Digging Franco's Trenches: An Archaeological Investigation of a Nationalist Position from the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

As part of a project on the archaeology of the civil war and dictatorship in Spain, a Nationalist position was excavated in the village of Abánades (Guadalajara), which was occupied between March 1937 and the end of the war. The sector that was excavated comprised a trench, two dugouts, and a stone-and-concrete covered trench. The findings reveal more about daily life in General Franco's trenches, while they also offer insights into totalitarian ideology, international involvement in the conflict, and the war economy.     

Beyond Recall: Searching for the Remains of a British Secret Weapon of World War I

This article discusses the development of the Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector, a massive British flamethrower that was used against German trenches in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Built underground within tunnels below No Man’s Land, this secret weapon was an attempt to use technology to break through German defences and reduce British casualties. The flame projector was the most effective flamethrower developed in WWI, but proved to be too inflexible and expensive to be widely used.     

The Application of Great War Aerial Photography in Battlefield Archaeology: The Example of Flanders

Abstract

During the Great War, millions of aerial photographs of the frontline and area behind the trenches were made by the combatants. Such aerial photographs (APs) are a major source for the study of Great War heritage. Studying the APs required a new methodology, involving the processing of APs in GIS models to produce a detailed inventory of war traces. This approach provides reliable digital and analogue maps on which all visible traces are minutely recorded. Through this, we hope to meet the growing necessity of a professional and scientific archaeological research of the Great War.     

Eye in the sky: visual geographies and emotional topographies of First World War airmen

Although the First World War highlighted human vulnerability through the terrors of a mechanised warfare ravaging the male body in new ways, it also fostered moments of intimacy and tenderness that privileged commonality, mutuality, and generosity, and encouraged friendship and comradeship as cornerstones of martial masculinities. This article explores such intimacies through analysis of letters and diaries written by British Royal Flying Corps airmen during combat on the Western Front. Informed by history of emotions approaches, I discuss the ways the sensual geographies of aerial combat and their promise of mastery and expanded vision shaped the emotional topographies of airmen’s combat lives. Following Santanu Das’s scholarship on the claustrophobic haptic geographies of trench warfare, this article addresses the following question: If the claustrophobia of the trenches and the impoverishment of visual experience facilitated certain geographies of senses that shaped male intimacies, what might similar emotional terrains look like for airmen exposed to more expansive visual practices?     

On the Battlefront: Canadian Soldiers,an Imperial War,and America's National Pastime

“The moment our men get out of the trenches they begin to play baseball… .” ¹ 1. Coningsby Dawson, Living Bayonets: A Record of the Last Push (New York: John Lane Co., 1919), 129.

—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson, an officer in the Canadian

Expeditionary Force during the First World War

The Great War is credited by some historians for giving direction to Canadian nationalism. Success on the battlefields provided many citizens with patriotic pride, as well as a sense of brotherhood as Canadian troops fought alongside the British in an imperial struggle. Despite an environment that favoured nationalism and imperialism, Canadian soldiers embraced America's national pastime. For many of the rank and file, baseball was an important part of their war experience. The commanding officers' support for sport, however, was essential to baseball's existence in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces. Despite the enjoyment baseball brought soldiers, a handful of officers in the military's high command were apprehensive about sport's rising status. By 1917, after years of uncertainty about how to incorporate baseball into the soldiers' training regimen, the military could no longer ignore the need and role for sport in military life. Perhaps spurred by American entry into the conflict, the CEF issued a report that officially authorized baseball and like games.     

Farm mounds of the harstad area

The farm mounds of coastal North Norway are settlement accumulations produced by long period settlement on the same location. The majority seems to have come during medieval and later periods, but there are a few of early iron age origin.

There has been no total excavation of a farm mound, only minor trenches. This paper summarizes the efforts done on exploring the context and characteristics of farm mounds, based on surveys in one central part of North Norway, the Harstad area.

Questions like economical reconstruction and causes of accumulation are discussed.     

河南省体育场商代祭祀遗址发掘简报

2015年,郑州市文物考古研究院为配合河南省体育场网球馆项目建设,对该区域勘探所见的古代遗址进行了考古发掘。清理出环壕、夯土墙、建筑基址、祭祀场、祭祀坑、灰坑、墓葬等丰富的商代文化遗迹,出土了铜器、玉器、石器、陶器、骨器等重要遗物。河南省体育场商代遗址的祭祀遗存是近年来郑州商城最重要的新发现之一,这一祭祀遗址的发现为郑州商城的研究提供了非常重要的新资料。     

French Intellectuals and the Iraq War

Because of its representation of marginal and often violent milieux, the status of noir fiction has long been that of an ‘inferior’, less ‘literary’ genre. It could be argued that its frequent references to popular culture, and especially television and film, explain its appeal to a wide audience, one that does not necessarily read other genres. The intrigue and setting of the noir novel enables it to be perceived primarily as a ludic activity while often dealing with issues which are both political and ideological. Brigitte Aubert's work makes frequent references to film, TV and popular literature, and this article aims to examine the way these are used, how they play with notions of reality and fiction, how they can create an ironic distance which allows the writer both to create a sense of complicity with the reader and to criticise the society she presents.     

Algorithmic War: Everyday Geographies of the War on Terror

Abstract:  Technologies that deploy algorithmic calculation are becoming ubiquitous to the homeland securitization of the war on terror. From the surveillance networks of the city subway to the biometric identifiers of new forms of border control, the possibility to identify "association rules" between people, places, objects and events has brought the logic of pre-emption into the most mundane and prosaic spaces. Yet, it is not the case that the turn to algorithmic calculation simply militarizes society, nor even that we are witnessing strictly a commercialization of security. Rather, algorithmic war is one form of Foucault's sense of a "continuation of war by other means", where the war-like architectures of self/other, here/there, safe/risky, normal/suspicious are played out in the politics of daily life. This paper explores the situated interplay of algorithmic practices across commercial, security, and military spheres, revealing the violent geographies that are concealed in the glossy techno-science of algorithmic calculation.     

British policy and European reconstruction after the first World War

The paper relates the concept of a European political identity to the development of the European Community's foreign policy. After a brief review of the idea of political identity as it developed in Europe over the last five centuries, the paper relates this concept to that of liberal democracy. It then turns to the European Community and the growth of its foreign policy. It addresses two questions: Could the concept of political loyalty to a territorially defined identity be replaced by that of institutional loyalty to not one, but a variety of overlapping institutions? Secondly, can the development of the European Community's foreign policy contribute to the development of a European sense of identity? Two short case studies, one on Yugoslavia, and one on economic aid to Eastern Europe, illustrate recent European Community foreign policy. The paper concludes with some speculations as to the future European political system and its applicability to other parts of the world.     

河南新密市新砦遗址东城墙发掘简报

2003年秋,通过对新砦遗址东城墙的解剖,可知龙山文化时期将原已存在的自然沟填平修建城墙,外侧扩建护城河。新砦期早段,修整龙山晚期城墙,并在此基础上夯筑早段城墙。新砦期晚段,城墙向外扩展并得以新建,同时向外扩建了新的护城河。新砦期晚段的城墙和护城河毁于二里头文化时期。     

Unborn in the USA: Inside the War on Abortion

Unborn in the USA traces the activities of antiabortion activistsin thirty-five states, documenting a range of antichoice activism,from exhibiting photo displays of aborted fetuses to a folkartist who creates life-sized sculptures of fetuses at variousdevelopmental stages. It offers only one side in the abortionwar—those opposed to the procedure—and only thosewho attempt to derail support for abortion by presenting imagesof aborted fetuses, even though, curiously, the     

War in Iraq, Revolution in America

In this lecture in honour of John Whitehead, Strobe Talbott reflects on the history of the international system, the emergence of the nation-state and the role the US has played in the formation of post-Second World War international institutions. He draws a distinction between the typical Westphalian nation-state, exemplified in Europe, and the United States, a nation based on the 'exertion of political will and championship of political ideas'—a distinction that helps to account for the strain of 'exemplary exceptionalism'; in the history of US foreign policy. Turning to a dichotomy of approach in the foreign policy of the current Bush administration, the author draws attention to the continuation of a tradition of 'moral clarity' on the one hand and on the other hand the introduction of a new concept that saw the preeminence of American power reordering a dangerous world. He believes the Bush 'revolution' in foreign policy reached its peak with the Iraq war and that there is now hope the US will recommit itself to the international institutions severely damaged over the past two years and will begin a new era in which America takes a leading role within a multilateral framework.     

Forensic Entomology and the Archaeology of War

Abstract

In the Pre-Alps and Alps of north-eastern Italy, where the First World War was fought, the discovery of human remains is not a rare event. In the past year, the skeleton of an Italian soldier was found at an altitude of 1000 m. The skeleton was almost complete, with the skull in the helmet. As in the majority of these discoveries, the absence of metallic identity tags and of personal effects makes it virtually impossible to identify the soldier. The integration between historical, anthropologic, military, entomological and genetic data could, however, be useful for dating and for identification. The results of the skeletal analysis indicated a man aged between 16 to 19 years old, and short of stature. Death was caused by shrapnel from a shell, which penetrated the head and the helmet. Several puparia and cuticle fragments were collected from the ammunition pouches and identified as Phormia regina, Protophormia terranovae and Fannia cannicularis. The phenology of the species collected suggests that colonisation most probably began during early summer. Discovery of insects associated with the remains of soldiers from WWI and WWII can provide a means to determine the season of death. Additionally, insect evidence can be used to determine if the body was exposed for a period of time following death or immediately hidden or buried. These facts are critical in narrowing down the list of potential individuals who may be finally identified and their remains, one day, buried under a gravestone with their name.     

Intelligence in the Cold War

This paper asserts that Cold War intelligence was essentially military intelligence. It provides a personal perspective on the UK Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) and how Cold War intelligence was influenced by the experiences of individuals in the Second World War. It reviews little-studied aspects of the US–UK intelligence relationship, the NATO intelligence dimension, and the British Commanders'-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in (East) Germany (BRIXMIS), effectively legitimate spies in uniform. It concludes with some reflections on the changes the end of the Cold War brought to the work of the DIS.     

Taking the Hill: Archaeological Survey and Excavation of German Communication Trenches on the Summit of Mont St Quentin

The following presents the results of a limited programme of field investigation carried out on the site of German communication trenches running through woodland on the summit of Mont St Quentin, just outside the town of Péronne, in the Somme region of Picardy. The aim of the project was to assess the archaeological potential of features related to the Battle of Mont St Quentin, which took place in August/September 1918 and was co-directed by Tony Pollard and Iain Banks. The fieldwork, which consisted of topographic survey, metal detector survey and limited excavation, was carried out over ten days, between 29 August and 9 September 2011. The action, by men of the Australian Second Division, saw the Germans pushed off their strong position on the hill, and thereafter the recapture of Péronne. As a result, three Victoria Crosses were awarded, and General Rawlinson described the battle as the finest achievement of the war. Given its place in the history of Australian military endeavour on the Western Front, the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne has taken out a fifty-year lease on an area of land within Mont St Quentin Wood, which is an initiative supported by the Australian government via the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. This ground includes a number of German communication trenches, along with other features such as shell holes. The intention is to include this area in a heritage trail (Australian Remembrance Trail), which will incorporate other sites of Australian activity, including Fromelles, Villers-Bretonneux and Hamel. In order to maximise the impact and educational value of the site it has been subject to archaeological investigation, an exercise that will add to our understanding of events there, and also provide information and material for a proposed interpretation centre.     

Perceptions of the War in Bosnia

Books reviewed in this article:
Roger Cohen, Hearts grown brutal: sagas of Sarajevo
Chuck Sudetic, Blood and vengeance: one family's story of the war in Bosnia
Richard Holbrooke, To end a war
General Sir Michael Rose, Fighting for peace: Bosnia 1994     

Natural degradation of earthworks,trenches, walls and moats,Northern Thailand

We here investigate the geometry, age, and history of several enigmatic northern Thailand earthwork entrenchments that are mostly located on hills and could not have held water to form moats. The earthworks are either oval or rectangular in plan view and typically encircle 0.3 to 1?sq km areas with no potsherd debris that would indicate former towns. Most trenches are 3–5?m deep with inner walls 4.5–8?m high. Some encircling earthworks are concentric double trenches spaced approximately 10?m apart. Historians have suggested these earthworks enclosed defensible areas where people in outlying villages sought refuge when under attack by neighboring rulers, the Chinese Ho, or the Burmese. We argue that some encircling entrenchments may have been for the capture or containment of elephants. Nearly all of the once near-vertical original walls have degraded to slopes of 32–47°. Fitting calculated curves of the diffusion-based scarp-degradation model to our height-slope data, and assuming most scarps have degraded since the end of La Na Kingdom time a.d. 1558, we derive a diffusion coefficient of 0.002?m² y^?1. Slopes of the rectangular earthwork at Souvannkhomkham, Laos, across the Mekong River from Chiang Saen Noi, are significantly more degraded (approximately 32°), indicating an age of 800–1200 years. Locations of these earthworks are established in hope that they will be preserved as part of the Thai and Lao archaeological legacy.     

Wartime everydayness: beyond the battlefield in China’s Second World War

ABSTRACT

This article suggests that the study of the War of Resistance against Japanese aggression should pay due attention to the effect of the war on the wartime everyday, that is, on Chinese culture, politics, society, and the economy away from the battlefield. Not only was the impact deep and enduring, but evolving, regionally and socially divergent responses to the war also shaped the war’s military. In modern war, as Karl von Clausewitz pointed out, public morale is a key factor in deciding the outcome of the fighting. The article first sketches the war’s impact on the Chinese economy, suggesting that the main consequences were “demodernization” and the revival of traditional trading patterns. It then discusses the reading lives of a young woman who grew up during the war and a senior Nationalist official to delineate contrasting emotional private responses, with one person finding in literature an inspirational alternative and the other becoming increasingly disillusioned. The article concludes with an examination of three popular history textbooks. They all stressed the importance of an awareness of Chinese civilization but narrated its nature and its prospects in contrasting ways. Such textbooks were used in required Chinese history courses at universities. The article makes no attempt to be comprehensive but instead uses a few examples as illustrations of the potential of researching wartime everydayness.