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SUMMARY:Communities under fire: civilians on the Western Front\, 1914-1918
  - Alex Dowdall (Trinity College Dublin)
DTSTART:20121106T173000Z
DTEND:20121106T190000Z
UID:TALK40863@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Gui Xi Young
DESCRIPTION:Much recent First World War historiography has highlighted the
  inadequacy of the conceptual divides between soldier and civilian\, front
  and home front. This conflict witnessed the blurring of these neat catego
 ries with the civilian and the home front increasingly becoming legitimate
  targets of military force\, both directly through atrocities and bombardm
 ent\, and indirectly through economic warfare. This paper proposes to appr
 oach this problem through an examination of the civilian populations of fo
 ur towns in the north of France situated on or near the front line for muc
 h of the war – Arras\, Lens\, Reims and Nancy. These four towns retained
  elements of their civilian populations in spite of their direct proximity
  to the front. Those living there faced the constant threat and reality of
  intense artillery bombardments\, and civilian casualties were high in all
  cases. The focus of the paper will be on the civilian experience of artil
 lery bombardment\, and how their suffering at the front defined these civi
 lians’ engagements with the French national war effort. Local community 
 identity was constructed in the light of the war experiences of the front 
 line town\, to the extent that ‘communities of suffering’ emerged amon
 g civilians along the front. These ‘communities of suffering’ situated
  themselves in opposition to civilians living further back from the front\
 , who were not suffering as much as they\, while simultaneously identifyin
 g themselves with the sufferings of the soldiers in the trenches. In effec
 t\, civilians living near the front came to see themselves as soldiers\, a
 nd\, as a result\, demanded a privileged position within the social relati
 ons of the French nation at war. The aim is to understand how local experi
 ences were related to the national war effort\, and how\, through the expe
 rience of life at the front\, the local community was constructed in relat
 ion to the national community.
LOCATION:Seminar Room S2 Alison Richard Building
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