State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War

This volume examines political and cultural mobilisation in the face of industrialised mass death during the First World War. Comparing Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary, it generates arguments on mobilisation and 'total war' which have wider relevance. It explores 'national ideals' which cast the war as a crusade, the inclusive 'self-mobilisation' of sectional identities and private organisations behind national efforts, and the exclusion of suspect groups (the 'enemy within') from the mobilisation process. It also highlights the importance, and difficulty, of assessing the limits of mobilisation as well as the differing capacities of the state to sustain it, factors related to prior degrees of national integration and political legitimacy. Mobilisation in this sense was an important factor which determined the outcome and legacy of the war.

List of contributors; Preface; 1. Introduction: mobilising for 'total war', 1914–1918 John Horne; Part I. National Ideals: 2. German artists, writers and intellectuals and the meaning of war, 1914–1918 Wolfgang J. Mommsen; 3. Children and the primary schools of France, 1914–1918 Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau; 4. War, 'national education' and the Italian primary school, 1915–1918 Andrea Fava; Part II. Solidarities and Minorities: 5. Mobilising labour and socialist militants in Paris during the Great War Jean-Louis Robert; 6. Between integration and rejection: the Jewish community in Germany, 1914–1918 Christhard Hoffmann; 7. Wackes at war: Alsace-Lorraine and the failure of German national mobilisation, 1914–1918 Alan Kramer; Part III. Army and Nation: 8. Discipline and morale in the British army, 1917–1918 David Englander; 9. Remobilising the citizen-soldier through the French army mutinies of 1917 Leonard V. Smith; 10. The German army, the authoritarian nation-state and total war Wilhelm Deist; 11. Morale and patriotism in the Austro-Hungarian army, 1914–1918 Mark Cornwall; Part IV. The Limits and Consequences of Mobilisation: 12. Remobilising for 'total war': France and Britain, 1917–1918 John Horne; 13. Mobilisation and demobilisation in Germany, 1916–1919 Richard Bessel; 14. The Italian experience of 'total' mobilisation, 1915–1920 Paul Corner and Giovanna Procacci; Notes; Index.

This is a volume of comparative essays on political and cultural 'mobilization' in the main belligerent countries in Europe during the First World War. It explores how and why the war was supported for so long, and why those states with a strong political support and national integration were ultimately successful.