The Great War and the Anthropocene: Empire and Environment, Soldiers and Civilians on the Eastern Front

Not So Quiet on the Eastern Front:A Seminar Report from the Trenches of the 37th Annual Meeting of the German Studies Association Heather R. Perry, Emre Sencer, and John W. Steinberg In recent years, scholars seem to have rediscovered the “Eastern Front” of World War I in Europe. For nearly a century, the history and cultural study of Europe’s Great War has focused on the Western Front. From books about trench warfare, technological innovation, and total war to analyses of war poetry, novels, and paintings created by veterans (Remarque, Dix, Grosz) to studies of POWs and forced labor—the war as it was planned, fought, experienced, and lost between France, England, and Germany has been at the center of scholarship dealing with the Central Powers in World War I. Since the turn of the twentieth century, however, there has been growing interest in the war beyond the Western Front and scholars have been examining the war experiences of soldiers and civilians not only in the east, but also around the globe. The approaching centenary of the Great War has only magnified this interest as governments and the popular media work to refine the memory and contemporary meaning of this war for themselves, their citizens, and their consumers. Thus it comes as no surprise that scholars in German Studies, too, have been busy uncovering new stories about the impact of the war, the experiences of Central Europeans in it, and the larger significance of all of this not just to Germanophone Europe but to the wider world. When the German Studies Association announced its intention to introduce a new scholarly component to the 37th Annual Meeting taking place in Denver, Colorado (October 3–6, 2013), we immediately saw its potential as both the ideal venue for bringing together some of the scholars who are producing this new research on the history and culture of Central Europe during World War I while also providing a timely opportunity for furthering progress on a volume of essays which we are currently editing. With this idea in mind, we submitted a proposal for a seminar entitled, Not So Quiet on the Eastern Front: New Directions in WWI Studies, to the GSA Seminar Working Group for consideration in their pilot program. Our goal was to use the [End Page 377] seminar as a place where graduate students and junior scholars from around the globe could discuss their research on World War I with recognized experts in the field. Such a format, we hoped, would create a discussion among scholars who find the more traditional paper presentation panel to be less engaging and fruitful for the kind of feedback they seek. At the same time, we wanted to target part of the seminar’s focus on recent innovative research on the war’s Eastern Front. This less well-studied aspect of the Central Powers’ experience of the war against Imperial Russia forms the basis of our forthcoming book in the multi-volume project, Russia’s Great War and Revolution, 1914–1922 (Slavica, in preparation).1 The new seminar format could function as an ideal space to workshop the volume, we hoped. Seminar Background The idea of creating a new forum for the discussion and dissemination of scholarship stemmed primarily from the desire to create a more conversational space at the German Studies Association annual meeting that could simultaneously accommodate more than three to four perspectives on a topic. Since 2000, it has become commonplace to organize series of panels to showcase scholarship organized around specific themes and trends. These panel series have had the advantage of bringing together scholars across disciplines to engage their subjects more deeply; and, over the years it has become increasingly common to use the annual meeting as a place where scholars dispersed around the globe can gather together for such “mini conferences.” As useful as this phenomenon has been in allowing lengthier conversations among some scholars, this arrangement has had the disadvantage of isolating the participants of these “mini conferences” by effectively siloing them for the duration of the conference within a small group of scholars. Attending all six (or eight, even ten) panels within such a series can prevent...

Although ultimately decided in the West, historians have continued to emphasize the importance of the Eastern Front in understanding the complex evolution of the First World War. Using a newly compiled dataset on prisoners of war and on soldiers killed and wounded on the Eastern and Western Fronts of the war, this paper provides evidence that foreign exchange traders considered information on military casualties from both fronts in decisions to buy and sell, indicating the significance of the two-front war a hundred years ago. Prospects of losing the war were associated with currency depreciation. Casualties from the Eastern Front mattered especially in the early years of the war.

World War I was fought on many fronts, none more enormous than the Eastern Front. The geographic scale alone was mammoth, and the casualties inflicted and losses in equipment were equally immense. In its conduct, the war on the Eastern Front was quite different from the Western Front; while operations on the Western Front assumed a stationary character between the mobile campaigns of 1914 and the return of mobility in 1918, the Eastern Front was different. In the East, the war remained mobile throughout, with large swaths of territory (and the people inhabiting them) changing hands on a regular basis. Finally, in a political sense, the war on the Eastern Front was far more destructive than the Western Front. Of the three political regimes that went to war on the Eastern Front in 1914, none remained by the end of 1918.

Reviewed by: Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory Thomas S. Wilkins Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory. By Norman Davies. London: Macmillan, 2006. ISBN 978-0333-69285-1. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 490. £25.00. So you think you know all about the Second World War in Europe? – Think again, argues Norman Davies in a comprehensive re-evaluation of this great conflict. Bucking the trend toward 'specialization' and 'compartmentalization' in the study of the 1939-1945 war, Davies offers an audacious 'macro' perspective. His stated aim is 'not to present spectacularly new facts, but rather to rearrange, to juxtapose and reintegrate well-established facts that have hitherto been strictly segregated' (p. 7). He eschews both the orthodox chronological or geographical narrative frameworks, instead dividing the volume into seven thematic sections. In chapter one, 'Interpretation,' the author surveys the material, ideological and historical parameters involved in understanding the war, and unmasks the ethnocentric biases embedded in Western perceptions of the struggle for Europe. Chapter two, 'Warfare', is a concise analytical survey of military operations, while chapter three, 'Politics,' considers the international and domestic 'superstructure' that regulated the national and geopolitical intricacies of waging the war. 'Soldiers' (chapter four) is an exposé of various aspects of the martial experience from Private to Field Marshal. Non-combatants are the subject of chapter five, 'Civilians'. Here the author ranges across elements of the home front, a particularly important topic given the 3:1 ratio of civilian to military deaths during hostilities (p. 367). Chapter six considers 'Portrayals' of the War, contemporary and modern, across all media: art, propaganda, literature, newsprint, film. Finally, in chapter seven the author reaches his 'Inconclusions', largely concentrating upon the problems of misinformation and manipulation that continue to afflict the historiography of the War. In the course of this wide-ranging exposition Davies promulgates a multilayered thesis based upon the contention that the war in Europe was decided almost entirely on the Eastern Front, with the Allied invasion of Normandy little more than a 'sideshow' (p. 25). The author recognizes that this is not a new thesis, but suggests that it has yet to be fully 'internalized' by the scholarly community at large, let alone the general public (p. 467). Thus he advocates a clearer understanding of what the 'Eastern front' actually entailed. First, he stresses that the pervasive conflation of 'Russia' with the USSR must be overcome. Russia itself, of course, made up a massive component of the Soviet war effort, but despite the headline-grabbing battles of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad, this was not exclusively 'Russia's War'. Indeed, most of the fighting occurred in the western Soviet Republics, with Belarus (Byelorussia) suffering the worst extremes, and conducted in large part by non-ethnically Russian soldiers (Kazaks, Mongols, Chechens). Second, Davies questions our conception of the nature of the German-Soviet clash and the relationship between the Western Allies (the UK and USA) and the USSR. The conflict in the East is best conceived of as a gigantic contest between two equally monstrous regimes, Nazi and Soviet - a 'fight to the death between gangsters' in the author's words - in which the USSR called upon allies in the West to help defeat their mutual foe (p. 383). He [End Page 990] emphasizes that the USSR was an aggressor state as well as a 'victim' in World War II due to its unprovoked attacks on Poland and Finland and its annexation of the Baltic Republics, to say nothing of Moscow's oppression of recalcitrant Soviet Republics, especially Ukraine. Furthermore, the USSR under Stalin was a brutal tyranny that boasted the largest concentration camp system in Europe (p. 328) and which massacred its own subjects as well as its enemies without compunction. Davies argues that Stalin's regime was every bit as inequitable as Hitler's Germany. This fact was reprehensively overlooked by the Western Allies due to their dependence upon the Red Army to defeat the Wehrmacht in the field. A few slipshod errors notwithstanding, Europe at War is a true tour de force. The thematic approach is a novel and largely effective one, if occasionally a bit arbitrary and fragmented. It is difficult...

During the Great War, more than 2 million prisoners from the armies of the Central Powers found themselves in Russian captivity. Most of those soldiers were captured between 1914 and 1916. Apart from the wounded and those taken prisoner in combat, the group of POWs also included deserters and those who had consciously decided to surrender to the Russians on the battlefield. Initially, Russian military authorities attempted to establish POW camps far from large cities and railway lines. However, the growing number of prisoners and the shortage of the financial resources necessary for the construction of new camps forced a change in the original plans. Therefore, new groups of prisoners were directed to cities to be accommodated in existing buildings, hastily adapted for their needs. These circumstances were conducive to escapes. However, getting out of Siberia or Central Asia was not easy. Consequently, the percentage of those who made that effort, in relation to the overall number of prisoners of war kept on the far side of the Urals, was low. According to official Russian data, only several hundred POWs escaped from their camps every month. Of those, only few would reach Sweden, Persia, or China. It was only the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 that allowed the mass of 2 million prisoners to be repatriated from Russia. The scholarly research initiated anew by historians on the centenary of the end of the Great War should take a broader account of the subject matter of prisoners of war, particularly with regard to those captured on the Eastern and Caucasian Fronts. The present article seeks to address this need.

Although the First World War was ultimately decided in the west, historians have emphasized the importance of the often ‘forgotten’ Eastern Front in understanding its complex evolution. This article examines the perception of contemporary foreign exchange traders concerning the relative importance of the Eastern Front over time. Using a newly compiled dataset on prisoners of war and on soldiers killed and wounded, we show that traders were concerned with casualties on both fronts, recognizing the significance of the two‐front war in the early war years. From the autumn of 1916 onwards, traders seemed to believe the key to winning the war lay in the west only.

A lacuna that clearly needs to be filled and remains among various topics of the ecological history of the First World War is the Eastern front theme. The authors of this historiographical essay attempt to analyze various papers and monographs on the ecological history of the First World War, such as works on ecological history and history of technologies, works on socio- and cultural-ecological aspects of the Great War, as well as publications on the experience of military occupation at the Eastern Front and its impact on the ecosystems of different regions. A critical analysis of the achievements and limitations of modern historiography allow the authors to emphasize thematic fields of perspective research. The authors notice that the Eastern front is still obscure and largely ignored by English-speaking scholars. The historiography includes a wide variety of thematic fields. Most of them are related to environmental changes in West European war theatre, as well as in colonial landscapes. Such a view deforms the general picture of the Great War. So, the reconstruction of the military impact on the landscapes of the Eastern front, attempts to economically organize the war space by different armies on the same territories, as well as the transformations of local population's management practice, seem to correct the idea of the universality of the Western front processes and phenomena.

In British Women of the Eastern Front, Angela K. Smith explores a long neglected area of women’s experience in the First World War—the Eastern Front. She does so by taking a particularly useful app...

Aleksandr Astashov, Russkii front v 1914-nachale 1917 goda: Voennyi opyt i sovremennost' (The Russian Front from 1914 to the Beginning of 1917: The Experience of and Modernity). 736 pp. Moscow: Novyi khronograf, 2014. ISBN-13 978-5948811866. David R. Stone, The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917. 359 pp. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2015. ISBN-13 978-0700620951.$34.95. It has been more than 20 years since the Russian Military Historical Archive (RGVIA) ended the restrictions of the Soviet era and opened its inventories and collections to scholars for free exploration. First a trickle, and now a steady stream, of monographs, dissertations, and articles grounded in archival work has brought much new source material to light and has challenged much of the received wisdom about World I. (1) This essay reviews two new fundamental contributions on the Russian army in the war. David Stone takes stock of the new literature and presents an excellent synthesis and interpretation of the military-operational history of Russia's war effort. Aleksandr Astashov draws on extensive work in RGVIA for his exhaustive study of soldiers' daily life, motivations, attitudes, and interactions with civilians, painting an incredibly detailed and nuanced portrait of the lived experiences of the war. While quite different in approach and topic, the two books show how far scholarship on the war has come and give a snapshot of a new narrative of the war that is emerging. David Stone's audience is broad and his stated intent is to present a clear and brief synthesis of scholarly research on Russia's experience in fighting the First World War (10). The result is an eminently reasonable and convincing narrative that confirms some established interpretations and challenges others. One of the most important arguments he contends with comes from the last major synthesis on the topic 40 years ago, by Norman Stone (no relation). Norman Stone famously argued that the key problem for Russia was not so much inherent and insurmountable backwardness but, rather, a crisis of rapid hothouse modernization that created bottlenecks and tensions within the economy and society. (2) He also iconoclastically argued against the more specific notion that shortages of weapons and artillery shells (caused by industrial backwardness) were the key barrier to Russian military success. David Stone sees economic failures as more important for military operations and the conduct of the war. He argues that Russia was not that different from other countries in its shortages of shells in the first months of the war, and that it actually mattered less on the Eastern Front than on the Western Front due to the mobile nature of warfare. However, by early 1915, the Eastern Front was digging in with deeper and more sophisticated trenches and defensive fortifications, making artillery more and more important. When the German command decided to shift forces to the east for an offensive, David Stone argues that the German advantage in artillery proved to be critical; it was not so much the quality and quantity of weapons in the army at the outbreak of the war as Russia's relatively slow switch from field guns suitable for use against troops in open ground to mortars and heavy artillery, systems better suited to trench warfare and the destruction of fortifications and entrenchments that proved decisive in 1915 (37). While Norman Stone dismisses as scapegoating the generals' complaints of shell shortage for their lack of strategic imagination, David Stone sees the shortages as an important strategic factor. It is a convincing argument. Norman Stone and others tend at times to slip into the omniscient arrogance of hindsight, writing with a jocular dismissiveness of the decisions of generals and politicians, often portraying their decisions as driven by petty personal rivalries or as the expression of character flaws (losing nerve, weak constitution, etc. …

Russia’s first experience of chemical warfare occurred during the First World War. Although the first use of chemical weapons on the Eastern Front was long thought to have taken place in April/May 1915, in actual fact, the first time the Russians experienced a chemical agent in action was earlier than that, in January 1915 at Bolimow. Using a variety of Russian, English, and translated German material, the article analyzes the use and effect of gas on operations in the Eastern Front throughout 1915–1917. Given the newness of the weapon, its impact was less considerable than it could have been and its effectiveness hampered less by technological counter-measures and more by a lack of serious thought given to its potential operational impact.

In picking up David R. Stone’s latest book, The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914–1917, one is inevitably reminded of Norman Stone’s The Eastern Front, 1914–1917, published 40 ...

War Land on the Eastern Front is a study of a hidden legacy of World War I: the experience of German soldiers on the Eastern front and the long-term effects of their encounter with Eastern Europe. It presents an 'anatomy of an occupation', charting the ambitions and realities of the new German military state there. Using hitherto neglected sources from both occupiers and occupied, official documents, propaganda, memoirs, and novels, it reveals how German views of the East changed during total war. New categories for viewing the East took root along with the idea of a German cultural mission in these supposed wastelands. After Germany's defeat, the Eastern front's 'lessons' were taken up by the Nazis, radicalized, and enacted when German armies returned to the East in World War II. Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius's persuasive and compelling study fills a yawning gap in the literature of the Great War.

Standing squarely in the middle of the Soviet Union's timeline is the Great Patriotic War, the Russian name for the eastern front of the Second World War. During the nineteenth century international trade, lending and migration developed without much restriction. The Soviet Union was an active partner in the process that led to the opening of the 'eastern front' on 22 June 1941. Soviet war preparations began in the 1920s, long before Adolf Hitler's accession to power, at a time when France and Poland were seen as more likely antagonists. In June 1941 Hitler ordered his generals to destroy the Red Army and secure most of the Soviet territory in Europe. The main features of the Soviet system of government on the outbreak of war were Joseph Stalin's personal dictatorship, a centralised bureaucracy with overlapping party and state apparatuses, and a secret police with extensive powers to intervene in political, economic and military affairs.

The end of tsarist Russia: march to World War I and revolution, by Dominic Lieven, New York, Viking, 2015, xv + 426 pp., US$35 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-67002558-9The Russian army in Great War: Eastern Front, 1914-1917, by David R. Stone, Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2015, viii + 359 pp., US$35 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-7006-2095-1La Grande Guerre oubliee: Russie, 1914-1918, par Alexandre Sumpf, Paris, Perrin, 2014, 527 pp., US$40 (paperback), ISBN 978-2-262-04045-1Imperial apocalypse: Great War and destruction of Russian Empire, by Joshua Sanborn, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, xii + 287 pp., US$50 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-199-64205-2The history of late imperial Russia, in particular its collapse in early 1917, continues to elicit a fair amount of interest among scholars and general public. On eve of centennial of Russian Revolution of 1917, which promises to inspire publication of many articles and books, it seem appropriate to take a look at background to this defining moment of twentieth century. The focus, here, will be threefold: road to World War I, battles involving Russian armies on Eastern Front, and lethal impact of war on tsarist regime.Most historians agree that few questions have been more debated than that of origins of Great War; as a matter of fact, topic remains a puzzle to many people today. Do these four books, then, help to elucidate this subject? In particular, do they offer a credible explanation as to why came to fight in 1914? Embracing late Fritz Fischer's analysis, David R. Stone writes that Germany, whose leader William II an infamous war council on 8 December 1912 (22), and Austria-Hungary, also described as the moribund Habsburg Empire (27), bear primary responsibility for war. More nuanced in his approach, Alexandre Sumpf argues that cannot be held as sole nation uniquely responsible for outbreak of hostilities. Nevertheless, [elle] a joue dans cette affaire un role central (471); behind l'intransigeance russe (27), as reflected in tsar's decision to order a general mobilization on 30 August 1914, larger issues were at stake: l'empire des Romanov a ete partie prenante du dangereux ballet diplomatique avant la guerre et a vu dans le conflit un moyen de renegocier le statut d'une puissance se refusant a constater son declin, en Europe comme sur la scene mondiale (471). Joshua Sanborn, for his part, adds confusion to debate by contending that war both (18) and inevitable (19).By far boldest, though certainly not most convincing, interpretation provided by Dominic Lieven. A senior research fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, a fellow of British Academy, and author of many books on that have earned him a well-deserved international reputation, Lieven argues that Great War was source and origin of most of catastrophes that subsequently afflicted twentieth-century Russia and that an understanding of its causes is therefore crucial (15). Fair enough. Few serious students of this tragedy, however, will accept in its entirety his perspective on Russia's descent towards World War I. Lieven's understanding of origins and course of World War I somewhat flawed, largely because a key premise of his book to approach war from a mostly Russian angle. He announces his colours in opening sentence of a quite controversial introduction: As much as anything, World War I turned on fate of Ukraine, because without its population, agriculture, and industry, would have ceased to be a great (1). An obvious lack of historical perspective evident here: became a great power during reign of Peter Great, in early eighteenth century, at a time when Ukraine not part of Russian Empire; remains today a great power, even though Ukraine now an independent country. …

This book consists of extracts from key documents, along with commentary and further reading, on the ‘Great Patriotic War’ of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, 1941-45. Despite the historical significance of the war, few Soviet documents have been published in English. This work provides translations of a range of extracts from Soviet documents relating to the titanic struggle on the Eastern Front during World War II, with commentary. This is the only single-volume work in English to use documentary evidence to look at the Soviet war effort from military, political, economic and diplomatic perspectives. The book should not only facilitate a deeper study of the Soviet war effort, but also allow more balanced study of what is widely known in the West as the ‘Eastern Front’. This book will be of much interest to students and scholars of military history, Soviet history, and World War II history.