The Origins of British Military Psychiatry Before the First World War

Abstract

This article discusses the military role of the Moorish units deployed by the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), and assesses their impact in cultural, social, and religious terms, especially given the image of Muslim troops going back to the Reconquista.     

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 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 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.     

Russian War Propaganda in the United States during the First World War

The article examines Russian governmental efforts to positively shape public opinion in the United States towards the Russian war effort. In late 1916, a small information service, the Nord-Ziud Agency, was established in New York with the task of influencing press coverage by supplying American publications with interesting and favorable information about Russia and its army. However, meager financial support, the unwillingness of the military authorities to frankly share information, and their failure to understand what would interest American readers all undercut this novel propaganda effort.