial Council. Stürmer saw …

Wartime Coalitions Before the World War, the European system of states had become strongly polarized. On the one side stood the Central Powers, namely the Dual Alliance of German Reich and Austria-Hungary that had been formed in 1879 as well as the (independently concluded) Triple Alliance of German Reich, Austria-Hungary, and Italy; however, the latter country declared itself neutral at the beginning of the war. On the other side stood the Entente Powers, among which France and Russia had been bound by a military alliance since 1893/1894, while France and Great Bri…

Munitions Crisis Serious shortages of munitions experienced by all the warring powers between fall 1914 and spring 1915. Nations had failed to adequately mobilize their industries for war, or to stockpile raw materials needed for the war. Moreover, industrial manpower shortages were soon experienced owing to the growing personnel needs of the military. The result was a serious shortage of munitions supplies by fall 1914. The shortfall of munitions worsened for all armies until there was only enoug…

Headquarters Command centers for the supreme military, sometimes also political, leadership set up in the field for the duration of the war. Composition, location, and function of such a headquarters depended on the constitutional position of the supreme military command of each belligerent and the demands of modern mass and coalition warfare. – By far the most comprehensive headquarters at the outbreak of the war was the German “Great Headquarters.” Aside from the German Emperor as the nominal c…

Alsace-Lorraine As a Reichsland, part of the German Reich from 1871. The desire on the part of France to exact revenge for defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/1871, and reverse the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by the newly founded German Reich under the terms of the Frankfurt Peace Treaty, has often been regarded, particularly by the Germans, as an important causal factor in respect of the origins of the First World War. In the light of recent research, however, this conception must now be seen as o…

Hitler, Adolf (April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn, Austria – April 30, 1945, Berlin [suicide]), soldier, private first class, subsequently German politician (1933–1945 Reich chancellor). By Hitler’s own account, the First World War was for him “the most unforgettable and greatest period of my life on this earth” ( Mein Kampf, 1925). Even during the Second World War, he repeatedly reminded those around him of his time as a soldier from 1914 to 1918, “when nothing troubled me”; he had “passionately enjoyed being a soldier” ( Monologe im Führerhauptquartier, 1941). Living as an artist in Mu…

Medals and Military Decorations Externally visible decorations recognizing particular achievements and merits. Starting with absolutist France, in the 18th and 19th centuries orders were created in all states as signs of particular attachment to the ruling house, or to reward military achievements. Their design and distribution, and the manner of wearing them, were precisely laid down in laws, statues and regulations. As a rule, decorations were given in a number of classes, the highest of which were linked…

Gallieni, Joseph-Simon (April 24, 1849, Saint-Béat [Haute-Garonne] – May 27, 1916, Versailles), French general and politician. Gallieni already had a long and impressive military career behind him when the First World War began. After taking part in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, he soon became probably France’s most celebrated colonial soldier. He was appointed commander in chief in French Sudan in 1886. In 1896 he was employed in the pacification of Madagascar. Back in France, Brigadier G…

Grigorovich, Ivan Konstantinovich (February 7, 1853, Saint Petersburg – March 3, 1930, Menton, France), Russian admiral and minister of the navy. Grigorovich graduated from the Naval Academy in 1874, served in the war against Turkey 1877–1878, and was posted to London as naval attaché from 1896 to 1898. Having commanded the battleship Zarevich in 1903, he was the officer in charge of the port at Port Arthur during the war with Japan in 1904. Following service as chief of staff for the Black Sea Fleet (1905), he was appointed chief of the Baltic p…

China The largest state by population and area in eastern Asia; a republic from 1911 to 1949. Although China was scarcely involved militarily in the First World War, the war nevertheless represented an important turning point for the country. The consequences of the war fundamentally changed both China’s status in international politics and its internal political and social circumstances. China’s involvement in the First World War was a long-term result of the expansion of European imperialism. Increased rivalry between the Great Powers, in their strugg…