The Legacy of the Great War

Ninety Years On

Jay Winter

• Publisher: University of Missouri
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780826218728, 9780826218711
• eBook ISBN: 9780826271990
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

In late 2007 and early 2008, world-renowned historians gathered in Kansas City for a series of public forums on World War I. Each of the five events focused on a particular topic and featured spirited dialogue between its prominent participants.

In spontaneous exchanges, the eminent scholars probed each other's arguments, learned from each other, and provided insights not just into history but also into the way scholars think about their subject alongside and at times in conflict with their colleagues.

Representing a fourth generation of writers on the Great War and a transnational rather than an international approach, prominent historians Niall Ferguson and Paul Kennedy, Holger Afflerbach and Gary Sheffield, John Horne and Len Smith, John Milton Cooper and Margaret MacMillan, and Jay Winter and Robert Wohl brought to the proceedings an exciting clash of ideas.

The forums addressed topics about the Great War that have long fascinated both scholars and the educated public: the origins of the war and the question of who was responsible for the escalation of the July Crisis; the nature of generalship and military command, seen here from the perspectives of a German and a British scholar; the private soldiers' experiences of combat, revealing their strategies of survival and negotiation; the peace-making process and the overwhelming pressures under which statesmen worked; and the long-term cultural consequences of the war—showing that the Great War was "great" not merely because of its magnitude but also because of its revolutionary effects. These topics continue to reverberate, and in addition to shedding new light on the subjects, these forums constitute a glimpse at how historical writing happens.

American society did not suffer the consequences of the Great War that virtually all European countries knew—a lack of perspective that the National World War I Museum seeks to correct. This book celebrates that effort, helping readers feel the excitement and the moral seriousness of historical scholarship in this field and drawing more Americans into considering how their own history is part of this story.

Index

Afflerbach, Holger, xii, 12, 13, 16, 61–90, 195

Agadir crisis (1911), 40

Agincourt, battle of, 5

Alanbrooke, Field Marshal, 83

Alexander, Brian, xiii

Allied intervention in Russia (1919–1921), 121, 133, 134

American entry into the war, German attitude toward, 87, 88

American Expeditionary Force, in Great War, 70, 71, 77, 78, 114, 124; and in occupation of Germany, 121, 122

Amiens, battle of (1918), 85

Angell, Norman, 45

Armenia, failure of United States to accept League of Nations Mandate for, 143, 144

Armistice Day, 41

Aron, Raymond, 5

Asquith, H. H., 47, 64, 65, 186

Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal, 7

Atrocities, German in 1914, 13, 92

Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane, 9

Australia, effect of Great War on, 59

Australian War Memorial, 3

Aviation, history of, 15

Balfour Declaration (1917), 144, 145

Balkan wars (1912–1913), 40, 187

Barker, Pat, 113

Barnett, Corelli, 116

Becker, Annette, 9

Becker, Jean-Jacques, 9

Belgium, vii, 13, 62

Berkheiser, Steve, xiii

Bethmann-Hollweg, Theobald, 11, 66, 87

Blair, Tony, 119, 174

Bloch, Ivan, 45

Blockade of Germany, after the Armistice of 1918, 79, 80

Blunden, Edmund, 173, 198

Borah, Senator William E., 143

Brandegee, Senator Frank Bosworth, 156

Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of (1918), 93, 150, 151

British Broadcasting Company (BBC), 2

British election of 1919, 81

Brittain, Vera, 167

Brockdorff-Rantzau, Ulrich Graf von, 80

Brooke, Rupert, 101

Bryce, James, 144

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The, 177, 180; reflection of shell shock in, 177

Cadorana, General Luigi, 106

Caen, battle of (1944), 71

Cambrai, battle of (1917), 65, 85

Caporetto, battle of (1917), 70, 94, 106, 109, 115

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2

Cenotaph (London), 172, 179

Chamberlain, Joseph, 50

Chamberlain, Neville, 181; appeasement as response to Great War, 181

Charteris, General John, 68

Chemin des Dames, battle of (1917), ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One: War Origins
• Two: Waging Total War: Learning Curve or Bleeding Curve?
• Three: The Soldiers' War: Coercion or Consent?
• Four: Ending the Great War: The Peace That Failed?
• Five: The Great War: Midwife to Modern Memory?
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index