Category Archives: Events and Conferences

Talk: Greece’s Megali Idea during and after the First World War

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Public Lecture with speaker Dr Marius Turda, Director of the Centre for Medical Humanities at Oxford Brookes University
Glass Tank, Abercrombie, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane site
Tuesday, 06 December 2016, 16:00 to 17:30

In 1844, the Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Kolettis (1774-1847), described Greece as a country that included ‘any land associated with Greek history or the Greek race’. This was the first announcement of the ‘Megali Idea’ (‘big idea’), a political philosophy that dominated Greek nationalist debates until 1920. The ‘Megali Idea’ was seen as the only symbol capable of uniting the two centres of Hellenism: Athens and Constantinople (Istanbul). If the War of Independence (1821-1829) succeeded in establishing the former, it was left to the new generation of nationalists, who matured around the end of the nineteenth century, to acquire the latter: “the great capital, the City, the dream and hope of Greeks.” These two centres of Hellenism played a conjoining role in shaping the ethos of Greek irredentist rhetoric during the Balkan and the First World Wars. As I will show in my talk, irredentist nationalists repeatedly argued that Greek culture and civilization could develop naturally only within the historical framework based on the intersection of these two points of national legitimization. As a result, irredentism reclaimed both the classical and the Byzantine traditions as constituent elements of a modern Greek national identity.

This seminar is organized in collaboration with The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum and the Centre for Medical Humanities.

More information here and how to book:
Email: tgeorgescu@brookes.ac.uk

Talk: Malaria and the War beyond the Western Front

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Public Lecture with Professor Mark Harrison, Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford
Glass Tank, Abercrombie, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane site
Tuesday, 29 November 2016, 16:00 to 17:30

This lecture will examine the British Army’s fight against one of its most implacable foes – the mosquito. In most theatres apart from the Western Front, malaria was an enormous drain on morale and military efficiency. It was by no means the only disease that led to heavy losses in theatres such as Salonika and the Middle East, but, along with venereal disease, it proved to be one of the most intractable. Wartime conditions worsened what was already, in many locations, an unfavourable situation as far as health was concerned. Preventive measures proved ill equipped to deal with these conditions, especially when troops were on the move. All armies suffered badly but ideas of racial immunity to malaria were used to justify the replacement of white troops in some theatres with ‘native’ troops from Britain’s imperial territories. This raised political tensions in territories such as India. The lecture will also consider the legacy of the war. The influx of many foreign troops, the destruction of infrastructure, and population displacement had a deep and enduring impact on the health of civilians.
About the speaker

Mark Harrison is Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford. He has written on many aspects of the history of disease and medicine in relation to war and imperialism. His books include The Medical War: British Military Medicine in the First World War (2010) and Medicine and Victory: British Military Medicine in the Second World War (2005), both of which won the Templer Medal Book Prize awarded by the Society for Army Historical Research. He currently holds a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award entitled, ‘Invisible Crises, Forgotten Histories: Malaria in Asia, 1900-Present’.

For further information, please contact: Tudor Georgescu (tgeorgescu@brookes.ac.uk) and see here.

This seminar is organized in collaboration with The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum and the Centre for Medical Humanities.

Exhibition: ‘Beyond the Western Front’, The Glass Tank, Oxford Brookes University

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Beyond the Western Front: Exploring Hidden Histories of the First World War
The Glass Tank, Abercrombie Atrium, Oxford Brookes University
Fri 18 Nov – Fri 16 Dec 2016

Please see here for information on the exhibition and to download the exhibition catalogue.

Tudor Georgescu (Oxford Brookes), in collaboration with Stephen Barker and the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum (Sofo), and the Centre for Hidden Histories at the University of Nottingham, present a special exhibition exploring the hidden histories of the First World War, as seen through the prism of the Ox and Bucks battalions’ experiences of the Italian, Balkan, Middle Eastern and Russian campaigns.

This exhibition goes beyond the well-trodden trenches of the Western Front, revealing a fascinating and intimate history of the First World War – one that also lucidly illustrates the global dimensions of WWI and our own role therein.

Three interconnecting sections investigate this rich legacy: The research projects conducted by the Sofo and Brookes volunteers that explore personal histories found in the museum archives; the artefacts on loan from the museum that are such impressive material legacies of the war; and the stereoscopic pictures converted to 3D anaglyphs that reinvent these remarkable images and make them accessible to a wider audience.

Ultimately, the exhibit aims to be an informal, engaging space in which to rediscover a remarkable perspective on the history of the First World War, and to encourage a conversation about what it means to us during the centenary commemorations and beyond.

Film screening of ’66 Men of Grandpont 1914-18′, Brasenose College, 22 November, 5:30pm – 6:30pm

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Tuesday 22 November, 5:30pm – 6:30pm
Brasenose College, Lecture Room XI

Free screening of ’66 Men of Grandpont 1914-18′, a 40-minute documentary film produced as part of an innovative community history project commemorating the 66 men named on the First World War memorial in St Matthew’s Church in Grandpont, South Oxford. The film outlines men’s experiences at the front and explores the impact of the First World War on one small and ordinary suburban community. It also describes Oxford during the period and emphasises the links between local and international history.

“Terrific; a very powerful piece of local history and some remarkable stories.”
Tom Buchanan, Professor of Modern British and European History, University of Oxford, May 2016

For more information on the project see:
http://www.southoxford.org/local-history-in-south-oxford/66-men-of-grandpont-1914-18

Watch a trailer of the film here:
https://vimeo.com/182242782

An exhibition about the 66 Men of Grandpont continues in the Cathedral at Christ Church until 25 November.

Event: The Men who went to War, Sunday 20 November, 14.30-18.00

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The Men who went to War from the Parishes of St Margaret’s, St Giles’ and St Matthew’s, 1914-1919.

A free event will take place at the St Margaret’s Institute on Polstead Road in North Oxford this coming Sunday afternoon, 20th November, from 14.30-18.00, to commemorate the end of the Battle of the Somme.

Poster: the-men-who-went-to-war-poster

The event includes a showing of the 1916 film ‘The Battle of the Somme’ (with original score) plus exhibitions and short talks about three community history projects to do with WWI in Oxford. There will also be a showing the documentary film ’66 men of Grandpont 1914-18′.

For further information contact Liz Woolley, 01865 242760, liz@lizwoolley.co.uk

Please pass this information on to anyone else who you think might be interested.

South Oxford Remembrance Day event, Friday 11 November, 6-8pm

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Please come to an evening of music, poetry and film to commemorate the men from South Oxford who fought in the First World War, with poets Alan Buckley and Mark Wilkinson, musician Bruno Guastalla, and a showing of the 40-minute documentary film 66 Men of Grandpont 1914-18.

Friday 11 November, 6-8pm
South Oxford Community Centre, Lake Street, OX1 4RP

Free entry; all welcome

Doors open 6:00pm, refreshments available and an exhibition about the men from New Hinksey and South Oxford who went to fight.

Performance programme starts at 6:30pm

For more information contact:
enquiries@southoxford.org, 01865 242666
www.southoxford.org

Symposium: Expeditionary Forces in the First World War: Issues and Implications

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The First World War swept nations around the globe into conflict. Many of these generated what is called an “expeditionary force,” the most famous of which are perhaps the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). But there were no fewer than seventeen sets of military forces serving in an “expeditionary” mode. These ranged from Turkish troops fighting on the Eastern Front to Russians and Portuguese on the Western Front, from the British in Mesopotamia to Germans in Macedonia, and include the Australian Naval and Military Expedition to German New Guinea and the American North Russia Expeditionary Force in 1918-1919. Their formation and designation, military deployment, political and military status, coordination with other military units, relations with the civilian population, disposition, combat and eventual return homeward to disbandenment raise a host of questions.

The classic definition of an “expeditionary force” is quite straightforward: a military force sent to fight in a foreign country. During the War, most countries aside from those within the British Empire used a conscription approach to military manpower. They also, however, used such an approach to the labor auxiliaries to the combat troops, so a natural question is whether the conscripted labor “troops” (as they were often designated) were also in some significant sense “expeditionary.” The term expeditionary is usually distinguished from troops that were “advisory” or “liaison” in nature. But where were the boundaries between these designations? Were they a matter of the mission, the political status of the troops, the size of the forces? Generals Liman von Sanders and von der Goltz commanded Turkish troops in combat operations. How should they and other Germans serving in Turkey be viewed?

These historical questions have analogs in other conflicts. Aside from the long prior practice of sending troops abroad, the designation played a role in World War II and was used by some countries in the Korean conflict. It was used by the French in Indochina, but not by the Americans in the Vietnam War. The term was not used for the Gulf War of 1990-91 or the conflict in Iraq starting 2003, arguably also expeditionary in nature, but it has today explicitly been invoked by the American Department of Defense to describe the American forces fighting ISIL in the Middle East.

Our goal is to establish a symposium/workshop for discussion of the issues surrounding force projected in the expeditionary mode primarily in the First World War, with an eye to sparking a larger discussion and publications on the subject in the coming two years. We would like you to consider joining us at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, on 1 April 2017. A select number of participants will be funded, and proposals will be evaluated beginning 3 January 2017. For further information, contact esencer@knox.edu.

Contact details:
Emre Sencer, Knox College and Alan Beyerchen, Emeritus, Ohio State University