The French Second Empire: an anatomy of political power

Price, Roger, The French Second Empire: an anatomy of political power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp.x+507 RAE2008

Redefining military memorials and commemoration and how they have changed since the 19th century with a focus on Anglo-American practice

This thesis is a study of military memorials and commemoration with a focus on Anglo-American practice. The main question is: How has history defined military memorials and commemoration and how have they changed since the 19th century. In an effort to resolve this, the work examines both historic and contemporary forms of memorials and commemoration and establishes that remembrance in sites of collective memory has been influenced by politics, conflicts and religion. Much has been written since the Great War about remembrance and memorialization; however, there is no common lexicon throughout the literature. In order to better explain and understand this complex subject, the work includes an up-to-date literature review and for the first time, terminologies are properly explained and defined. Particular attention is placed on recognizing important military legacies, being familiar with spiritual influences and identifying classic and new signs of remembrance. The thesis contends that commemoration is composed of three key principles – recognition, respect and reflection – that are intractably linked to the fabric of memorials. It also argues that it is time for the study of memorials to come of age and proposes Memorialogy as an interdisciplinary field of study of memorials and associated commemorative practices. Moreover, a more modern, adaptive, General Classification System is presented as a means of identifying and re-defining memorials according to certain groups, types and forms. Lastly, this thesis examines how peacekeeping and peace support operations are being memorialized and how the American tragic events of 11 September 2001 and the war in Afghanistan have forever changed the nature of memorials and commemoration within Canada and elsewhere. This work goes beyond what has been studied and written about over the last century and provides a deeper level of analysis and a fresh approach to understanding the field of Memorialogy.

Shifting Loyalties: World War I and the Conflicted Politics of Patriotism in the British Caribbean

This dissertation examines how the crisis of World War I impacted imperial policy and popular claims-making in the British Caribbean. Between 1915 and 1918, tens of thousands of men from the British Caribbean volunteered to fight in World War I and nearly 16,000 men, hailing from every British colony in the region, served in the newly formed British West Indies Regiment (BWIR). Rousing appeals to imperial patriotism and manly duty during the wartime recruitment campaigns and postwar commemoration movement linked the British Empire, civilization, and Christianity while simultaneously promoting new roles for women vis-à-vis the colonial state. In Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, the two colonies that contributed over seventy-five percent of the British Caribbean troops, discussions about the meaning of the war for black, coloured, white, East Indian, and Chinese residents sparked heated debates about the relationship among race, gender, and imperial loyalty.

To explore these debates, this dissertation foregrounds the social, cultural, and political practices of BWIR soldiers, tracing their engagements with colonial authorities, military officials, and West Indian civilians throughout the war years. It begins by reassessing the origins of the BWIR, and then analyzes the regional campaign to recruit West Indian men for military service. Travelling with newly enlisted volunteers across the Atlantic, this study then chronicles soldiers' multi-sited campaign for equal status, pay, and standing in the British imperial armed forces. It closes by offering new perspectives on the dramatic postwar protests by BWIR soldiers in Italy in 1918 and British Honduras and Trinidad in 1919, and reflects on the trajectory of veterans' activism in the postwar era.

This study argues that the racism and discrimination soldiers experienced overseas fueled heightened claims-making in the postwar era. In the aftermath of the war, veterans mobilized collectively to garner financial support and social recognition from colonial officials. Rather than withdrawing their allegiance from the empire, ex-servicemen and civilians invoked notions of mutual obligation to argue that British officials owed a debt to West Indians for their wartime sacrifices. This study reveals the continued salience of imperial patriotism, even as veterans and their civilian allies invoked nested local, regional, and diasporic loyalties as well. In doing so, it contributes to the literature on the origins of patriotism in the colonial Caribbean, while providing a historical case study for contemporary debates about "hegemonic dissolution" and popular mobilization in the region.

This dissertation draws upon a wide range of written and visual sources, including archival materials, war recruitment posters, newspapers, oral histories, photographs, and memoirs. In addition to Colonial Office records and military files, it incorporates previously untapped letters and petitions from the Jamaica Archives, National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados Department of Archives, and US National Archives.

BOULANGER, SATIE, AND DEBUSSY: THEIR SPHERES OF INFLUENCE ON FRENCH MELODIE AND AMERICAN ART SONG

This dissertation project explored the spheres of influence on art song by Nadia Boulanger, Erik Satie, and Claude Debussy within Boulangeries, Les Six, and Les Apaches. After World War I, American composers flocked to Paris to study with Boulanger. Boulanger gave her students the confidence to explore their native talents instead of mimicking foreign models. Works by Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Theodore Chanler, John Duke, and Richard Hundley were included in the first dissertation recital on January 31, 2010: The Legacy of Nadia Boulanger: Her Influence on American Song Composers. Satie established a new modern French musical style, and was a catalyst for the formation of Les Six. Ned Rorem came to Paris, and had a close association with Les Six. Works by Satie, and three members of Les Six, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud; and Rorem were featured in the second recital on September 1, 2010: Satie, Selected Members of Les Six, and Rorem in Paris. Debussy was one of the most significant French composers in the late nineteenth century, predating Boulanger and Satie. Young composers exploring new directions were inspired by Debussy, forming the group Les Apaches. The final recital, April 7, 2011, featured works by Debussy and two members of Les Apaches, Maurice Ravel and Manuel de Falla: Debussy: A Catalyst for Les Apaches, Ravel and Falla. Falla‘s less well-known repertoire was presented. This dissertation showed the influence of these three major figures and that they embraced innovation in their own time, along with their followers. Recordings of these three performances may be obtained from the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library in Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, College Park.

TEACHING AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MUSIC IDSTORY WITH MODERN EDITIONS OF PERIOD MUSIC FOR FULL CONCERT BAND

This dissertation explores a method of teaching the history of Civil War music and musicians through modern full-band editions of original brass band music. In the study of music history the period of the Civil War is rarely discussed, or at best, mentioned only if a student takes a specific course on the history of bands and happens to look deeply into the background of some of the early band pioneers such as Patrick Gilmore, who served in the Union Army as a bandmaster. The history of the musicians, bands, and music performed during the Civil War deserves study to provide a way for students and audiences to learn this history. This project includes lesson plans that can be used with the arrangements of the period music as well as select published music that is also representative of the period. Included with the historical information are four arrangements of original brass band music now scored for full concert band. Each arrangement includes a section scored for brass only with optional brass band parts. Historical information is provided on the Civil War period bands and how each side used them, on the composers of the music, and also on the individual compositions. The historical information can be used to supplement the lesson plans to teach the history, as well as for program notes for audiences. The research involved locating information on both Union and Confederate bands available in books, other dissertations, articles, and interviews with Civil War music historians. The original brass band music is scored for full band. This method will allow teachers and conductors to highlight this period of wind band history and to share it with both students and audiences. Included with this project are photos and video footage taken during a visit with the 1st Brigade Band of Watertown, Wisconsin, an historical organization dedicated to recreating the music and performances of an actual Civil War era band.

Translating Nietzsche, mediating literature: Alexander Tille and the limits of Anglo-German intercultural transfer

Dr. Alexander Tille (1866–1912) was one of the key-figures in Anglo-German intercultural transfer towards the end of the 19th century. As a lecturer in German at Glasgow University he was the first to translate and edit Nietzsche’s work into English. Writers such as W. B. Yeats were influenced by Nietzsche and used Tille’s translations. Tille’s social Darwinist reading of the philosopher’s oeuvre, however, had a narrowing impact on the reception of Nietzsche in the Anglo-Saxon world for decades. Through numerous publications Tille disseminated knowledge about British authors (e.g., Robert Louis Stevenson, William Wordsworth) in Germany and about German authors (e.g., Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) in Britain. His role as mediator also extended into areas such as history, religion, and industry. During the Boer war, however, Tille’s outspoken pro-German nationalism brought him in conflict with his British host society. After being physically attacked by his students he returned to Germany and published a highly anglophobic monograph. Tille personifies the paradox of Anglo-German relations in the pre-war years, which deteriorated despite an increase in intercultural transfer and knowledge about the respective Other. [From the Author]

'A new sword on an old anvil': W.B.Yeats, Robert Graves and the Anglo-Irish Tradition

Throughout his writing life, Robert Graves was consistently and often publicly hostile to the work of W.B. Yeats, whilst still also owing a considerable debt to the older poet (who he never met). This essay explores Graves' complex responses to Yeats, arguing that his antagonism may be understood in the light of his own Anglo-Irish background, and is implicated in his relations with his father, Alfred Perceval Graves, as well as his experience of the First World War. Probing the suggestiveness of Graves's claim in 1959 that his poems 'remain true to the Anglo-Irish poetic tradition into which I was born', it traces the relation between Yeats and Graves through correspondence, critical writings, and through a comparative reading of Yeats's A Vision and Graves's The White Goddess, and reveals underlying similarities in their critical and mythological thinking in spite of Graves's public disavowal of the Yeatsian aesthetic.

Current trends in WWII French fiction

Polish Academy of Warsaw - War and Memory conference
September 2012

Reinventing America on the battlefields of Spain or following the party line: conflicting perceptions of the Spanish Civil War in the present and in the past

Isolationism and neutrality are two of the recurrent themes in the study of the history of the U.S. foreign policy in the interwar years. The trauma of the Great War, which had swept away 130.000 U.S. lives and had cost $30 billion, had led public opinion to strongly oppose any involvement with European affairs. Besides, the urgent need for economic recovery during the dismal years of the Great Depression did not leave Roosevelt much room for manoeuvre to influence international events. His positions regarding the intentions of the Fascist states remained, at best, ambivalent. These facts notwithstanding, about 2800 U.S. citizens crossed the Atlantic and rushed in to help democratic Spain, which was on the verge of becoming one more hostage in the hands of the Fascism. They joined the other British, Irish and Canadian volunteers and formed the XV International Brigade. 900 Americans never returned home. This alone should challenge the commonly held assumption that the American people were indifferent to the rise of the Fascist threat in Europe. But it also begs other questions. Considering the prevailing isolationist mood, what really motivated them? With what discursive elements did these men construct their anti Fascist representations? How far did their understanding of the Spanish democracy correspond to their own American democratic ideal? In what way did their war experience across the Atlantic mould their perception of U.S. politics (both domestic and foreign)? How far did the Spanish Civil War constitute one first step towards the realization that the U.S. might actually be drawn into another international conflict of unpredictable consequences? Last but not the least, what ideological, political and cultural complicity existed between the men from the English-speaking battalions? In order to unearth some of the answers, I intend to examine their letters and see how these men recorded the historical events in which they took part. Their correspondence emerged from the desire to prove their commitment to a common cause and spoke of a common war experience, but each letter, in its uniqueness, ends up mirroring not only the social and political background of each individual fighter, but also his own particular perspective of the war, of world politics and of the Spanish people. We shall see how these letters differ and converge and how these particular accounts weave, as in an epistolary novel, a larger-than-life narrative of outrage and solidarity, despair and hope.

The British Army of the Rhine: Turning Nazi Enemies into Cold War Partners

Between 1945 and 1957, West Germany made a dizzying pivot from Nazi bastion to Britain's Cold War ally against the Soviet Union. Successive London governments, though faced with bitter public and military opposition, tasked the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) to serve as a protecting force while strengthening West German integration into the Western defense structure. Peter Speiser charts the BAOR's fraught transformation from occupier to ally by looking at the charged nexus where British troops and their families interacted with Germany's civilian population. Examining the relationship on many levels, Speiser ranges from how British mass media representations of Germany influenced BAOR troops to initiatives taken by the Army to improve relations. He also weighs German perceptions, surveying clashes between soldiers and civilians and comparing the popularity of the British services with that of the other occupying powers. As Speiser shows, the BAOR's presence did not improve the relationship between British servicemen and the German populace, but it did prevent further deterioration during a crucial and dangerous period of the early Cold War. An incisive look at an under-researched episode, The British Army of the Rhine sheds new light on Anglo-German diplomatic, political, and social relations after 1945, and evaluates their impact on the wider context of European integration in the postwar era.

Guerre défensive provoquée ou duel pour la prépondérance ? : nouveau regard sur les origines de la guerre franco-prussienne de 1870-71

La guerre franco-prussienne (ou franco-allemande) de 1870-71 fut un conflit majeur dont l’issue changea considérablement l’équilibre des puissances en Europe avec notamment l’émergence de l’Empire allemand. Pourtant, elle a été oubliée. Bien que depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, elle fut largement traitée par l’historiographie, la question des responsabilités relativement à son déclenchement demeure un sujet de débat. Tandis que certains historiens estiment que cette guerre fut sciemment provoquée par Bismarck afin de parachever l’unification allemande, d’autres croient que la responsabilité est partagée et que ce conflit était tout simplement inévitable dans le contexte du refroidissement des rapports franco-allemands depuis la défaite autrichienne de Königgrätz (Sadowa). Le présent mémoire entend se dissocier de ces interprétations en jetant un nouveau regard sur le rôle joué par Bismarck lors des « préliminaires » (Vorgeschichte) de 1870. En s’appuyant sur des sources primaires ainsi que sur ce que les historiographies allemande, française et anglo-saxonne nous apprennent, il sera démontré premièrement que la candidature Hohenzollern pour le trône d’Espagne n’a pas été « fabriquée » volontairement par le chef de la diplomatie prussienne afin de compléter l’unification allemande, mais qu’elle fut promue d’abord et avant tout pour des considérations de prestige politique. Deuxièmement, la fameuse dépêche d’Ems modifiée par Bismarck ne peut être considérée comme l’élément déclencheur de ce conflit, car la décision d’aller en guerre fut prise à Paris avant que les effets de la dépêche ne se fassent sentir. Enfin, par son besoin d’un succès politico-diplomatique qui aurait consolidé le Second Empire en faisant oublier les reculades antérieures, par son refus de se satisfaire du retrait de la candidature Hohenzollern et par les erreurs de sa politique étrangère en général, la France a adopté une position belliqueuse et s’est retrouvée seule dans une guerre qu’elle n’avait su ni prévenir, ni préparer. L’enjeu à Paris n’était finalement pas le règlement pacifique des différends avec la Prusse, mais la pérennisation de la prépondérance française sur le continent européen.

French Kiss : les fêtes nationales françaises et américaines dans la France en guerre (1914-1918)

La fête nationale française, décrétée en 1880, vise à consolider l’adhésion à la Troisième République, régime né dix ans auparavant et toujours en déficit de légitimité. Malgré les efforts du gouvernement pour rejoindre les Français de toutes allégeances, des discordes idéologiques persistent et la fête nationale du 14-Juillet ne parvient pas à faire l'unanimité. Telle est la situation sociale et politique de la France à l’aube de la Grande Guerre. Alors que se multiplient les batailles et les pertes militaires, la conviction d'une guerre courte fait place à la réalité d'une guerre aussi destructrice qu’interminable. Les 14-Juillet de ces années-là démontrent la nécessité d'adapter les célébrations nationales à la réalité de la guerre totale et des besoins qu'elle engendre. Parallèlement, le deuil et la souffrance de la guerre ravivent les oppositions sociales et politiques d'avant-guerre, remettant en question les capacités du gouvernement à faire face à la situation, menaçant tant l'Union Sacrée que la République. L'entrée en guerre des États-Unis, en avril 1917, offre l'occasion à quelques hommes politiques prévoyants de rétablir la cohésion sociale autour des valeurs républicaines. En 1917, puis en 1918, le gouvernement mise sur l'union des fêtes nationales républicaines française et américaine pour ranimer l'espoir, le courage et le patriotisme de tous les Français. Au-delà de l'hommage rendu à un allié que l'on espérait plus, l'union des deux fêtes devient le symbole de la solidarité et de la fraternité qui unit les deux Républiques-sœurs, et réaffirme la force et la légitimité du régime français en place. Le 14-Juillet, emblème du parcours social et politique français, connaît donc, à l’occasion de la Grande Guerre, une mutation, une redéfinition de sens. À l'image de la France, « moderne », le 14-Juillet tel que développé lors du conflit, ne cesse de s'adapter aux besoins et à l'image d'une société en constante évolution.

Les historiens français et britanniques devant la responsabilité de l’échec des négociations tripartites de 1939 : étude historiographique de 1961 à 2011

En 1939, la France et la Grande-Bretagne réalisent que, pour arrêter les agressions d’Hitler en Europe, il va leur falloir constituer un front commun. Cette recherche d’alliés les mène à courtiser l’Union soviétique. Malgré plus de quatre mois de négociations anglo-franco-soviétiques, aucune entente n’intervient entre les parties. Cet échec est d’autant plus douloureux que le 23 août un pacte de non-agression est signé entre Berlin et Moscou et, qu’une semaine plus tard, l’Allemagne envahit la Pologne. La Seconde Guerre mondiale est commencée. Depuis les années 1990, plusieurs historiens ont affirmé que l’historiographie occidentale concernant l’échec des négociations tripartites de 1939 a été influencée par la propagande de la Guerre froide et qu’elle avait propagé l’idée que les Soviétiques n’avaient jamais eu l’intention de s’allier avec l’Entente. Toutefois, après l’analyse des études publiées entre 1961 et 2011 par les historiens français et britanniques, ce mémoire démontre que, depuis 1961, en Grande-Bretagne et en France, l’interprétation du rôle de l’Union soviétique dans cet échec est beaucoup plus libre d’aprioris idéologiques qu’on pourrait le croire. La publication de l’ouvrage d’A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, et la controverse qu’il va causer ont radicalement modifié la nature du débat et permis l’ascendant de thèses en tous points semblables à celles qui ont cours en Occident depuis le démantèlement de l’Union soviétique. Celles-ci soutiennent que les dirigeants soviétiques ont priorisé une alliance avec l’Entente au moins jusqu’à la fin du mois de juillet et que ce sont les politiques étrangères de la France et, plus particulièrement, de la Grande-Bretagne, qui ont causé l’échec des négociations tripartites de 1939.