The Great War in History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present

300 Pages·2021·2.723 MB·English

by  Jay Winter, Antoine Prost

The Great War in History
This revised and updated edition of The Great War in History pro-
vides the first survey of historical interpretations of the Great War
from 1914 to 2020. It demonstrates how the history of the Great War
has now gone global, and how the internet revolution has affected
the way we understand the conflict. Jay Winter and Antoine Prost
assess not only diplomatic and military studies but also the social
and cultural interpretations of the war across academic and popular
history, family history, and public history, including at museums, on
the stage, on screen, in art, and at sites of memory. They provide a
fascinating case study of the practice of history and the first survey of
the ways in which the Centenary deepened and deflected both pub-
lic and professional interpretations of the war. This will be essential
reading for scholars and students in history, war studies, European
history, and international relations.
jay winter is Professor Emeritus at Yale University. He is the
author of Sites of memory, sites of mourning: The Great War in European
cultural history and editor of The Cambridge History of the First World
War.
antoine prost is Professor Emeritus at University of Paris I –
Panthéon-Sorbonne and was President of the French Commission
on the Centenary of the Great War (2012–19). He is the co-author
(with Gerd Krumeich) of Verdun 1916, une histoire franco-allemande
and the author of Les Anciens combattants et la société française (1914–
1939) and Les Français de la Belle Époque.
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare
General Editors
Robert Gerwarth, University College Dublin
Jay Winter, Yale University
Advisory Editors
Heather Jones, University College London
Rana Mitter, University of Oxford
Michelle Moyd, Indiana University Bloomington
Martin Thomas, University of Exeter
In recent years the field of modern history has been enriched by the
exploration of two parallel histories. These are the social and cultural
history of armed conflict, and the impact of military events on social and
cultural history.
Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare presents the
fruits of this growing area of research, reflecting both the colonization of
military history by cultural historians and the reciprocal interest of mil-
itary historians in social and cultural history, to the benefit of both. The
series offers the latest scholarship in European and non-European events
from the 1850s to the present day.
A full list of titles in the series can be found at:
www.cambridge.org/modernwarfare
Published online by Cambridge University Press
The Great War in History
Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present
Jay Winter
Yale University
Antoine Prost
University of Paris I
Published online by Cambridge University Press
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi –
110025, India
79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.
It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108843164
DOI: 10.1017/9781108914970
Originally published in French as Penser la Grande Guerre by Le Seuil 2004
and © Editions du Seuil 2004. First published in English as The Great War in history:
debates and controversies, 1914 to the present by Cambridge University Press 2005
and © Jay Winter and Antoine Prost 2005
© Jay Winter and Antoine Prost 2005, 2020
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2005
Second edition 2020
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-108-84316-4 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-108-82396-8 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Contents
List of figures page vi
Preface to the second edition (2020) vii
Introduction 1
1 Three historiographical configurations 6
2 Politicians and diplomats: Why war and for what aims? 34
3 Generals and ministers: Who commanded and how? 59
4 Soldiers: How did they wage war? 82
5 Businessmen, industrialists, and bankers: How
was the economic war waged? 109
6 Workers: Did war prevent or provoke revolution? 126
7 Civilians: How did they make war and survive it? 152
8 Agents of memory: Witnesses and historians, 1918–2000:
how did the memory of the First World War unfold over
the course of the twentieth century? 173
9 A new century: The age of the Internet 193
10 Writing the history of the Great War, 2000–2020 214
Conclusion: After the Centenary 232
Select bibliography 1914–2020 242
Index 278
v
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Figures
1. A comparison of publications on the Great War, in the
American Historical Review, the Revue historique, and a
group of Anglo-Saxon historical journals, by decade,
from 1920 to 1999. page 16
2. A comparison in logarithmic scale of annual changes in
the number of works on the Great War catalogued by the
British Museum (British Library – BL) and the
Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), 1919–2001. 17
3. Internet users per 100 inhabitants, 1996–2017. 196
4. Map of French First World War websites, by number
of consultations and links between sites, November 2014. 204
vi
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Preface to the second edition (2020)
The first edition of this book dates from 2004. Three reasons persuaded
us that it is impossible to reissue this book without revising one chapter,
and adding two new chapters and a new conclusion, as well as an updat-
ed bibliography.
First, the writing of the history of the Great War did not stop in 2004.
There are many works since then that have changed the way we see the
war. Scholars have entered new terrain, and, especially in Eastern Europe,
historians have shed the blinkers of the Cold War years and explored new
archives in order to understand a subject which was, for political reasons,
off limits before 1989. We could not ignore these developments.
Secondly, in 2014 the Centenary of the First World War was marked
all over the world. In France it was the subject of numerous commemo-
rations, coordinated by a government Commission. Other countries also
devoted much time and effort to bringing to public attention what had
happened between 1914 and 1918. Everywhere there were publications,
conferences, documentary films, television histories, and novels. Did this
commemorative wave change or inflect the way we see the history of the
war? We could not elude this question.
Finally, and above all, in 2004 the exponential growth of the Internet
had, in a global context, just begun. In the intervening sixteen years,
it has, in a certain sense, taken over the world. It also revolutionized
the working conditions of historians. The digitization and opening to the
public of archives and images, the expansion of social media and sites of
exchange of goods and information, the arrival of blogs and other forms
of exchange among historians at times on opposite sides of the world:
these and other developments led us to pose the question as to how, and
to what extent, did the Internet change the way we write the history of
the Great War?
We have not modified the first seven chapters of this book. We have
filled in some gaps in the presentation of how the story of the Great War
was told from 1918 to 2000, in chapter 8. We have replaced the last chap-
vii
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914970.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press
viii Preface to the second edition (2020)
ter of the first edition with two new chapters analysing developments
since 2000, and a new conclusion. We have also brought the select bib-
liography up to date. To be sure, we do not cite all the significant books
in this field, and ask authors to forgive us for the silences that remain in
a work of this kind.
The central question we posed in 2004 rests unchanged. Through a
survey of historical writing, in its social setting, we explore the changing
ways in which people all over the world have attempted to find meaning
in the inaugural massacre of the twentieth century. La Lutte continue.
A. Prost and J. Winter
3 February 2020
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914970.001 Published online by Cambridge University Press
Introduction
The war of 1914–18 belongs to no one, not even to historians. Since
its outbreak, there has been a veritable tide of publications destined for
manydifferentaudiencesthroughouttheworldonthesubjectofthewar.
Certainly,interesthasfluctuated;indeed,duringsomeperiodstheFirst
World War has been marginalized by the Second World War, but at no
time has there been a consensus that the history of the Great War has
been written once and for all. Even today, the subject remains an open
one,andinspirespassionatedebate;althoughrecedingoverthehorizon
oflivingmemory,thesubjectremainsvivid,andthisfascinationisevident
innewbooksproducedbywell-knownhistorianswhoarenotparticular
specialists in this period. The eminent scholar Jean-Baptiste Duroselle
completed his career by writing a new synthesis on the French people
andtheGreatWar(Duroselle,1994).1
Thevolumeofworkinthisfieldisdizzyinginitsmagnitude.Itwould
takeseveralworkinglivesjusttoreadtheexistingliteratureontheGreat
War:morethan50,000titlesarelistedinthelibraryoftheBibliothe`que
de documentation internationale contemporaine in Paris. The French
journalRevuehistoriquepublished757reviewsorbibliographicalnotices
between1919and2002;inthesameperiod,therewere420articlesand
reviews in a cluster of Anglo-Saxon historical journals, whose holdings
have been digitized and preserved by the on-line repository, JSTOR. In
theFrenchcase,sincethe1970stheRevuehistoriquehasceasedtoserveas
aplaceofpublicationinthisfield,eventhoughithasgrowndramatically
in the 1980s and 1990s. From 1983 to 1998 there have appeared more
than 1,100 new books on the Great War in French, and over 100 were
published in the year 1998 alone.2 Each week new books are published
inFranceorelsewhere,someofwhichbreaknewground,someofwhich
goovertheoldgroundagain.Manyarticles,attimesmoreimportantin
thedevelopmentofthesubjectthanbooks,arepublishedbyjournals,the
numberofwhichisgrowingaswell.Wemustaddtoofilms,televisiondoc-
umentaries, exhibitions, museums, and internet siteswhosenarrativesboth
drawonandcontributetotheworkofprofessionalhistorians.
1
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914970.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press
2 TheGreatWarinHistory
It was surprising, therefore, that over a century after the war we still
lacked a general analysis of the ways in which this history had been written.
Historiesofthewar,ofitsbattles,itsmachines,itsmanyfacets,fillentire
libraries,butnoonetoourknowledgehadputthequestionastowhether
thisliteratureisstructuredinparticularways,orif,atparticularmoments,
particular topics or questions were dealt with, or how successive devel-
opments related to one another. Is it the case that these studies repeat
each other or do they pose new questions and provide new answers for
differentaudiencesindifferentcontexts?Hereistheheartofthisbook’s
enquiry.
Tobegintorespondtothesequestions,wemustlimitourfieldofvisionto
thehistoryofthewaritself,itsconductanditsimmediateconsequences.
Tostudythemiddle-termandlong-termconsequencesofthewarforthe
major belligerents and for the world it overturned is beyond our reach.
Above all, we privilege books, and not scholarly articles, which are less
accessible,althoughmanyoftheseplayanessentialroleinthemakingof
historicalknowledge.3
In this dense and multiform forest, we have tried to trace the most
important pathways. We certainly do not intend to provide prizes for
outstandingworks,ortopretendtoofferanexhaustivereviewofsucha
huge body of writing. Of course we are well aware that there are many
importantbookswehavenotcited.Wehopereaderswillforgiveus,and
notconcludethatourobjective,alreadydaunting,istherebyunattainable.
First and foremost we aim to describe the trends or patterns of histori-
cal enquiry and knowledge in one particular field. We aim to show how
the historical category ‘The First World War’ has been constructed. We
areinterestedinthewayhistoriansandnon-historianshavecontributed
to this task, and by the different themes adopted in different periods
by writers in different national contexts. This task transcends profes-
sional, chronological, and national boundaries. Our aim is to explore
what questions have been posed, what definitions used, what themes
havebeenbroached.Insum,howhasthehistoryoftheGreatWarbeen
written?
Such a project requires as broad an approach as possible in order not
to prejudge our findings. We have rejected three simplifications of this
subjectwhichwouldhaveeasedourtask,butwhichwouldhavebarredus
fromourobjective.First,wedonotrestrictourdiscussionsolelytoprofes-
sionalhistorians,whoafteralldonotholdamonopolyinthisfield.Wedo
privilegetheworkofourcolleagues,pastandpresent,butacceptthatthe
boundariesofourprofessionareporousinatleasttworespects.Notonly
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914970.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press