State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War

Comparative essays on the political and cultural 'mobilization' of populations during the First World War.

John Horne (Edited by)

9780521561129, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 July 1997

312 pages
23.6 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.65 kg

'… this is a very good collection of essays which makes a substantial contribution to understanding the First World War.' Labour History Review

This volume examines political and cultural mobilisation in the face of industrialised mass death during the First World War. Comparing Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary, it generates arguments on mobilisation and 'total war' which have wider relevance. It explores 'national ideals' which cast the war as a crusade, the inclusive 'self-mobilisation' of sectional identities and private organisations behind national efforts, and the exclusion of suspect groups (the 'enemy within') from the mobilisation process. It also highlights the importance, and difficulty, of assessing the limits of mobilisation as well as the differing capacities of the state to sustain it, factors related to prior degrees of national integration and political legitimacy. Mobilisation in this sense was an important factor which determined the outcome and legacy of the war.

List of contributors
Preface
1. Introduction: mobilising for 'total war', 1914–1918 John Horne
Part I. National Ideals: 2. German artists, writers and intellectuals and the meaning of war, 1914–1918 Wolfgang J. Mommsen
3. Children and the primary schools of France, 1914–1918 Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau
4. War, 'national education' and the Italian primary school, 1915–1918 Andrea Fava
Part II. Solidarities and Minorities: 5. Mobilising labour and socialist militants in Paris during the Great War Jean-Louis Robert
6. Between integration and rejection: the Jewish community in Germany, 1914–1918 Christhard Hoffmann
7. Wackes at war: Alsace-Lorraine and the failure of German national mobilisation, 1914–1918 Alan Kramer
Part III. Army and Nation: 8. Discipline and morale in the British army, 1917–1918 David Englander
9. Remobilising the citizen-soldier through the French army mutinies of 1917 Leonard V. Smith
10. The German army, the authoritarian nation-state and total war Wilhelm Deist
11. Morale and patriotism in the Austro-Hungarian army, 1914–1918 Mark Cornwall
Part IV. The Limits and Consequences of Mobilisation: 12. Remobilising for 'total war': France and Britain, 1917–1918 John Horne
13. Mobilisation and demobilisation in Germany, 1916–1919 Richard Bessel
14. The Italian experience of 'total' mobilisation, 1915–1920 Paul Corner and Giovanna Procacci
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: First World War [HBWN], European history [HBJD]