First World War

Call for Papers: The First World War: Past, Present, Future

Call for Papers: The First World War: Past, Present, Future

Michael Noble

Edinburgh Napier University, Craiglockhart Campus

27 & 28 June 2019

 

An image of the Craiglockhart Hydropathic mental hospital

In the wake of the centenary of the First World War, The First World War Network seeks to build upon the success of its inaugural event at IWM North in February 2016 by reflecting upon the first century of First World War history, celebrating current, pioneering research into all areas of the conflict, and producing an ambitious, transnational framework for the future direction of scholarship on the twentieth century’s first global conflagration.

The organisers welcome contributions that examine the local, regional, national, and international dimensions of First World War history, that provide diverse and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the conflict, and/or that emphasise the war’s multiple legacies and impacts. We aim to bring together the latest in academic scholarship with participation from heritage agencies, libraries, museums, archives, community groups, individual researchers and all those with a shared desire to sustain interest in furthering knowledge and understanding of this seminal event. Alongside a range of traditional presentations, the conference will include poster presentations and roundtable discussions on the future of First World War studies with participants drawn from across the academic and public sphere.

Abstracts for individual twenty-minute papers, panels of three connected papers, and posters which focus upon any aspect of the past and present of First World War studies are invited. Suggested themes may include, but are not limited to:

●      The conduct of the war

●      The politics of the war

●      Commemoration/remembrance

●      Community projects

●      Forgotten theatres

●      Wounding and its aftermath

●      The centenary

●      Cultural responses to the war

●      Uses of the war

●      Historiographical trends

 ●      Gendered aspects of warfare

●      Local, regional, national or international responses

●      Dominant discourses

●      Myth and memory

●      Understanding/coping with death

●      Peace making

●      Silence

●      Learning from the war

The working language of the conference will be English. Abstracts of 250 words should be accompanied by your name, institutional/organisational affiliation (if any), and a biographical statement of up to 100 words. Submissions for complete panels should also include a statement of up to 250 words outlining the relationship between the individual papers. A ‘flash presentation’ session will take place during the conference, in which poster displayers can introduce and discuss the research behind their displays.

We wish to encourage submissions from academics, students, institutions, organisations, independent researchers, and community groups. In line with our mission to encourage and support postgraduate students and early career researchers, a number of bursaries will be available to individuals who fall into this category to assist their attendance at the conference. In addition, the First World War Network will be coordinating opportunities for postgraduate students and early career researchers who participate in the conference to engage in a peer mentoring scheme. Please indicate upon your submission if you wish to be considered for a bursary and/or the peer mentoring scheme.

All submissions and enquiries should be sent by email to: fwwnetwork@gmail.com

The deadline for submissions will be: 14 December 2018

The organising committee aim to notify all applicants of their decision by 1 February 2019.

The Venue

Located to the south-west of the Scottish capital, the Craiglockhart campus of Edinburgh Napier University possesses a famous link to the First World War. The campus, commandeered for use as a military hospital for the treatment of shell-shocked officers, provided both the location for the first meeting between the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and the site upon which Dr William H. Rivers made significant advances in psychiatric treatment. The campus is now home to the War Poets Collection, a tribute to Sassoon, Owen, and their contemporaries whose words have provided a significant and lasting effect upon the public memory of the conflict.

A permanent exhibition allows visitors to view the collection, and gain an insight into the personal and social experiences of war through the words, memories, voices and objects that the officers, medical staff and relatives of those associated with Craiglockhart Military Hospital left behind.

 

Away From the Western Front Conference

Away From the Western Front Conference

Michael Noble
(Q 24168) The 1/4th Hampshire Regiment make their ceremonial entry into Baghdad watched by natives lining the street. Baghdad fell on 11 March 1917. Copyright: © IWM

On the centenary of the Mudros Armistice, which marked the end of the First World War in the Middle East against the Ottoman Empire, the Heritage Lottery Funded Away From the Western Front project will be holding a conference to reflect on the often-overlooked campaigns which took place all over the world between 1914 and 1918.

Away from the Western Front has combined research into aspects of the global war with arts activities in which people from all over Britain have considered what the war means to us today. This conference will serve both as a commemoration of the centenary of the Mudros Armistice and an opportunity to take a fresh look at the war away from the Western Front.

Date and venue

The conference will take place on Tuesday 30th October 2018 at the Armada House Conference Centre, Telephone Avenue, Bristol BS1 4BQ. This is in the city centre, 15 minutes’ walk from Temple Meads station. The event will run from 10.00 to 16.00, with refreshments and lunch provided. A flyer for the event is available here.

Programme

  • Alan Wakefield will speak about the Salonika Campaign, followed by three presentations reflecting on personal stories – a Dartmoor stonemason, the artist Stanley Spencer and the composer Gustav Holst.
  • Stuart Hadaway will introduce the Palestine Campaign, followed by presentations about how a railway clerk won a VC, and how a churchgoer felt about visiting the Holy Land for the first time.
  • Nicholas Saunders will speak about the Arab Revolt, with particular reference to recent excavations of some of the places visited by T. E. Lawrence.
  • Soldiers from Lancashire and India fought in Mesopotamia, and some of their experiences will be presented.
  • Anne Samson will give an account of the huge African theatre of war.
  • There will also be presentations from our Creative Writing Competition, along with music created especially for the project.
  • In addition to the formal programme there will be exhibitions about the regional projects.
  • The full programme is available here.

Booking

There is no charge for attendance, but you must register. Click here to book your place. You will be taken to our Eventbrite page.  If you have any further questions please contact the National Coordinator (info@awayfromthewesternfront.org).

The Great Escape – from Sutton Bonington!

Michael Noble

The Centre’s Principal Investigator, Professor John Beckett, uncovers the story of a daring escape from Sutton Bonington, today one of the University of Nottingham’s UK campuses. 

Main Building, Sutton Bonington

During the centenary commemorations of the First World War, The Times is running a daily column reprinting a war-related activity first covered one hundred years ago. On 26 September 2017 it reproduced a story from 26 September 1917 headed ‘Escape of 23 War Prisoners’. It was about the escape of German officers from the internment camp at Sutton Bonington.

The Times reported the story with a certain sardonic humour. The German POWs had dug a tunnel and collected supplies ready for the break out, but having escaped they then struggled to put much distance between themselves and the camp. Six of them were caught near Nottingham, two were found asleep in a wood ‘worn out by their walk’, and three were arrested when they aroused suspicion by asking the way to the nearest railway station. Captain Muller was caught when schoolchildren found him blackberrying in Tollerton woods, six miles from the camp. Two more were found in East Leake ‘playing at cards while crouching beneath a hedge’.

These two men do not seem to have been trying all that hard to make their way back home, and apparently confessed the whole story. The escapees had tunnelled a distance of 50 yards over a three months period. Having escaped they divided into groups of four and started out on different routes towards the coast ‘where they hoped to get away by tramp steamers’.

Eighteen of those who escaped had been recaptured by 28 September 1917, and four more were taken at Chesterfield by Derby police on 30 September.

The story is, of course, well known. The Midland Agricultural College had been preparing to move from its premises in Kingston on Soar to the main building and men’s hostel newly built at Sutton Bonington. That building had a date stone of 1915. Before the move could take place the buildings were taken over to house German officers, who were generally well treated when they were captured as prisoners of war. In 1915 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle complained that they were quartered well away from ordinary soldiers, often in country houses or in the officers’ quarters of barracks. These were comfortably furnished, and servants were found for them from among the soldiers held as POWs. One of the prisoners, named in The Times, Captain Muller, had been in command of the Emden, a German raiding cruiser which had bombarded Madras in September 1914, and was subsequently sunk off the Cocos Islands on 9 November.

 

Photograph, 3 German Officer prisoners, Sutton Bonington campus, c.1917-1918

When the Sutton Bonington escape was reported, special constables were called out ‘and every measure was taken to apprehend the escaped prisoners’. With night patrols and road blocks, as well as special constables at strategic points, the prisoners were prevented from making much headway.

Lieutenants J. Stadelfaauer and P. Bastgem were recaptured in Derby after a week on the run – perhaps an inappropriate term since they had travelled just twelve miles from Sutton Bonington. Three men caught in West Bridgford on 25 September 1917 had among their possessions sardines, milk, bacon, ham, cheese, prunes, sausages, biscuits and dried toast. They might not have got far in their search for a packet boat to take them to Germany, but they were not going to starve. In fact, in the course of the First World War, only one German officer made it back home.