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…