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Introduction: Captivity, Forced Labour and Forced Migration during the First World War

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 26; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02619280802442571

1744-0521

Matthew Stibbe,

World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements On behalf of all the contributors I would like to thank Jochen Oltmer for his detailed comments and suggestions on the individual essays in this special issue. I would also like to express my particular gratitude to Peter Gatrell and Heather Jones for their critical and knowledgeable reading of an earlier draft of the introduction. Notes [1] Némirovsky, Suite Française, 141. For an excellent academic study of this period see also Diamond, Fleeing Hitler. [2] Nivet, Les réfugiés français, esp. 15–16. [3] Nivet, Les réfugiés français, 555. [4] Mentzel, ‘Weltkriegsflüchtlinge’, 17–44. [5] Mazower, The Balkans, 105–6; Marrus, The Unwanted, 44–8. [6] Gatrell, Russia's First World War, 77. [7] The phrase comes from the American diplomat and historian George F. Kennan who first used it in his study, The Decline of Bismarck's European Order, 3. See also Schulin, ‘Die Urkatastrophe des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts’, 3–27. [8] Several important collections on the First World War published in the 1990s made little or no reference to these groups. See, for example, Michalka, Der Erste Weltkrieg; Cecil and Liddle, Facing Armageddon; Kruse, Eine Welt von Feinden; Strachan, World War I: A History; and Keegan, The First World War. Only the pioneering work of Annette Becker in 1998, looking at occupied populations, particular in northern France, and the important studies of the Russian hinterland by Peter Gatrell and Eric Lohr in 1999 and 2003 respectively, have placed these issues more firmly on the historical agenda. See Becker, Oubliés de la grande guerre; Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking; and Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire. A more recent and important contribution has been Bianchi, La violenza contro la popolazione civile. Meanwhile, Niall Ferguson's highly acclaimed The Pity of War did include one chapter on POWs, but this was mainly focused on the act of surrender on the battlefield, not the experience of captivity itself. Indeed, in spite of a recent spate of monographs dealing with prisoners of war on particular fronts or in particular nations, historiography still awaits a comprehensive, transnational study of this phenomenon. [9] Connes, A POW's Memoir. [10] Gatrell, ‘Introduction’, 415. [11] Some very good accounts can be found in Silber and Little, The Death of Yugoslavia; Honig and Both, Srebrenica; Simms, Unfinest Hour; and Giovanni, Madness Visible. See also Gertjejanssen, ‘Sexual Violence’, 358–64. [12] Bideleux and Jeffries, The Balkans, 354–5. [13] Bideleux and Jeffries, The Balkans, 569–70. [14] See the entry on the ‘India-Pakistan Wars (1965–1971)’ in Vance, Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War and Internment, 192–3. Also Hobsbawm, Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism, 18–19. [15] ‘The Gulf War (1990-1991)’, in Vance, Encyclopedia of Prisoners of War and Internment, 168–9. See also Kushner and Cesarani, ‘Conclusion and Epilogue’, in Cesarani and Kushner, The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain, 214. [16] See bbc News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4089961.stm (accessed 26 August 2008). [17] Burleigh, Sacred Causes; and Hobsbawm, Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism, 121–37. [18] For a very useful collection of essays see Dunn and Fraser, Europe and Ethnicity. Studies focused on particular ethnic frontiers or border regions include Eisterer and Steininger, Tirol und der Erste Weltkrieg; Kramer, ‘Wackes at War’, 105–22; Mazohl-Wallnig and Meriggi, Österreichisches Italien – Italienisches Österriech?; Wendland, Die Russophilen in Galizien; King, Budweisers into Czechs and Germans, esp. 114–52; Prusin, Nationalizing a Borderland; Kuprian and Überegger, Der Erste Weltkrieg im Alpenraum; Zahra, Kidnapped Souls, esp. 79–105. See also some of the contributions to Bianchi, La violenza contro la popolazione civile. [19] Becker, Oubliés de la grande guerre; de Schaepdrijver, De groote oorlog; McPhail, The Long Silence; Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front; Opfer, Im Schatten des Krieges; von Hagen, War in a European Borderland; Mitrović, Serbia's Great War; and Mayerhofer, ‘Making Friends and Foes’, 119–49. [20] See the path-breaking work by Horne and Kramer, German Atrocities 1914. Also Kramer, ‘Kriegsrecht und Kriegsverbrechen’, 281–92; Jones, ‘The Enemy Disarmed’; and the recent study by Pickles, Transnational Outrage. [21] Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing. For Germany in particular, see Nelson, ‘“Ordinary Men” in the First World War?’. [22] Ferguson, The War of the World; Hull, Absolute Destruction; Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution; and Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction. [23] Evans, Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs; and Siebrecht, ‘The Mater Dolorosa on the Battlefield’, 259–91. [24] Becker, ‘Religion’, 192–7. See also Becker, War and Faith. [25] Audoin-Rouzeau, ‘Kinder und Jugendliche’, 135–41. See also Audoin-Rouzeau, La guerre des enfants, and, for the Second World War, Nicholas Stargardt's excellent study Witnesses of War. [26] Particularly influential here was Marrus, The Unwanted, and a further collection of essays introduced by Marrus – Bramwell, Refugees in the Age of Total War. Important early studies on POWs and civilian internees include Davis, ‘Deutsche Kriegsgefangene im Ersten Weltkrieg’; idem, ‘The Life of Prisoners of War in Russia 1914–1921’; and Speed, Prisoners, Diplomats and the Great War. [27] Hobsbawm, Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism, 19–20. [28] Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Report of the International Commission, 15–16. [29] Gatrell, ‘Introduction’, 416. [30] See here two excellent collections of essays, Barkey and von Hagen, After Empire; and Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires. [31] For one convincing illustration of this (among many others) see Wendland, ‘Post-Austrian Lemberg’. [32] Ziemann, War Experiences in Rural Germany, 9–10. [33] Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War. [34] Cf. the earlier study by Peter Hanák, ‘Die Volksmeinung während des letzten Kriegsjahres’, 58–66. [35] Rachamimov, POWs and the Great War, 17. [36] Or even movement across gender boundaries, as in the case of the men who took on female roles in camp theatre. See here Rachamimov, ‘The Disruptive Comforts of Drag’. [37] In this sense, Benjamin Ziemann's above-mentioned book War Experiences in Rural Germany might also be defined as a transnational study, in that it explores communications between Bavarian peasant communities and their compatriots fighting abroad as conscripts in occupied France and Belgium. [38] For a useful set of essays which adopts this perspective, albeit within a much larger timeframe than the First World War, see Caucanas, Cazals and Payen, Les prisonniers de guerre dans l’ histoire. [39] Some of these Ukrainian intrigues during and after the war are dealt with in Snyder, The Red Prince. [40] Cited in MacMillan, Paris 1919, 291. See also Afflerbach, ‘“… nearly a case of Italy contra mundum?”’, 161. [41] Mitrović, Serbia's Great War, 105. See also Peter Gatrell's contribution to this special issue. [42] See also Rachamimov, ‘“Female Generals” and “Siberian Angels”’, 23–46. [43] See, for example, Schütze, Englands Blutschuld gegen die weiße Rasse; and Stibbe, German Anglophobia, 38–43. [44] Horne and Kramer, German Atrocities 1914, 296–7 and 528, n. 18. [45] See Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics, 291–304. Also, more generally, Mosse, Toward the Final Solution. [46] Running counter to this, as Mark Mazower argues in his recent book Hitler's Empire, is the case of occupied Europe during the Second World War, where the Nazi leadership put racial ideology very clearly above the rational exploitation of economic resources. [47] Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker, 1914–1918, esp. 15–44. On the ‘war culture’ paradigm more generally, see also Purseigle, ‘A very French debate’; and Winter and Prost, The Great War in History, 105 and 163–6. [48] Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker, 1914–1918, 102–3. [49] Cf. Robert, ‘Les prisonniers civils de la grande guerre’. [50] For further evidence see Becker, ‘Religion’ and Jeismann, ‘Propaganda’. Also Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning; Buitenhuis, The Great War of Words; and Mommsen, Kultur und Krieg. [51] Chickering, The Great War, 109 and 301. Miraculously none of these British hostages were killed in the ongoing air attacks. 31 German civilians nonetheless lost their lives. See also The Great War, 319. [52] Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker, La Grande Guerre, 64. See also idem, 1914–1918, 61–2 and 109–10. [53] On prisoners’ letters, see also Rachamimov, ‘Arbiters of Allegiance’, 157–77. [54] This is one of the key findings of Stibbe, British Civilian Internees in Germany. For a comparative study of camp journals, which reaches similar conclusions, see also Pöppinghege, Im Lager unbesiegt. [55] Abbal, Soldats oubliés, 176–9. Heather Jones nonetheless found a greater occurrence of bellicosity in letters sent from German families to German POWs in France in 1918, at least in the period until August to September of that year – see Jones, ‘The Enemy Disarmed’, 298–9. [56] Audoin-Rouzeau and Becker, 1914–1918, 77–9. On the brutal use of forced POW labour in similar conditions by the Russian and Austro-Hungarian armies respectively, see Nachtigal, Russland und seine österreichisch-ungarischen Kriegsgefangenen, 185; and Moritz, Zwischen Nutzen und Bedrohung, 121–7. [57] Nivet, Les réfugiés français, esp. 377–421. [58] See the evidence in Hoffmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’; Rechter, The Jews of Vienna; and Healy, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire. [59] See, for example, Rozenblit, ‘For Fatherland and Jewish People’, 199–220; and Stibbe, ‘Elisabeth Rotten’, 194–210. On the ‘rationalisation’ of welfare and the gendered and other conflicts this produced see Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics, 284–90; and Hong, ‘World War I and the German Welfare State’, 345–69. [60] On cultural demobilisation see Historial de la Grande Guerre,‘Démobilisations culturelles après la Grande Guerre’, esp the intrdouction by John Horne, 45–53. [61] Cf. Connes, A POW’ s Memoir; and Abbal, Soldats oubliés, esp. 197–252. Also Pöppinghege, “Kriegsteilnehmer zweiter Klasse”? [62] Hoffmann-Holter, ‘Abreisendmachung’, esp. 143–59. [63] Karl Marx. ‘Der 18. Brumaire des Louis Napoleon’ (1852). Klassiker des Marxismus-Leninismus, http://www.ml-werke.de/marxengels/me08_115.htm. (Accessed 26 August 2008).