scholarly journals Military history a century after the Great War

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
William Philpott
Keyword(s):  
Military History ◽  
Great War ◽  
The Great War

European Subaltern War Asses: ‘Service’ or ‘Employment’ in the Cypriot Mule Corps during the Great War?

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-31
Author(s):  
Andrekos Varnava
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Military History ◽  
Great War ◽  
Male Population ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
British Military ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The Relationship

In summer 1916 the British Salonica Army and the Cypriot colonial government established the Cypriot Mule Corps (also known as the Macedonian Mule Corps). It was a staggering success in terms of recruitment, with over 12,000 men serving at one time or another in Salonica during the war and in Constantinople after the armistice, consisting of about 25% of the Cypriot male population aged 18–35. This article engages with three historiographical fields: British military history, British imperial history and Cypriot colonial and peasant and labouring history. All three are connected by the scope, the Great War and its immediate aftermath, and more specifically by the Cypriot Mule Corps. It brings Cyprus into the broader debate on the participation of the British non-settler empire in World War I. The main focus of the article is on the experiences of the men and their dependants. At the heart of this story is the power-imbalance in the relationship between the British coloniser, who desperately needed mule drivers, and the colonised Cypriots, mostly peasants and unskilled rural and urban labourers who enlisted because of the wages. The Cypriots had little control over the terms of their service, as the British progressively reduced their responsibilities to the men and their families, but because the British were desperate for their service they attempted to accommodate their grievances. Therefore, the article proposes to envisage the experience of Cypriot muleteers and their families through a theoretical framework borrowed from the Subaltern Studies Group. Homi Bhabha's ‘liminal space’, in which ‘negotiation’ can take place between colonised and coloniser, seems applicable here, even if dominated by the coloniser. When it suited them, such as when recruitment was at risk, the British not only listened but attempted to rectify the injustices, even showing flexibility; but when it did not they proved inflexible.

scholarly journals Baczoni, Tamás, Tibor Balla et al. eds. 2014. A Nagy Háború, 1914-1918 - kézzelfogható hadtörténelem (The Great War, 1914-1918 - Tangible Military History]. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó, Honvédelmi Minisztérium Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzeum munkatársai (Staff of the Institute and Museum of Military History Ministry of Defense). 68 pp. Two DVDs and fifty-six reproduced documentary inserts.

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 198-201
Author(s):  
George Deák
Keyword(s):  
Military History ◽  
Great War ◽  
The Great War

Baczoni, Tamás, Tibor Balla et al. eds. 2014. A Nagy Háború, 1914-1918 - kézzelfogható hadtörténelem (The Great War, 1914-1918 - Tangible Military History]. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó, Honvédelmi Minisztérium Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzeum munkatársai (Staff of the Institute and Museum of Military History Ministry of Defense). 68 pp. Two DVDs and fifty-six reproduced documentary inserts.

Word War I and the humanitarian impulse

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-163
Author(s):  
William I. Hitchcock
Keyword(s):  
Military History ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Great War ◽  
Humanitarian Action ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Vast Network

The Great War is quite rightly associated with the tragedies of the battlefield, with combat deaths of nearly ten million soldiers, with the construction of the vast network of cemeteries all across northern Europe that Kipling called “cities of the dead,” and with the emotional and psychic scarring of a generation of European peoples. Knowing the political and military history' of post-1918 Europe, we think of the Great War as but the first act in a century of horrors. Yet when we consider the legacies of the Great War, it is worth recalling that one less melancholy outcome was the creation of a new conception of humanitarian action on behalf of wounded soldiers and distressed civilians.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document