Title: Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies 1914-1918
Abstract: There is an interesting disparity in assessments of the German army during the First World War. German historians such as Bernd Ulrich, Benjamin Ziemann, Wolfgang Kruse, Christoph Jahr and Wilhelm Deist have emphasized the oppressive and repressive nature of German militarism and the resentment of its main victims, which is to say the ordinary German soldiers. By contrast British and American military historians including Terence Zuber, Bruce Gudmundsson, Jack Sheldon and Martin Samuels have written with an almost awestruck admiration of the unique resilience, ‘fighting spirit’ and skill of the ordinary German soldier. (The latter group are pre-dominantly ex-NATO regular officers.) Watson avoids both varieties of Sonderweg in this very clever work of comparative history emphasizing important commonalities between the British and German armies on the Western Front. The use of the comparative method certainly dispels mythologies about both sides—for example British observers often fell back on cultural stereotypes about the ‘humour’ of the Tommies as a source of resilience, but Watson points out that this was a feature common to both armies.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 4
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