Tag Archives: Armistice

To End All Wars? Geopolitical Aftermath and Commemorative Legacies of the First World War

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August 22, 2018 to August 25, 2018
Ieper, Belgium

At the end of 1914 H. G. Wells published The War That Will End War, a collection of patriotic essays justifying Britain’s participation in the war. The title sounds familiar as it was taken up later on in other contexts, particularly by the British prime minister David Lloyd George and the American president Woodrow Wilson (‘the war to end (all) wars’).

With To End All Wars? the In Flanders Fields Museum (Ypres) and CEGESOMA (Brussels) once again return to this historic title for a multi-day conference, to tackle two questions: what were the consequences of the new geopolitical order installed after this so-called ‘last war’, and how is the legacy of both war and post-war order remembered up to the present day?

Taking worldwide perspectives, this unique and prestigious conference brings together international specialists including Jay Winter, Nicolas Offenstadt, Carole Fink, Stefan Berger, Bruce Scates, Pieter Lagrou, Piet Chielens and many others. They will discuss and reflect upon the consequences of the new geopolitical order that came into being after the First World War, and how that war and its legacy have been remembered up to the present day.

See here for full conference details and to register.

CfP: From the “New Republic” to the Spanish Flu: the Azores and the Armistice

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World War 1 Congress
Faial Theatre, Horta, Faial, Azores, 18-20 October 2018
Azores Military Museum, Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores, 15-17 November 2018

Sidónio Pais died on December 14, 1918, murdered in Lisbon. As a republican, he would successively occupy the positions of deputy, senator, minister and ambassador, returning to Portugal when the First World War was already predicted. In power by the conspiracy that established the “New Republic” (1917-18), he would lead a confederation of disgruntled republicans, monarchists, clericals and anti-war forces, and legitimize the presidency by elections, exercising a mixed power of authoritarianism and populism. His homicide left the country in great political, economic and social instability, aggravated by the Spanish flu, the Influenza A virus.

In the Azores, the year of 1918 was marked by the war in the sea; the Spanish Flu; the Azores Detachment of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and the High Commissar of the Republic, General Simas Machado, was sent by the President of the Republic to control the civil, military and diplomatic areas in the archipelago. To this scenario were added the war in the sea, the TSF and submarine cables and the communication of the Armistice to North America; a German POW in Terceira island and a deep trade crisis, with big social misery, promoted in many cases by the action of hoarders.

This meeting aims to analyze the last year of World War I, with particular emphasis on the Azores in its relationship with the Atlantic, belligerence, economic crisis, communications and Atlantic ports, and international affairs with Sidonism and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Likewise, 1918 also marks a year of profound reflection about the hygienic-sanitary conditions, and is even a starting point for the study of war traumas or morpho-functional sciences / biomedical engineering, to which we can ally the relevance of the female activism, with some echoes in the Azores.

The organizing committee calls for proposals that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

The maritime and terrestrial dimension of the involvement of the Azores in World War I;
The naval and submarine war;
The Atlantic and telecommunications during the Great War;
The maritime connections in the Trenches War, or in the colonies;
The Sidonism and the High Commissioner of the Republic for the Azores;
Health services, health conditions and the Spanish Flu;
The Armistice and the return to normality;
Women’s Emancipation.

Submission deadline: 17 July 2018
Further information here.
Download CfP: 2018-10-18_Azores-Armistice_CFP

Submission process: Please send your identification (name, institutional affiliation and mail address), Paper title, place of preference (Horta/Ponta Delgada), Abstract (maximum 700 words), and academic CV (1 page) via mail to: azoreswar@gmail.com

Working languages: English, Portuguese (no simultaneous interpretation is available).

Organising committee:
Ana Paula Pires (IHC – NOVA FCSH and Stanford University)
Rita Nunes (Comité Olímpico de Portugal and IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Sérgio Rezendes (IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Manuel Marchã (Museu Militar dos Açores)
Carlos Lobão (Escola Secundária Manuel de Arriaga /CHAM Açores)

Scientific committee:
António Paulo Duarte (IDN and IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Carolina Garcìa Sanz (Universidad de Sevilha)
Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses (University of Maynooth)
Luís Manuel Vieira de Andrade (Universidade dos Açores)
Maria Inès Tato (CONICET and Universidad de Buenos Aires)

CfP: Making Peace. Transitions after War from the Antiquity up to the Present

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Transitions from war to peace have been one of the most fertile grounds for contemporary historical analysis in the last twenty years. In this last year of the Great War centenary, the “end of the conflict” topic (as well as the possible or impossible “return” to peace) will be the discussion focus among specialists in the 1914-1918 period. However, the numerous forms of war-exit are difficult to understand through a short-term perspective. In order to answer these questions, the University of Padua – Comitato per il Centenario della Grande Guerra in collaboration with the Melammu Project – The Heritage of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, have organised the Making Peace international congress, in Padua, on 5-9 November 2018. Keynote speakers will be: Gastone Breccia (University of Pavia), Etienne Boisserie (Inalco, Paris), Christoph Cornelissen (University of Frankfurt a. M. and ISIG-FBK), Adrian Gregory (University of Oxford), Paolo Matthiae (Emeritus, University of Rome La Sapienza), Kurt Raaflaub (Emeritus, Brown University), Leonard Smith (Oberlin College).

We invite scholars interested in the war-and-peace topic from the Middle Ages to the 21st century to send abstracts related to the following sub-themes: War end, Borders, Demobilization, Heritage, The return.

Abstract submission guidelines: Approx. 250 words; before 31st May; including name, affiliation and a brief resume (approx. 100 words) – We welcome scholars (including ECR and PGR) and independent researchers.

For further information, please see the conference website.

CfP: Armistice & Aftermath: A World War One Symposium

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September 28-29, 2018, Michigan Technological University Houghton, Michigan

**We have extended the CFP deadline as we received Michigan Hiumanites Council funding. Therefore, we now have two keynote speakers (see below) and there no registration fee for the conference and we will provide meals for presenters during the conference.

Armistice Day 2018 marks the centenary end of World War I. This symposium explores the conditions and impacts of the “Great War,” as experienced during and afterwards, with a special focus on the perspective from the American Heartland. The war had tremendous human and economic repercussions. It also motivated technological, medical, and cultural advances, and it paved the way for transformative social change, from Prohibition to women’s suffrage.

Keynote speakers
Dr. John H. Morrow, Jr., Franklin Professor of History, University of Georgia. Author (with Jeffrey T. Sammons) of Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War: The Undaunted 369th Regiment and the African American Quest for Equality (2014)

Dr. Lynn Dumenil, Robert Glass Cleland Professor Emerita of American History, Occidental College. Author of The Second Line of Defense: American Women and World War I (2017).

We invite papers that examine a wide range of topics such as, but not limited to:
Domestic and regional mobilization and demobilization
Social implications of technologies and industries of war
Reintegration and post-war shifts in gender, class, and labor relations
Cultural representations of war, home-front support, and life in the aftermath
Memories of the war in music, literature, film, drama, art, graphic arts
Civil rights, social stratifications, and diversity in the military and civilian life
The peace and anti-war movements

DEADLINE FOR 350-500 WORD ABSTRACT: APRIL 2, 2018. Please include a brief biography.
Submit to ww1cc.mtu.edu/cfp

Accepted papers may be published as Proceedings in the Michigan Tech Digital Commons. Selected revised papers may be included in a proposal for a published collection.

Approval for State Continuing Education Clock Hours (SCECHs) is pending. More details will be available once the program is finalized.

A series of free and public exhibits and installations will also take place at Michigan Tech and the Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw during the symposium:

Europe, America, and the World: An Outdoor Concert. Featuring the music of James Reese Europe performed by MTU Superior Wind Symphony, MTU
An Evening of Silent Film. Featuring Charlie Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms (1918) with live musical accompaniment, Rozsa Theater
Interactive WWI Trench. With battle soundscape, readings from soldiers’ memoirs, and war poetry, MTU
American and French Propaganda Posters and the Great War. Exhibit, Rozsa Gallery, courtesy of Marquette Regional History Center
Shell-shocked: Footage and Sounds of the Front. Film with sound installation, Rozsa Gallery
Philosophy, Technology, & Warfare. A multimedia screens exhibit, Immersive Visualization Studio, MTU
Soldier Stories: The U.P. in World War I. Exhibit, Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw, courtesy of Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center
World War I & the Copper Country Home Front. Exhibit, Carnegie Museum of the Keweenaw
Copper Country Voices of Dissent in the Great War. Exhibit, Finnish American Heritage Center, Finlandia University

continues WWI Remembered from the Beaumier UP Heritage Center, sponsored by the Michigan Humanities Council

WW1CC is made possible in part by a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the Michigan Humanities Council.

CFP: Demographic impacts of World War I

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While we know that World War I killed millions, analysis of its demographic effects on the surviving population has been relatively limited since studies by Louis Henry on France and Jay Winter on Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. The centenary of the Armistice will occur during this year’s meeting of the Social Science History Association making it an especially appropriate time to consider the demographic impacts of the Great War.

We seek papers examining the impact of World War I on population and demographic behavior in all facets, from any country. Papers re-examining European demographic impacts with new data or methods are welcome, as are papers on other countries where the demographic effects of the war have not been fully considered.

In the tradition of the Social Science History Association, we welcome papers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and institutions. In the event that more than four strong papers are received, we will attempt to form a second session or distribute 1 or 2 papers into appropriate other sessions of the conference.

Proposals are due to the conference by February 16. I would appreciate hearing from potential participants by February 9 at the very latest in order to organize this session. All that is required for submission is a title and 250 word abstract.

This year’s meeting of the Social Science History Association will be held in Phoenix from 8-11 November. Further information on the conference is available at http://ssha.org.

Please write with any inquiries and paper proposals to Evan Roberts, University of Minnesota, eroberts@umn.edu.

Lecture: Prof Chris Snyder – “Gatsby in Trinity Quad: Oxford and the American Army Education Commission, 1918-19”

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Danson Room, Trinity College, Tuesday 31 May, 4:00pm
Followed by a drinks reception

Under the command of General John G. Pershing, American soldiers began arriving in France in May 1918, at first in small numbers, but eventually the American Expeditionary Force included more than two million soldiers. Well before their success in the Argonne Forest, allied leaders foresaw the logistical problem of dealing with so many soldiers stranded in France during the period between the Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles. One solution was continuing education opportunities for army officers, and thousands were sent to universities in Britain, France, and Italy. This study focuses on a group of about 200 A.E.F. officers who came to Oxford for Trinity Term, 1919. Demographic analysis reveals much about the A.E.F. officer corps (which included several Rhodes Scholars) and about the expectations the U.S. had for this generation of military leaders. F. Scott Fitzgerald drew on all of this in his portrayal of Major Jay Gatsby as a participant in this Oxford project.

Chris Snyder, Professor of History and Dean, Shackouls Honors College, Mississippi State University has been affiliated to the Globalising and Localising the Great War project since Trinity term 2015. He returns to Oxford during Trinity term 2016 to conduct research for his next book.