Switzerland and the First World War

A new site on an overlooked country right in the middle of the war.

Books on the First World War traditionally say that by the end of 1914, "there was a line of trenches stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier". That is usually the extent to which Switzerland’s part in the First World War is considered. As a neutral state, her only role seems to have been to anchor the frontline. Histories of the war barely mention Switzerland. Does this matter? Surely being neutral - as Switzerland was throughout the conflict - means you’re not involved in a war?

In fact, Switzerland could not escape the effects of the First World War. Swiss people may not have died in their thousands in the heavy fighting that was taking place not far over the border, but the years between 1914 and 1918 were still a time of great change for them. This website describes some of the effects of the Great War on Switzerland and the Swiss.

Switzerland and the First World War - Home

World War I Plays To Receive First Revival

Probably better reflections of public perceptions than reading the poets.

In association with Twisted Events Theatre Company, the University of Hertfordshire presents the first professional revival of the World War I plays ‘For My Country’ by Berte Thomas (1917) and ‘The Pacifist’ by John Brandon (1918).

 

These short plays, which have not been seen since they were first performed in London theatres during the First World War, will re-introduce the audience to a missing dimension of life on the Home Front.

The production is part of the project Staging World War I, run from the School of Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire. Led by Dr Andrew Maunder, the project will take forgotten World War I plays into schools and the local community.

Dr Andrew Maunder said: “We tend to forget that in 1914-18 more people went to the theatre than read poetry but it’s the poetry which has been remembered. The plays, though, give us a real sense of how the War was presented to people and the issues at stake. They’re powerful pieces of theatre designed to move an audience but also to scare them, exploiting fears about spies, traitors and the enemy within.”

Brought back to life as the centenary of the War approaches, the plays offer another perspective on the War to that of well-known poets such as Rupert Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

World War I Plays To Receive First Revival | Cision Wire

‘Touch and Intimacy in First World War Literature’ « Amitav Ghosh

From a review of an unusual book,

First World War writing is an old interest of mine so when I came upon a book with the intriguing title

‘Touch and Intimacy in the First World War I picked it up at once.

The writer had an Indian-sounding name, Santanu Das, but I had never heard of him before.

The book’s first chapter is called ‘Slimescapes’ and it is about the ways in which First World War writers dealt with the tactile experience of trench warfare. ‘In everyday trench life, the boundaries of the body can no longer be policed, as bodily fluids are perpetually on the brink of spillage. In Blasting and Bombardiering, the officer breaks wind at the sound of shelling; men vomit as they collect corpses in Graves’s Goodbye to All That and Cloete’s A Victorian Son. Winterbourne defecates in his trousers in Death of a Hero, as does the young boy in Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.  Just as bodily fluids leak out, similarly mud and slime seep in: Céline speaks of ‘eating Flanders mud, my whole mouth full of it, fuller than full’; in ‘A Night of Horror’, the narrator writes: ‘The suffocating mud and slime/ Were trickling down my throat’. Remarque, towards the end of his novel, observes: ‘Our hands are earth, our bodies mud and our eyes puddles of rain.’ Membrances have become permeable: the skin can no longer separate the inside and outside, the self and the world.’ (p. 52)

I read the book at a stretch, finishing it in a couple of sittings (I don’t think this has ever happened to me before with a book of literary criticism). But one thing puzzled me: if the writer was Indian, as his name suggested, why had he made no reference to the one million Indians who were on the Western front during the First World War? Was this deliberate and if so why?

‘Touch and Intimacy in First World War Literature’ « Amitav Ghosh

Michigan War Studies Review of Sean McMeekin’s: The Russian Origins of the First World War

Opening paragraph to a wonderful review of a must read book.

To judge by the passionate intensity of his writing, Sean McMeekin means not only to restore analytical balance to the long neglected question of Russia's role in the First World War, but also to remedy what he sees as a moral outrage—namely, the historical free pass given the Russian statesmen who (as he sees it) unleashed the violence of the war, the brutalities of the Russian Revolution, and the heavy historical shadow cast by Nazi Germany having led generations of indulgent historians to overlook the blood on Russian hands. Though prone to overstating his case, McMeekin has produced a beautifully written book based on an extraordinary range of sources in several languages. It deserves a wide readership.

Michigan War Studies Review - book reviews, literature surveys, original essays, and commentary in the field of military studies

'O,' sweet: National Doughnut Day recalls doughboys of World War I

I didn’t realize the doughnut’s connection to WW1 or Chicago.

Doughboys 

What's most interesting about Doughnut Day is its origins. It succeeds a fund-raising event created in Chicago by The Salvation Army in 1938, to help the needy during the Great Depression and honor the women who served doughnuts to soldiers during World War I. 

As the story goes, soon after the United States' entry into the war in 1917, the Salvation Army conducted a fact-finding mission in France to see how they might best assist enlisted troops. One conclusion was that soldiers needed canteens or social centers (called "huts") that provided friendly smiles, baked goods, writing supplies and stamps and a clothes-mending service. The huts were established in the U.S. near Army training centers.  

About 250 Salvation Army volunteers went to France. There, because of difficulties in providing freshly baked goods from huts established in abandoned buildings near the front lines, volunteers Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance are credited with coming up with the idea of providing doughnuts. It's said the sweet rings were sometimes fried in soldiers' helmets. They were an instant hit. Salvation Army records reveal that, after one busy day, Sheldon wrote, "Today I made 22 pies, 300 doughnuts and 700 cups of coffee."

'O,' sweet: National Doughnut Day recalls doughboys of World War I - The Dispatch

Front-line Flora: Remarkable story of the only Western woman to enlist to fight in First World War

A review of A Fine Brother: The Life of Captain Flora Sandes by Louise Miller is published by Alma Books, £25.

Sandes fought for the Serbs twice: once in WW1 and again in WW2.  Quite a story.  Will add to my Shelfari list.

Front-line Flora: Remarkable story of the only Western woman to enlist to fight in First World War | Mail Online

French Soldiers Crafted Cave Murals in World War I - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Includes a gallery of 14 photos.

Deep in the cool, dank blackness of an underground limestone quarry in northern France stands an altar, carved from the wall by soldiers of the French army who sheltered here during World War I.

The dread they must have felt as they knelt here, under the inscription "Dieu Protege la France!" ("God Save France!"), is hard to imagine. A flight of steps next to the altar led to the trenches of the front line.

"People still come here to pray every Sunday," said Jean-Luc Pamart, a farmer who owns the land around here. "When they kneel here on this earth, the cold rises up their legs, it impregnates them. It gives them a sense of history."

French Soldiers Crafted Cave Murals in World War I - SPIEGEL ONLINE