Brill’s Digital Library of World War I
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Subject: History
Brill’s Digital Library of World War I is an online resource that contains over 700 encyclopedia entries plus 250 peer-reviewed articles of transnational and global historical perspectives on significant topics of World War I. This collection includes Brill’s Encyclopedia of the First World War, an unrivalled reference work that showcases the knowledge of experts from 15 countries and offers 26 additional essays on the major belligerents, wartime society and culture, diplomatic and military events, and the historiography of the Great War.
The 250 articles address not only the key issues from political, historical and cultural perspectives, but also engages with aspects of the war which have remained underexplored such as the neutrals, the role of women before, during and after the war, and memory. The chapters have been drawn from a select number of Brill publications that have been published in the last 15 years. Brill’s Digital Library of World War I is a unique digital library that will allow researchers to discover new perspectives and connections with the enhanced navigational tools provided.
Subscriptions: see Brill.
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Brill’s Digital Library of World War I is an online resource that contains over 700 encyclopedia entries plus 250 peer-reviewed articles of transnational and global historical perspectives on significant topics of World War I. This collection includes Brill’s Encyclopedia of the First World War, an unrivalled reference work that showcases the knowledge of experts from 15 countries and offers 26 additional essays on the major belligerents, wartime society and culture, diplomatic and military events, and the historiography of the Great War.
The 250 articles address not only the key issues from political, historical and cultural perspectives, but also engages with aspects of the war which have remained underexplored such as the neutrals, the role of women before, during and after the war, and memory. The chapters have been drawn from a select number of Brill publications that have been published in the last 15 years. Brill’s Digital Library of World War I is a unique digital library that will allow researchers to discover new perspectives and connections with the enhanced navigational tools provided.
Subscriptions: see Brill.
Race to the Sea
(479 words)
Race to the Sea Popular metaphor for the military operations on the northern flank of the Western Front between September 15 and late October 1914, in the course of which both sides hoped to outflank the opponent, and which eventually came to an end with the onset of positional warfare in November of 1914. Following the German withdrawal to the Marne, the new chief of the Supreme Army Command (Oberste Heeresleitung, OHL), General Erich von Falkenhayn, planned to renew the offensive on the German rig…
Railroads and the Operational Level of War in the German 1918 Offensives
(11,046 words)
Zabecki, David T. - Railroads and the Operational Level of War in the German 1918 Offensives
Keywords: 1918 | Amiens | German | offensives | operational art | railroads
ISFWWS-Keywords: Germany | Military organisation of combat | Western Front | Science | Technology | Medicine | Pre-war period | Experience of combat | Britain
Abstract: This paper evaluates the German approach to the operational art by analyzing the Ludendorff Offensives of 1918, and specifically the influence of railroads on the outcome of the entire campaign. The purpose…
Railroad Workers and World War I: Labor Hygiene and the Policies of Japanese National Railways
(8,593 words)
Lim, Chaisung - Railroad Workers and World War I: Labor Hygiene and the Policies of Japanese National Railways
ISFWWS-Keywords: Asia | Science, Technology, and Medicine | Economy | Society | Home fronts
The Decade of the Great War Tosh Minohara , Tze-ki Hon and Evan Dawley , (2014)
Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2014
e-ISBN: 9789004274273
DOI: 10.1163/9789004274273_021 © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Lim, Chaisung
Railways
(539 words)
Railways A means of mass transportation of persons and goods, developed in the 19th century, and adapted for military purposes in the second half of the century. The first extensive and operationally effective implementation of plans for the transportation of major bodies of troops by rail occurred in the wars of 1866 and 1870/1871. From that point on, all general staffs included the railways in their operational plans, and created specialized military units for the construction, safeguarding, an…
Rainbow Books
(583 words)
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…
Raps across the Knuckles: The Extension of War Culture by Radical Nationalist Women Journalists in Post-1918 Germany
(8,310 words)
Streubel, Christiane - Raps across the Knuckles: The Extension of War Culture by Radical Nationalist Women Journalists in Post-1918 Germany
Keywords: culture of war | Der Tag | Deutsche Zeitung | German Right | Radical Nationalist Women Journalists
ISFWWS-Keywords: Germany | Politics | Legacy | Society | Literature | Masculinity | Gender | Culture
Abstract: This chapter explores the role of radical nationalist women journalists in rebuilding the nation after defeat and in contesting Germany's redrawn national boundaries by analysing two i…
Rasputin, Grigori Yefimovich
(375 words)
Rasputin, Grigori Yefimovich (Probably 1872, Pokrovskoye [near Tyumen] – December 30, 1916, Saint Petersburg [murdered]; actually G.Y. Novykh), Russian monk. Rasputin was a close confidant of the Russian imperial family and especially of Tsarina Alexandra, who viewed the son of a Siberian peasant as the representative of “true Russia” and as the person who could heal Alexei, the hemophiliac heir to the throne. Stays in monasteries and pilgrimages, among other things to Mount Athos and to the Holy L…
Rathenau, Walther
(882 words)
Rathenau, Walther (September 29, 1867, Berlin – June 24, 1922, Berlin [assassinated]), German industrialist and politician. He was the son of Emil Rathenau, later the founder of AEG. Under the Empire he followed a career as an industrial employer which took him to the board of AEG (1899) as proprietor of the Berlin Handels-Gesellschaft (1902), and then to the supervisory board of AEG, of which in 1912 he became chairman. By 1914 Rathenau was one of the most influential German and European major in…
Rationing
(634 words)
Rationing The systematic registration and distribution of goods in short supply, in order to meet priority needs. The aim of rationing is to achieve distribution which is as fair as possible, and adequate to the war economy. All belligerent nations, and even the neutral countries, realized that the destruction of established structures of the international division of labor, together with enemy blockades and the enormous needs of the defense economy, created shortages of raw materials and foodstu…
Rawlinson, Sir Henry
(307 words)
Rawlinson, Sir Henry (February 20, 1869, Trent Manor [Dorset] – March 28, 1925, Delhi), British general. Rawlinson’s remarkably successful prewar career included command of a mobile column in the Second Boer War (1899–1901), of the Army Staff College (1903–1906), and of the 3rd Division (1910–1914). As commanding general of the IVth Corps, he played a vital role in the battles of 1915. Named commander in chief of the Fourth Army in February 1916, Rawlinson planned the British attack in the Somme Of…
Raw Materials, Rationing, and Procurement
(2,348 words)
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…
Reaching Out to the Past: Memory in Contemporary British First World War Narratives
(9,338 words)
Renard, Virginie - Reaching Out to the Past: Memory in Contemporary British First World War Narratives
Keywords: British fiction | collective memory | contemporary First World War narratives | Great War writers | Julian Barnes | official memory | Pat Barker
ISFWWS-Keywords: Britain | Literature | Great Britain | Legacy | Western Front | Soldiers and Combat | Culture | Society
Abstract: The First World War currently enjoys considerable literary status in Britain. The past decade has seen a flourishing of novels that powerfully re-imagine the Grea…
Rear Area
(318 words)
Rear Area Originally the term for the area devoted to the storage of military supplies behind the frontline. The German term
Etappe derives from the French
étape. The zone located directly behind the rearward limits of the combat area, and serving, among other things, for the supply and transportation of men and materials. Owing to the increased supply needs of large-scale modern armies, the term came to refer to the zone linking the fighting troops with their home territory. Its forward limit was defined by the operatio…
Reconnaissance
(522 words)
Reconnaissance Military procedure by which information is gathered about the enemy situation as well as terrain and weather conditions; it is a vital prerequisite for the decision-making processes on all levels of command. In addition to peace-time intelligence gathering, war-time reconnaissance operations were broken down according to the type of theater or battlefield into long-range, short-range and battlefield, or combat, reconnaissance. While the purpose of long-range reconnaissance was to c…
Red Cross
(1,371 words)
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…
Regiment
(328 words)
Regiment Major administrative unit of a service branch, normally led by a colonel. The infantry of all European countries had been organized into regiments since the late 17th century. In order to ensure command efficiency, regiments were further divided into battalions and companies. Other branches of the army, notably the cavalry and artillery branches, were also organized into regiments. Administrative units corresponded with tactical units except for any existing regiments of special troops, …
Reichsbund Jüdischer Frontsoldaten
(289 words)
Reichsbund Jüdischer Frontsoldaten Reich Federation of Jewish Front Soldiers. Founded in early 1919 by Captain Leo Löwenstein, this veterans’ organization worked primarily to counter the disparagement of Jewish World War patriotism. The organization’s local chapters quickly gained a following, especially among Jewish liberals. During the Kapp Putsch of 1920 and the Berlin
Scheunenviertel ( Jewish Quarter) Riot of 1923, members defended the Jewish residents against Antisemitic attacks. In 1925 the Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten counted as the …
Reims
(401 words)
Reims Northern French city located in the Département of the Marne. Even before the war, Reims had been an important memorial site. Its cathedral, a French Gothic gem begun in the 13th century, was the coronation site of kings, including the crowning of Charles VII in the presence of Joan of Arc in 1429. During September 4–12, 1914, the German Second Army occupied the city without its being destroyed. When the Germans withdrew from Reims, they took several citizens hostage, for here as elsewhere, the Germans feared the imagined attacks of Francs Tireurs (snipers). The front line stabiliz…
Religion
(3,176 words)
Religion During the First World War all participants were defending (or thought they were defending) great values – the values of one’s own country, faith, homeland, and one’s own family. These core values were severely tested by pain, fear, injury, and death. Whether as members of a community, as belonging to particular professional groups, or as inhabitants of a city or village, everyone bore an individual fate. By the fact of belonging to one’s land and/or church, this was imbedded in a collec…
Remarque, Erich Maria
(831 words)
Remarque, Erich Maria ( June 22, 1898, Osnabrück – September 25, 1970, Locarno; born Erich Paul Remark), German writer. Remarque was born into a working-class family, and trained in Osnabrück as an elementary-school teacher; conscripted into the army in 1916, he underwent initial military training at Osnabrück and Celle. He served as a sapper on the Arras and Ypres fronts from June 1917. On July 31 at Houthulst in Flanders he was seriously wounded and spent the rest of the war in a military hospita…