Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Cambridge History of the First World War
  • Cited by 4
  • Volume 2: The State
  • Edited by Jay Winter, Yale University, Connecticut
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
December 2013
Print publication year:
2014
Online ISBN:
9780511675676
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9780511675676
Subjects:
American History: General Interest, British History: General Interest, Military History, History, Twentieth Century Regional History
Collections:
Cambridge Histories - Global History, Cambridge Histories - British & European History, Cambridge Histories - American History, Cambridge Histories - Asian History, Cambridge Histories - Middle East & African Studies
Series:
The Cambridge History of the First World War
Information

Book description

Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of the First World War offers a history of the war from a predominantly political angle and concerns itself with the story of the state. It explores the multifaceted history of state power and highlights the ways in which different political systems responded to, and were deformed by, the near-unbearable pressures of war. Every state involved faced issues of military-civilian relations, parliamentary reviews of military policy, and the growth of war economies; and yet their particular form and significance varied in every national case. Written by a global team of historical experts, this volume sets new standards in the political history of the waging of war in an authoritative new narrative which addresses problems of logistics, morale, innovation in tactics and weapons systems, the use and abuse of science; all of which were ubiquitous during the conflict.

Reviews

'… both scholarly and deftly drafted, a joy to read. It provides broad as well as deep analysis of just about every conceivable facet of this global catastrophe. It deserves close reading and contemplation.'

Len Shurtleff - World War One Historical Association

'The global perspective on the war, represented in these volumes, adds further layers of complexity to our understanding of this foundational moment in modern history. The conjunction of early twentieth-century patterns of globalization and industrialized great power war was singular, distinguishing it from earlier European conflicts fought across the globe and the Second World War, which followed the collapse of globalization in the 1930s.'

William Mulligan Source: European History Quarterly

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Page 2 of 2

Contents
  • 18 - Blockade and economic warfare
    pp 460-490
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The legacy of Great War captivity developments remains widely debated among historians. Some argue that the 1914 to 1918 period showed continuities with the treatment of prisoners of war during the wars of the late nineteenth century. Prisoners of war were the subject of a mammoth charitable aid effort during the war which encompassed both domestic and international organisations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at Geneva, the Vatican and the Young Men's Christian Association. ICRC published frequent reports on conditions in the camps and by the end of the war it had established itself as the foremost international charitable organisation assisting prisoners. While the Great War set key precedents, these had a limited impact in 1914 to 1918. It was only with the later rise of totalitarian regimes that the true horrific potential of some of the Great War innovations in captivity would become clear.
  • Part IV - The search for peace
    pp 491-670
  • View abstract

    Summary

    Peace treaties needed to be established that, on the one hand, would satisfy the war aims of the victors, but that, on the other, would also guarantee a long-lasting peace and prevent further wars, especially those of the magnitude of the war of 1914 to 1918. The Paris Peace Conference produced five peace treaties: with Germany, in Versailles; with Austria, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye; with Bulgaria, in Neuilly; with Hungary, at the Trianon; and with Turkey, in Sèvres. The First World War and the treaties create a greater re-orientation and a long-term potential for conflict in those areas that until 1918 had constituted the Ottoman Empire. The treaties were at least attempts to come to terms with the traumatic experience of the First World War, using the tools of diplomacy in the service of achieving strategic objectives.
  • 19 - Diplomacy
    pp 495-541
  • View abstract

    Summary

    The economic history of the war was characterised by multiple transformations, of the mechanisms that allocated labour and capital and of traditional market arrangements for production and distribution. This chapter discusses war economics in terms of the relationships between governments, markets and business associated with the mobilisation of vast resources and manpower, the creation and allocation of the new capacities for production, and the uncertain outcomes of economic and institutional change over the long run. As the war progressed, it became increasingly apparent that both the weight and the allocation of resources were critical considerations for the prospects of military success. Indeed, in the latter stages of the war, macroeconomic pressures, in the shape of economic crises in supply, manpower and civilian morale, became determining factors. The profound misery of humanity's economic and social experience between the wars flowed more or less directly from the Great War.
  • 20 - Neutrality
    pp 542-575
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter talks about the study of workers and labour movements in the First World War. The war demanded total mobilisation in the nations engaged, and in particular in the industries which fed the furnace. The First World War was indeed the first of its kind: no one had imagined anything like it, and there was no previous point of reference to deal with the situations that it created. The nations attempted to remedy the lack of available labour by recruiting foreigners, prisoners of war, adolescents and women. The Hague Convention authorised the employment of prisoners of war, with the exception of officers, provided that the work was not excessive and was unconnected to military operations. The Allied nations retained their legitimacy because they had won the war on the home front and on the battle front.
  • 21 - Pacifism
    pp 576-605
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter describes the urban or metropolitan history of total war, integrating the histories of social relations and cultural representations. In the industrial cities of Western Europe, the war gave bargaining power to labourers in strategically important sectors such as armaments or shipyards. It is important to note the war's differential impact on sectors within the war economy and on sub-groups within social classes, and not only in the cities of the major belligerents, but also in those neutral European countries whose economies thrived on the extra demand from abroad. In German cities, large scale heavy industry enjoyed unparalleled prosperity, whereas big shipping lines, small merchant houses and corporate banks went into decline. With urban-dwellers increasingly preoccupied with obtaining basic goods, cultural life in cities throughout Central Europe lost its swagger, particularly in the second half of the war.
  • 22 - Drafting the peace
    pp 606-637
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter focuses on the state of the rural economy, with the attempts of the state to regulate the production and pricing of agrarian produce, and with the unintended side-effects of these interventions. It explains the impact of the Great War on agrarian society at the regional level. In all belligerent countries, the war had a tremendous impact on the agrarian economy. The first major effect of the war was an unprecedented presence of state policies and state officials in the countryside. The most important external factor that affected agricultural production among the Central Powers Austria-Hungary and Germany was the Allied blockade, which effectively sealed off imports of both agricultural produce and fertiliser. The war also affected the social fabric of rural society, exacerbated or transformed existing social fault lines within village communities, while at the same time bringing new forms of conflict to the fore.
  • 23 - The continuum of violence
    pp 638-662
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter focuses on war finance in the two principal allies of the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary, the two financial powerhouses of the Entente, Great Britain and France, and two neutral countries, the United States and the Netherlands. It discusses the impact of mobilisation on national finances, financing the industrial war effort, demobilisation and impossible return to the pre-war financial order, and the financial legacy of the Great War. Mobilisation for war transformed the peacetime financial systems of the European powers. Financial demobilisation in Germany through inflation and stabilisation put an end to war finance, made reconstruction easier and reduced debt. Financial demobilisation following the Great War led to uncertain and therefore temporary stabilization of social policy and the political system itself. The weakness of parliamentary governments, and the attractiveness of totalitarian alternatives, arose in part out of the exigencies and consequences of war finance.
  • Plates
    pp 671-671
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter discusses the history of science and scientists in the Great War. Few historians have tried to deal with the implications of scientific mobilisation for understanding of the conflict and its consequences. The Great War created opportunities for the systematic application of a new vocabulary of warfare, a new set of professional specialities, a new emphasis on the role of women and minorities, as well as a new politics of science. Scientific internationalism was one of the casualties of the war for civilisation. The war produced many changes in science and its relationship to society. At the same time, the war gave new depth and meaning to the relationship between science and the military. If people are to read it correctly, they must revisit those four years when scientists across the world chose to serve the political order they had helped to create.
  • Bibliographical essays
    pp 672-718
  • View abstract

    Summary

    This chapter describes the British hunger blockade and economic warfare of Germany during the First World War. Economic warfare is a part of strategy, and in the years before 1914 it was the British Government's main strategic approach to the impending threat of European war. It represented a step on the road to total warfare in the twentieth century. Taken together, blockade and the broader measures of economic warfare probably contributed half of the exogenous effect on German food supply; endogenous factors probably accounted for far greater declines in food availability. The long-term shortages of key industrial raw materials and oil, partly caused by the blockade, partly by the Central Powers' declining ability to pay for imports, but mostly by their enemies' ownership of the resources, were more decisive in shifting the military balance than shortages of food.

Page 2 of 2

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.