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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Sat Feb 08, 2014 11:00 pm

Andropov, you said Western European 18th and 19th centuries, right? Bouncing off that last question, can you recommend a couple of good pop-history authors regarding Victoriana (preferably late Victoriana - social stuff rather than grand political overviews)? I have my favourites, but I'm interested to see what you suggest before I say who they are and you laugh me off the board.

On a similar note, any suggestions for first-person accounts of life in the trenches during the 14-18 war? Again, I have a shelf full of stuff, but it would be good to know what you suggest.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby Andropov4 » Sun Feb 09, 2014 12:15 am

OrangeEyebrows wrote:Andropov, you said Western European 18th and 19th centuries, right? Bouncing off that last question, can you recommend a couple of good pop-history authors regarding Victoriana (preferably late Victoriana - social stuff rather than grand political overviews)? I have my favourites, but I'm interested to see what you suggest before I say who they are and you laugh me off the board.

On a similar note, any suggestions for first-person accounts of life in the trenches during the 14-18 war? Again, I have a shelf full of stuff, but it would be good to know what you suggest.


Tim Blanning is probably my favorite, and John Merriman is also quite good.

As for WWI first-person accounts, the only one I use anymore is Ernst Junger's Storm of Steel. It's goddamn fantastic, and perfectly captures the experience of being an infantryman in WWI. Additionally, I think it helps to humanize the German side, which high school history classes and most American histories really fail to do.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby Learned Nand » Sun Feb 09, 2014 1:12 am

Andropov4 wrote: Additionally, I think it helps to humanize the German side, which high school history classes and most American histories really fail to do.


Maybe it was just my specific history class, but I don't know this to be the case any more. The teacher emphasized that country allegiance was, especially towards the end of the war, not a terribly motivating factor for soldiers, who were more upset with their own command than the enemy. We went over things like the Christmas truce and things like that.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Sun Feb 09, 2014 1:33 am

Actually, I'm particularly interested in the Christmas truce, so let's do that!

(And thanks, Andropov, I'm going to scan my bookshelves and see what I actually have.)
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby Andropov4 » Tue Feb 11, 2014 9:45 pm

Wait, was I supposed to talk about the Christmas Truce?
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Tue Feb 11, 2014 10:05 pm

Yes please, if you don't mind!
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby Andropov4 » Tue Feb 11, 2014 11:02 pm

Alright, I'll do a write-up tonight. Sorry.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Tue Feb 11, 2014 11:08 pm

No need to be sorry! And don't feel obliged if you're a busy rabbit!
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby Andropov4 » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:09 am

OrangeEyebrows wrote:Actually, I'm particularly interested in the Christmas truce, so let's do that!


All right, the Christmas Truce was a strange, informal phenomenon on the Western front of WWI. In essence, a large number of units, through the power of the Holy Spirit through the power of love because endlessly killing each other was getting a bit tedious, and because the celebration of Christmas was approaching, ceased hostilities. Several units began, apparently spontaneously, to sing carols roughly one week before Christmas in 1914 (the first year of the war). After this initial display, some units even began to exchange gifts and come together in no-man's-land for caroling, eating, sporting events, and general merriment (what little was to be had). Some areas even had joint burial ceremonies. Informal peace agreements developed for the duration of the holiday season all across the lines on Western Front. However, not all units stopped fighting. In some areas, hostilities never ceased, and fighting even continued on Christmas day. The Eastern Front had virtually no stoppage in action, as both sides continued to tear each apart for shits and giggles for legitimate reasons because why not?

The subsequent Christmases had similar, but less widespread cessations of hostilities. By 1916, the truces had almost entirely stopped due to the rising usage of chemical weapons and increasing enmity betwixt the combatants. In the last two years, virtually no truces happened anywhere.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 ended up an isolated and anomalous event, a tiny glint of humanity in perhaps the most dehumanizing events in modern history.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Wed Feb 12, 2014 5:18 am

Thank you, Andropov! Do you know off the top of your head where along the lines the truces happened? In particular where the opposing troops actually met up for sports, burials, etc? It's cool if not - I really appreciate you giving me the lowdown.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby Andropov4 » Wed Feb 12, 2014 6:29 pm

I have no idea where the truces actually happened. I do know that the soldiers typically met in the no-man's-land between the trenches for all events (because, somewhat ironically, everyone felt safer there than somewhere else). I've never actually seen anything delineating where the truces occurred, where fighting continued, which groups did what Christmas activities, or anything of that sort. But I think that would be a really fascinating avenue of research, to try and determine what, if anything, dictated who stopped or where fighting stopped.

Also, I hadn't considered this before, but I feel dumb for not having done so. The Eastern Front had no Christmas truce because not everyone was Christian (hello, Ottomans!), and not all the Christians celebrated Christmas at the same time, as both the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas later than most Protestants and Roman Catholics. So, yeah. D'oh.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby blehblah » Thu Feb 13, 2014 1:35 am

Andropov4 wrote:I have no idea where the truces actually happened. I do know that the soldiers typically met in the no-man's-land between the trenches for all events (because, somewhat ironically, everyone felt safer there than somewhere else). I've never actually seen anything delineating where the truces occurred, where fighting continued, which groups did what Christmas activities, or anything of that sort. But I think that would be a really fascinating avenue of research, to try and determine what, if anything, dictated who stopped or where fighting stopped.

Also, I hadn't considered this before, but I feel dumb for not having done so. The Eastern Front had no Christmas truce because not everyone was Christian (hello, Ottomans!), and not all the Christians celebrated Christmas at the same time, as both the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas later than most Protestants and Roman Catholics. So, yeah. D'oh.


Yup. That also hints at the difference between the WWI and WWII in Europe and WWII in the Pacific. Looking at the source that is Wiki (I know, I know... either the worst of the best, or the best of the worst) it was Brits, Germans, and French.

My great-grandfather told very few stories about WWI, but I remember them vividly. I think he told so few stories because it was, decades later, far too vivid and immediate for him. We tend to see it through a black-and-white lens (literal and figurative), while the reality was far more visceral.

The browns and grays that we see in black-and-white photos aren't far from the truth. Where trenches were dug, which was basically along the entire front (WWI being a very European war), everything was turned to mud. There was no such thing as strategic bombers dropping 500-pounders from afar; there were no aircraft carrier groups waging proxy battles in the oceans. WWI was a face-to-face war waged in mud... endless mud of grey and brown.

One story was that they used to high-five corpses that were piled against the walls of the trenches. Picture that - a hand sticking-out, shoulder-high because it's stacked on the bodies below. Trench humour.

I think that we observe of every war that it's the worst yet - where technology and tactics collide with young men who find their mortality instantly. WWI was a particularly horrible case, and that is against the plethora of horror that was the twentieth century.

Machine guns, which have not advanced drastically since, were brutally effective. Artillery, which really is advanced cannons (shaping shells, making them spin to increase accuracy, packing-in explosives, and using all of the same to deliver mustard gas - yeah - that too) changed the game, yet it was still men with guns running at each other with the aim of killing each other. On the ground, there was no armored cavalry - there were dudes on horses, in the grey-brown mud, making red of each other.

It really should have been the war to end all wars, at least from a carnage perspective, but it wasn't. I am very selfishly happy that I wasn't alive then. That's not to minimize the horror of anything since, but rather, it's to point-out that WWI is perhaps a too-distant memory.

Eh, sorry - I'm waxing something-something here... and doing it out-loud.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby Andropov4 » Thu Feb 13, 2014 2:10 am

Don't be afraid to write long responses. The whole point of this thread is discussion, and if being an historian has taught me anything, it's that all discussion should be as long-winded as possible.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby Andropov4 » Thu Feb 13, 2014 6:57 am

blehblah wrote: Looking at the source that is Wiki (I know, I know... either the worst of the best, or the best of the worst)


Wikipedia is actually a very good resource. I recommend that my students use wikipedia quite frequently. I won't accept it as a source for research, but going to the page and boning up on the general background is quite useful. Additionally, wikipedia can point you to all sorts of relevant sources for a given topic and really kickstart your research. I'd say to use it reasonably carefully. It's generally reliable.
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Re: Ask a Historian

Postby Tablo » Sun Feb 16, 2014 12:06 am

Who was more important? Louise Pasteur or Robert Koch ?
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