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This article examines the socio-cultural dynamics that characterized the interaction between American troops and the representatives of the YMCA in France during the First World War. Soldiers and Marines critiqued the YMCA’s shortcomings as the self-proclaimed guardian of American troops’ material comfort and moral welfare. A closer examination reveals their critique transcended petty complaints about the YMCA’s policies and conduct. Soldiers linked their dissatisfaction with the Association’s misdeeds to what they perceived as disturbing phenomena unfolding on the home front: intrusive and arbitrary forms of social control, profiteering, draft evasion, and a skewed conscription system. This demonstrates the central role perceptions of the home front played in shaping soldiers’ ideas about the value of their sacrifices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a contribution to the growing body of literature that seeks to recover the experience of women on the Irish home front during the Great War. We focus specifically on women who were involved in unpaid wartime supply production and logistics in the vast imperial network of wartime relief crucial to the British war effort. This article draws upon recent scholarship on care work, arguing that the British Expeditionary Force as a micro economy relied on the unpaid labour of women, particularly women of the middle and upper classes, who were prevented by societal norms from participating in paid labour, to ensure the efficient flow of medical supplies. This unpaid work was largely carried out via the Irish War Hospital Supply Organisation (IWHSO), part of a UK-wide network established during the war to furnish troops with medical supplies which could not be met via regular military channels. We argue that this industrialised care work needs to be analysed within the larger context of a professionalisation of private networks and with a view to Ireland's growing interconnectedness as a result of modernisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, two nationalist theatre companies in Beirut staged a new play in 1919 encapsulating the civilian hardships of four years of the war. While little is known of the author, George Murad, details from the preface and dedication to the printed edition would situate him among pro-French Maronite Christians seeking independence for a greater Lebanon under French protection. The play, "Beirut on the Stage," would appear to have been an example of political theatre seeking to validate the wartime suffering of Lebanese Christians through a vision of independence that, by the time the play was published in 1920, had already been undermined by French measures to colonise, rather the liberate, Greater Lebanon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses research into the home front badges issued in Australia during World War I. Topics include use of the digital archive of the National Archives of Australia, a sample exercise in researching a badge and its recipient, and how the exercise fits into the object-based learning curriculum.

Although a prolific romance novelist of the early twentieth century, Berta Ruck (1878-1978) has garnered very little critical attention or appreciation, in no small part due to the seemingly generic and conventional narratives of her dozens of novels. This article rejects the dismissive approach taken to Ruck’s work by focusing on her novels written during and immediately following the First World War and examining them in the context of contemporary debates about gender. In particular, these novels frequently challenge strict pre-war and wartime gender binaries as stifling, favoring instead a more inclusive approach to gendered ideals. Spinsters, widows, and war widows are granted agency rather than pity as Ruck responds to concerns surrounding Britain’s ‘surplus women’ during and after the war in order to challenge traditional categories of femininity. Likewise, physically and psychologically wounded soldiers are employed to critique a static and limiting idealization of masculinity that was promoted during the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the whole, the civilian and military authorities were able to coordinate and compromise in governing Russia’s western borderlands during the First World War, despite constant military interference in civilian governance and a certain apathy in the center, both of which contributed to administrative disunity from the onset of the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the four years of World War One, the residents of Olive Street in the Perth suburb of Subiaco farewelled 54 local men to war, and then waited to hear news of their fates. Through a wide range of historical records, it has been possible to draw out the emotions experienced by these neighbours during and after the conflict, and to examine how networks of connection between individuals and the broader community amplified the emotional impact of war in both negative and positive ways. This exploration of Olive Street uncovers the emotions experienced at home during wartime in unprecedented depth. By situating Olive Street within its community and country, a more nuanced understanding of war is gained that acts as a counterpoint to the more generic perspective often provided by broad national histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the home fronts, the informal term for the civilian populace of the nation at war as an active support system of their military, during the first and the second world wars in Germany. Military historical and economic research questions stood for a long time in the foreground of the two wars.

The article reports on literary studies on the home fronts, the informal term for the civilian populace of the nation at war as an active support system of their military, during the First World War in Westphalia, Germany. Literature is described as a central component of the conflicts of meaning and purpose during the First World War.

This essay intends to provide an introduction into an interesting aspect of the German war economy of the First World War not previously examined in detail: home-based outwork for the production of military supplies. In particular, this type of home-based outwork enjoyed great popularity amongst women with no previous experience of this form of work, such as soldiers' wives and war widows. They were supported by various charitable welfare societies and women's organizations which campaigned for public welfare during the war. Their efforts included the establishment of sewing rooms in which military home-based outwork was provided as emergency work. Orders were supplied by the military procurement bodies of the German Reich. Although many potential workers were thus withheld from the armaments industry, the development was not seen as a problem by the military administration. However, it did react critically to the many cases in which particularly female home workers were duped by firms when picking up their work. Especially in the area around Berlin, the military authorities intervened vigorously to enforce standard wages for the home workers sewing military uniforms. Nevertheless, the year 1916 marks a turning point: This benevolent stance on home-based outwork changed under the pressure of new employment priorities. New contract regulations made military home-based outwork difficult for unskilled male and female workers to access. These were in theory then available to work in the armaments industry and in agriculture, areas both struggling to meet labour demands. Moreover, the changes led to an organizational separation between sandbag sewing and other home-based outwork involved in producing textiles for the military. In the case of sandbag sewing, a separate war committee was responsible for the planned distribution of sandbag orders throughout the whole Reich. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of the First World War Poland regained its independence. Although this was a long awaited desire by Poles whose territories had been partitioned between Prussia, the Russian Empire and Austria since 1795, it also brought fears and feelings of uncertainty about what the future would bring. Polish women perceived the beginning of the war, especially during 1914, as an internal fight between Russians and Germans. They had memories of previous Russian-German fighting in the territory close to the Prussian border. During the war Polish women's lives were dominated by concern for the safety and well-being of their menfolk, providing help to the injured, the needy and war orphans, and finding food for themselves and their families. The involvement of women in public life and the fight for women's rights which had begun to develop before 1914 remained largely suspended for the duration of the war as Polish women were totally occupied with their own and their families' survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of folktales, fairy tales, and rumors in Russian peasant consciousness also determined peasants’ and soldiers’ understanding of World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main factor undermining the Russian army during World War I was not revolutionary propaganda but the predominance of peasants among the soldiers. The underlying peasant mindset, which persisted despite orders from above, led to fraternization with the enemy, the unintentional revelation of military secrets, and the development of views on internal and external enemies that contributed to military defeat and revolutionary upheavals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The belligerent states captured between eight and nine million soldiers during the First World War, among them the approximately two million men in the hands of the Austro-HungarianGewahrsamsstaat. This article discusses how POWs’ forced labor outside the camps brought them into close contact with Austrian civilians, especially women. These relationships were condemned as “forbidden intercourse.” I address the Austro-Hungarian administration of POWs and the “spaces of war” in which they were used for forced labor as well as whether prisoners can be classified as “military migrants” in Austria within the framework of their forced migration. This article examines women’s perspectives and their motives, as well as the stigmatization and instrumentalization of their bodies by the public, demonstrating how the concept(s) of the “Enemy” changed during the course of the war, thus helping to destabilize Austro-Hungarian spaces of war. It analyzes the varied processes of cultural transfers, fraternization, and integration of POWs, showing how this development affected military authorities and civilian administration and the measures that those in charge implemented in order to re-discipline and re-stabilize the Habsburg system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the U.S. Army and Navy's wartime planning for the colonial Japanese at the end of World War II. Topics include the government officials's recognition of the Japanese participation in a longer history of colonialism, the State Department policy recommendations concerning the overseas Japanese that include the Subcommittee on Migration and Resettlement, the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, and the Inter-Divisional Area Committee on the Far East, and the disposition of Japanese civilians.

The paper is part of an extended research focused on analyzing and understanding the impact the Great War had on Romanian women. It is focused only on revealing a glimpse of the attitudes, reactions and feelings of Romanian women during the war years. Our intention is to bring into discussion a less researched subject as far as Romanian historiography is concerned that is the War seen through "women's eyes". The work premises is that wars, in generally but also in Romanian society, tended, until recently, to be treated as being exclusively masculine and so are the stories written about it. Through the masculine lens, the war is mostly about heroism; victories, military strategies and political treaties leaving in the shadow women's war efforts as well as their actual understanding of what war meant to them. These are the main reasons justifying the present scientific research: to deepen the understanding and knowledge of the Great War by taking into consideration also the feminine "side of the story". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In both World Wars, the state retained men with essential skills on the home front. Despite needing to mobilise industry and labour in order to supply the military and to maintain key services such as healthcare and food provision, those men who remained in civilian roles were susceptible to accusations of cowardice and being derided as shirkers evading their patriotic duty. While the manliness of the 'soldier hero' was secure, the civilian man was susceptible to having his masculinity called into question. This article utilises a range of sources including parliamentary debates, cartoons, Mass Observation records, written testimony and oral histories to examine the policies that were implemented affecting civilian male workers deployed in essential jobs in both wars and the perceptions of men to their reserved status. While there were haphazard attempts to raise an 'industrial army' in the First World War, by 1939, a more systematic approach had been implemented with a Schedule of Reserved Occupations drawn up retaining key men in their work. While men on the Second World War home front were potentially diminished by the 'soldier hero' and the female war worker, they defined and defended their contributions to the national war effort in written and oral sources in gendered terms, making reference to job security, valued skills, significant earning power, the auxiliary position of female dilutees, positive cultural representations and the added dangers from aerial bombing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses wartime images created by civilian internees during their incarceration in 1914/1915. Their paintings, sketches and photographs are used to create a sense of a civil community and challenge stories about relentless hostility. As the juxtaposed images from the Ruhleben Camp near Berlin and the Rottnest Island Internment Camp in Australia show, cross-cultural encounters between Germans and Australians were experienced and depicted with striking similarities. Generally, descriptions and discussions of civilian and POW internment were over-determined by propaganda and censorship, but this paper seeks to highlight a more private and humane side of internment, as captured by pen, paint and camera. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Contained in this article are suggestions on how to write a history of a Canadian high school and the First World War. Included in the discussion is the approach and methodology of the historian, the materials available for use, and knowledge of the background of Canada, the British Empire and the war "for King and Country." It appeals for an understanding of war and of patriotism Canadian-style as of 1914-1918, as a war they fought and not the one we now think they fought or should have fought. It is an appeal for "sharp end" history. Attention is given to monuments of valour -- rolls of honour, plaques, banners, stained glass, gravestones and markers, memorial trees and, above all, school records. The history should be a tribute to a youth now no longer with us. The history, when written, becomes its own memorial to their passing and sacrifice and may serve as an example for other such histories to be crafted. Lastly, it is a legacy to a grey generation of mothers, sisters and sweethearts who far from the searing battle line were also victims in this catastrophic eruption that forever changed Canada and, through what I call the Vimy Alchemy, made a nation in an age of dissolving empires. Above all, keep school records related to this war and to others. Years hence other historians will be grateful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The one hundredth anniversary of the Great War is prompting a renewed effort at both the popular and academic levels to ensure that the different units and countries involved are not forgotten. While not supplying combat troops, China entered the First World War on the side of the Allies, furnishing much-needed labourers, 140,000 by conservative estimates and possibly more, who played an essential role on the Western Front and other theatres, taking responsibility for a wide range of tasks. Among others, unloading military supplies and handling ammunitions, building barracks and other military facilities, digging trenches, and even agriculture and forest management. While their essential contribution was recognized in British documents, both Paris and London saw them as a temporary expedient, to be ended as soon as the war was over. Furthermore, their deployment gave rise to all sorts of culture and language clashes, in addition to the dangers of travelling to Europe and surviving in close proximity to the battle field. However, beyond these travails, the Chinese Labour Corps left a significant legacy, with members seeing the world, experiencing other nations, and often becoming literate. More widely, despite being on the winning side, China's failure to secure any gains at Versailles prompted the May 4th Movement and can be seen as a key juncture in the long and winding road from empire to nation-state. It is an important reminder of the global nature of the Great War, whose impact extended far from the battle field to all corners of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article extends recent reconsideration of British First World War patriotism by considering the ways in which domestic propaganda campaigns used repetitive organizational structures as rituals to provide a sense of familiarity among civilians. Using examples, involving multiple propaganda bodies and in varied parts of the nation, of street meetings, film screenings, fundraising weeks and the religious response to the fourth anniversary of Britain's entry into the war, it argues that historians should consider repetitive elements in First World War propaganda as a possible virtue rather than a drawback. Instead of repetition showing a lack of imagination or initiative, it apparently served a purpose in making propaganda events comfortable and accessible instead of alien or challenging. The form, organization and structure of propaganda, as well as its content, should be carefully studied to ensure fuller understanding of its purposes and impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the onset of the First World War, Germany was subject to a shipping embargo by the Allied forces. Ostensibly military in nature, the blockade prevented not only armaments but also food and fertilizers from entering Germany. The impact of that blockade on civilian populations has been debated ever since. Germans protested that the Allies had wielded hunger as a weapon against women and children with devastating results, a claim that was hotly denied by the Allies. The impact of what the Germans termed the Hungerblockade on childhood nutrition can now be assessed using a newly discovered dataset based on heights and weights of nearly 600,000 German schoolchildren measured between 1914 and 1924. Statistical analysis reveals a grim truth: German children suffered severe malnutrition due to the blockade. Social class impacted risk of deprivation, with working-class children suffering the most. Surprisingly, they were the quickest to recover after the war. Their rescue was fuelled by massive food aid organized by the former enemies of Germany, and delivered cooperatively with both government and civil society. The ability of former belligerents to work together after an exceptionally bitter war to feed impoverished children may hold hope for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an analysis of the First World War's impact on Canada. Topics discussed include examination of conscription from the perspective of collapse of volunteer recruiting efforts of 1914-1917, statistical analysis of the recruiting for the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War, and the role of the old militia and new voluntary agencies.

The article discusses the Russian invasion of East Prussia during World War I, focusing on the atrocities the Russians committed against German civilians during the invasion. Other topics include a discussion of the Russian invasion and the alleged atrocities committed during it, a comparison of Russian violence in East Prussia and German violence in France and Belgium, and how the Russian invasion impacted the German people.

The Four Minute Men, a group of volunteer speakers on wartime topics, exerted a tremendous influence on domestic mobilization in the USA from 1917 to 1918. The article assesses the experience of Four Minute Men, especially in postwar recollections. In particular, I argue that historians have misunderstood the authorship and significance of the 1927 article ‘Memoirs of a Four Minute Man’. This article misrepresents the writer's own experiences and overstates the sense of disillusionment experienced by wartime speakers in the 1920s and 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented which discusses the distribution of gas masks to civilians in Great Britain during World War I and throughout the early interwar period, including for the purpose of the defence of the British state against a German chemical weapons attack during World War I. The relationship between the understanding of the gas mask and British culture is discussed.

The article analyses acoustic practices in Berlin during the First World War in two examples: the acoustic mobilization through singing and shouting on the streets at the outbreak of the war and the performance and consumption of popular music throughout the war. By investigating the acoustic dimension of the urban public sphere during the war, the article stresses the importance of sound in processes of political mobilization and of managing the home-front morale. It shows how attention to sound can add to our previous understanding of political and cultural practices and developments in wartime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of Russian patriotic volunteer societies in Moscow and Petrograd, Russia in civilian mobilization campaigns during World War I including the Vol’noe Ekonomicheskoe Obshchestvo economic society, the Moskovskoe avtomobil’noe obshchestvo automotive society, and the Moskovskoe obshchestvo sel’skogo khoziaistva agricutlural society. The alleged necessity of patriotism in waging total war is emphasized, historiographic sources on volunteer societies including periodicals, archives, and private correspondence are analyzed, and the encouragement of patriotism by Russian political leaders is described, Information is offered on Russian government persecution of German landholder "enemy aliens" .

The article addresses the question of why, during the First World War, the Italian government and nationalist public opinion conformed to other European countries’ campaigns against enemy aliens in spite of the problem’s very minor dimension. After analysing the shift from Germanophilia to Germanophobia, it explores the policies targeting civilians of enemy nationality (mainly Austro-Hungarians and Germans), and assesses their implementation. By using statistical data on the presence of aliens in Italy, official documents, and the nationalist press, it shows that Italy waged a twofold campaign against an often imaginary enemy. The first was conducted mainly by nationalists and resulted in press campaigns, rumours, and brief eruptions of violence against alien targets. The second was conducted through decrees, administrative provisions, police activity, and military orders intended to affect personal freedom and property rights. The article inserts the Italian case into a broader European comparative framework. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Archibald Reiss reporting on atrocities during World War I in Serbia contributed to the public perception of the role of civilians and the meaning of war crimes. His reports on Austrian and Bulgarian wrong-doings perfectly show the changing interpretation of laws of war from the traditionalist pre-1914 approach and the new vulnerable, yet targeted civilian as a victim and not potential source of rebellion. This article shows how situational aspects and the new industrial war led to a totalization of war and where restraining elements existed. The ethnic cleansing aspect of the Bulgarian case will be analyzed and the case made for its different character in comparison to the Austrian actions in 1914 which lacked a planned exterminatory character. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Advances in the law of Geneva and the law of The Hague did not remain a dead letter during the World War I, but this was essentially with regard to the wounded and prisoners of war. Those categories of persons were better protected than civilians by treaty-based humanitarian law, which was still in its infancy. Although the ideal of humanity was realized on a large scale thanks to the efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and myriad other charitable, denominational, or non-denominational organizations, none of the belligerents hesitated to infringe and violate the law whenever they could. The various occupied populations, on the Western and Eastern fronts and in the Balkans, served as their guinea pigs and were their perfect victims. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]