Berglund, Bruce R. - “We Stand on the Threshold of a New Age”: Alice Masaryková, the Czechoslovak Red Cross, and the Building of a New Europe Keywords: Alice Garrigue Masaryková | Czechoslovakia; Europe | Red Cross ISFWWS-Keywords: Legacy | Society | Gender | Austria-Hungary | The United States of America | Religion | Politics Abstract: Alice Garrigue Masaryková has long been left in the historical shadow of her father, who served seventeen years as Czechoslovakia's first president, and her brother Jan, the diplomat whose mysterious…

Smith, Leonard V. - Women Readers of Henri Barbusse: The Evidence of Letters to the Author Keywords: Literature | Women and War | Experience of combat | French society during the war | Home fronts | Politics | Gender ‛Warfare and Belligerence’ Pierre Purseigle, Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2005 e-ISBN: 9789047407362 DOI: 10.1163/9789047407362.014 © 2005 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Smith, Leonard V.

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 …

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…

Kuhlman, Erika - The Rhineland Horror Campaign and the Aftermath of War Keywords: Germany | Rhineland Horror campaign ISFWWS-Keywords: Germany | French Army and its combattants | Africa | Violence against civilians | Gender | Politics | Culture | The United States of America Abstract: Beginning in April 1920, various German citizens' organisations, encouraged by their government, launched a campaign against France's stationing of colonial African soldiers in its zone of the German Rhineland. The goal of the drive - known as…

Sharp, Ingrid - The Disappearing Surplus: The Spinster in the Post-War Debate in Weimar Germany, 1918–1920 Keywords: Hausfrau | post-war debate | surplus women | Weimar Germany ISFWWS-Keywords: Germany | Gender | Britain | Politics | Women and War | Society | Pre-war period | Culture | Literature | Masculinity | Economy Abstract: The concept of "surplus women" or Frauenuberschuss was absolutely central to the pre-war women's movement in Germany. This chapter examines the ways in which the single woman was represented in public discourse and in…

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…

Women’s Movement The women’s movement in the World War embraced a number of efforts working for the improvement of the economic, social and political position of women. There was a distinction between the moderate and radical middle class, and the proletarian and the confessional women’s movement. Whereas, before the war, lines of conflict were mostly drawn between a middle-class and a proletarian women’s movement, during the war the women’s movement was divided between the large majority of supporters of the war and the small minority of those who opposed it. At the start of the war…

Comradeship A term with widely varying categories of meaning, defined by soldiers’ experiences in the First World War and by public memory of the war. The term is attested from the 17th century as one of the military virtues and was used as an expression of the social coherence of soldiers both in and out of the fighting. The word’s etymology indicates the fellowship of the barrack room. With the start of national wars, the introduction of general conscription in the 19th century, and especially as a result of total war…

Dehmel, Richard (November 18, 1863, Wendisch-Hermsdorf [near Sagan] – February 8, 1920, Blankenese [now part of Hamburg]), German writer. As poet and dramatist, Dehmel was one of the most influential German-speaking writers of the turn of the century. An opponent of naturalism, and the antithesis of Stefan George and Arno Holz, he was seen by his contemporaries as the only writer capable of adequately translating Nietzsche’s philosophy of life into poetry, and, with his emphasis on human sensualit…

Noakes, Lucy - ‘Playing at being Soldiers’?: British Women and Military Uniform in the First World War Keywords: British women | femininity | First World War | Marjorie Garber | military uniform | soldiering | Susan Grayzel ISFWWS-Keywords: Britain | Women and War | Home fronts | Politics | Masculinity | Gender | Society Abstract: The woman in military uniform threatens to destabilise both the femininity of the women who wear it and the naturalised linkage between soldiering and masculinity. As Marjorie Garber has argued, the “sight …

Bäumer, Gertrud (September 12, 1873, Hohenlimburg – March 25, 1954, Bethel, now part of Bielefeld), German literary author and women’s rights campaigner. Bäumer was a leading representative of the moderate wing within the bourgeois women’s movement, a distinguished liberal politician and commentator as well as an author of historical novels. From 1910 to 1919 she chaired the Federation of German Women’s Organizations (Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, BDF), the umbrella organization of the bourgeois women’s movement. The trained teacher, who held a doctorate in German lit…

Jensen, Kimberly - Volunteers, Auxiliaries, and Women’s Mobilization: The FirstWorld War and Beyond (1914–1939) Keywords: Women and War | Masculinity | Society | Medicine | Home fronts | Gender | Experience of combat | Prisoners of War | Military organisation of combat | Legacy 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_007 © 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Jensen, Kimberly

Eastern Command A military state established by German occupation forces under the auspices of General Erich Ludendorff in Russian Empire territory. Between 1915 and 1918, Eastern Command included what are now the countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Belarus. The full title of Eastern Command was “Supreme Command of All German Forces in the East,” entrusted since November 1914 to Field Marshal von Hindenburg. When Hindenburg and his Chief of Staff Ludendorff assumed command of the…

Mata Hari (August 7, 1876, Leeuwarden – October 15, 1917, Vincennes [executed]; real name Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, born Zelle), Dutch dancer and spy. This daughter of a hat-maker made her living as a dancer, occasional prostitute, and double agent. Mata Hari remains one of the best-known figures in the history of 20th-century espionage. After a failed marriage to a Dutch colonial officer (1895–1902) she moved to Paris. Between 1905 and 1913 she was the talk of several European cities with he…

Soldiers’ Packages ( Liebesgaben) In the specific German context, gifts to soldiers from the home front, including homemade woolens and underwear, confectionery, handmade articles, and tobacco products, conveyed by the million to the front by the German Army Postal Services during the First World War. At the same time, the term Liebesgaben embraced the involvement of the German female population in particular in a comprehensive system of wartime welfare, “voluntary loving action,” creating an “army of love” behind the “army of weapons.” Organize…

Brittain, Vera (December 29, 1893, Newcastle-under-Lyme – March 29, 1970, London), English writer. Brittain became particularly well-known through her memoir Testament of Youth (1933), which was based on her correspondence with her younger brother Edward, her fiancé Roland Leighton and other friends, as well as her own diaries from the time of the First World War. Already a student at Somerville College (Oxford) at the beginning of the war, she decided to go to France, Malta, and London first to work as a Voluntary A…

Luxembourg The First World War scarcely has a presence in the collective memory of Luxembourgers, and the country’s historians have until now shown little interest in the period. Luxembourg’s entry into the Zollverein (German Customs Union, 1842) engendered very close economic links between the Grand Duchy and the neighboring German territories. Luxembourg’s railways passed into German Reich ownership in 1872, and the rise of the iron industry was facilitated by both German capital (e.g. Gelsenkirchener Bergwerk AG) and German workers (more than half the foreigners livi…

Shinohara, Chika - Gender and the Great War: Tsuda Umeko’s Role in Institutionalizing Women’s Education in Japan ISFWWS-Keywords: Asia | Gender | Society | The United States of America | Economy | Legacy 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_017 © 2014 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Shinohara, Chika

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…

Ingrid Sharp, Matthew Stibbe (eds.), Aftermaths of War Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2011 Keywords: Women and War | Home fronts | Politics | Gender | French society during the war | Medicine | Germany | Balkans | Poland | Austria-Hungary Abstract: This volume of essays provides the first major comparative study of the role played by women’s movements and individual female activists in enabling or thwarting the transition from war to peace in Europe in the crucial years 1918 to 1923. Table of contents: Front Matter pp. i-xxii Introduction: Women’s Movements and Female A…

Women Serving behind the Front Women served as secretarial staff and catering personnel in the rear area and occupation zone, in order to release soldiers for frontline duty. More than 20,000 women auxiliaries worked behind the frontline in the German Army between April 1917 and November 1918, the majority of them on the Western Front. From 1917, women were also employed in the field in the armies of Great Britain (approx. 10,000), Austria-Hungary (approx. 36,000), and the United States (approx. 6,00…

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…

Shnyrova, Olga - After the Vote was Won. The Fate of the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Russia After the October Revolution: Individuals, Ideas and Deeds Keywords: October Revolution | Russia | women's suffrage ISFWWS-Keywords: Russia | Politics | Gender | Intellectuals and the War | Women and War | Society | Pre-war period Abstract: As the women's movement in Russia has its own specific history which is connected with the peculiarities of the political and economic development of the country, this chapter starts with a short preamble …

Minohara, Tosh; Hon, Tze-ki; Dawley, Evan - Japan and the Wider World in the Decade of the Great War: Introduction ISFWWS-Keywords: Asia | Naval Warfare | Politics | Economy | The French and British Empires | International Relations during the War | Pre-war period | The United States of America | Legacy | Russia | Gender | Society | Scandinavia | Science, Technology, and Medicine | Australia | New Zealand | The Ottoman Empire and the Middle East | Poland The Decade of the Great War Tosh Minohara , Tze-ki Hon and Evan Dawley , (2014) Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2014 e-ISBN: 978900…

Sabotage (French: sabot, wooden shoe) This expression refers to actions committed with the intention of weakening the resolve of a state. Sabotage may be further categorized into acts perpetrated by members of foreign powers, such as agents and prisoners of war, versus acts by individuals against their own nation. In the World War, sabotage was mainly committed by foreign agents. As a rule intelligence agents were responsible for the planning and execution of sabotage acts. Included under the head…