The Church of England and the First Vatican Council

In 1870 the First Vatican Council defined the dogmas of papal supremacy and infallibility. It has been claimed that in England this development was "greeted with virtual silence" until the publication of W. E. Gladstone's The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance in 1874. This article fills a gap in the historiography by showing that, in the years preceding the appearance of Gladstone's pamphlet, leaders of the Church of England elaborated a substantial case in opposition to the decrees, and that there were Anglican initiatives to promote international opposition to them.     

Review Article: The First World War Imagined

ALFREDO BONADEO. Mark of the Beast: Death and Degradation in the Literature of the Great War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989. Pp. viii, 172. $19.00 (US)

SAMUEL HYNES. A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture. London: Bodley Head, 1990. Pp. xii, 514. £20.00.     

The Cambridge history of the First World War

This massive study has been produced under the editorship of Professor Jay Winter of Yale University and the Editorial Committee of the International Research Centre of the Historial de la Grande Guerre, Péronne, Somme. It attempts a new interpretation of the First World War, based on its transnational and global impact. Some 43 contributions by a ‘transnational’ group of scholars provide a detailed and convincing account of the war, going well beyond more orthodox treatments which emphasize the strategy and tactics involved. In the first volume, Global war, Winter and his colleagues examine, for example, the spread of the conflict to distant continents, together with a discussion of the law of war, atrocities and genocide. Volume II covers the changing nature of the state as the war progressed, the role of armed forces, the sinews of war and the search for peace. Volume III analyses the war's impact on civil society in all its various guises during the conflict; hence we are offered scholarly treatment of, for example, private life, gender and cultural life. This bald summary does scant justice to a magisterial work, an essential resource for those —at schools and universities—who teach the history of the First World War and its impact on domestic and global developments. Of particular interest is the fine reproduction of photos and paintings and the annotated and detailed bibliographies attached to each volume. Winter and his colleagues deserve to be congratulated for providing both the scholar and the interested layperson with an exemplary treatment of an event, the significance of which still echoes down the years.     

The Patriot Game: Russia and the First World War

D.C.B. LTEVEN. Russia and the Origins of the First World War. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. Pp. 213. $25.00 (US); LEWIS H. SIEGELBAUM. The Politics of Industrial Mobilization in Russia, 1915–1917: A Study of the War-Industries Committees. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. Pp. xix, 312. $27.50 (US); WTLLIAM OLEASON. Alexander Guchkov and the End of the Russian Empire. Independence Square, Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1983 (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 73, Part 3, 1983). Pp. 90. No price available.     

The Provisioning Crisis during the First World War

Although the agricultural region of Voronezh Province did not experience a food supply crisis during the First World War and up to 1917, it did suffer from a prolonged provisioning crisis, the result of administrative problems and mistakes, that in turn contributed to popular unrest, both in the province and throughout the empire.     

Review Article: Refighting the First World War

Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig. Decisions for War, 1914–1917. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi, 266. $60.00 (US), cloth; $17.99 (US), paper; Michael S. Neiberg. Fighting the Great War: A Global History. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2005. Pp. xx, 395. $27.95 (US); Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson. The Somme. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005. Pp. vi, 358. $35.00 (US); David Stevenson. 1914–1918: The History of the First World War. London: Allen Lane, Penguin Books, 2004. Pp. xxii, 728. £25.00.     

The First World War and European Integration

The importance of the First World War in European integration history has been understated. Before 1914, intensifying economic integration had not brought corresponding political integration. But once hostilities broke out, Germany pursued indirect economic and military domination over its neighbours and a Central European economic association based on agreements with Austria-Hungary. The drive for the latter had little success, because of Germany's own uncertainties as well as Austria-Hungary's resistance. From 1916 the French government also pursued the goal of border buffer states, together with a permanent inter-Allied economic bloc, but was likewise unsuccessful. Nonetheless, the wartime experience helped to shape later integration initiatives during the inter-war years and even beyond.     

The Heroic Image of the Warrior in the First World War

Abstract

Sun Tzu asserts that true success is not winning every battle fought, but subduing the enemy’s will without fighting at all. The author asserts that the U.S. planning efforts for post-WWII Japan from 1942 to 1945 reveal a unique period where military and political planners actively pursued a greater understanding of the role an enemy’s will-to-fight plays in conflict. The historical record reveals an iterative — and often heated — discourse among experts in diplomacy, governance, political culture, anthropology, and military intelligence. Consequently, Allied commanders entertained and ultimately executed a war plan for the occupation of Japan with fewer forces and less fighting than called for by the alternative plan for invasion. The fundamental difference in the two plans — an assumed effect that safeguarding the Imperial Institution would have on the Japanese people’s will-to-fight. In the end, meaningful discourse enabled Allies to target the enemy’s will separately from their means, enabling conditions where subduing the Japanese will required the Allies not to fight.