Winner of the World War One Historical Association's 2021 Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr. Prize Global War, Global Catastrophe presents a history of the First World War as an all-consuming industrial war that forcibly reshaped the international environment and, with it, impacted the futures of all the world's people. Narrated chronologically, and available open access, the authors identify key themes and moments that radicalized the war's conduct and globalized its impact, affecting neutral and belligerent societies alike. These include Germany's invasion of Belgium and Britain's declaration of war in 1914, the expansion of economic warfare in 1915, anti-imperial resistance, the Russian revolutions of 1917 and the United States' entry into the war. Each chapter explains how individuals, communities, nation-states and empires experienced, considered and behaved in relationship to the conflict as it evolved into a total global war. Above all, the book argues that only by integrating the history of neutral and subject communities can we fully understand what made the First World War such a globally transformative event. This book offers an accessible and readable overview of the major trajectories of the global history of the conflict. It offers an innovative history of the First World War and an important alternative to existing belligerent-centric studies. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

The First World War has often suffered from comparison to the Second, in terms of both public interest and the significance ascribed to it by scholars in the shaping of modern Britain. This is especially so for the relationship between the Left and these two wars. For the Left, the Second World War can be seen as a time of triumph: a united stand against fascism followed by a landslide election win and a radical, reforming Labour government. The First World War is more complex. Given the gratuitous cost in lives, the failure of a 'fit country for heroes to live in' to materialise, the deep recessions and unemployment of the inter-war years, and the botched peace settlements which served only to precipitate another war, the Left has tended to view the conflict as an unmitigated disaster and unpardonable waste. This has led to a tendency on the Left to see the later conflict as the 'good' war, fought against an obvious evil, and the earlier conflict as an imperialist blunder; the result of backroom scheming, secret pacts and a thirst for colonies. This book hopes to move away from a concentration on machinations at the elite levels of the labour movement, on events inside Parliament and intellectual developments; there is a focus on less well-visited material.

The SS Mendi is a wreck site off the Isle of Wight under the protection of Historic England. Nearly 650 men, mostly from the South African Native Labour Corps (SANLC), lost their lives in February 1917 following a collision in fog as they travelled to serve as labourers on the Western Front, in one of the largest single losses of life during the conflict. The loss of theSS Mendi occupies a special place in South African military history. Prevented from being trained as fighting troops by their own Government, the men of the SANLC hoped that their contribution to the war effort would lead to greater civil rights and economic opportunities in the new white-ruled nation of South African after the war. These hopes proved unfounded, and the SS Mendi became a focus of black resistance before and during the Apartheid era in South Africa. One hundred years on, the wreck of the SS Mendi is a physical symbol of black South Africans' long fight for social and political justice and equality and is one of a very select group of historic shipwrecks from which contemporary political and social meaning can be drawn, and whose loss has rippled forward in time to influence later events; a loss that is now an important part of the story of a new 'rainbow nation'. The wreck of the SS Mendi is now recognised as one of England's most important First World War heritage assets and the wreck site is listed under the Protection of Military Remains Act. New archaeological investigation has provided real and direct information about the wreck for the first time. The loss of the Mendi is used to highlight the story of the SANLC and other labour corps as well as the wider treatment of British imperial subjects in wartime.

A massively destructive and transformative event, the First World War left in its wake many legacies. Beyond 1917 explores both the consequences of the war for the United States (and the world) and American influence on shaping the legacies of the conflict in the decades after US entry in 1917. From the fields, seas, and airspace of battle, we live today with the consequences of the Great War's poison gas, post-traumatic stress disorder, and technological inventions such as air bombardment of civilians, submarine and tank warfare, and modern surgical techniques. Conscription, pacifism, humanitarian campaigns, and socialist movements emerged from the war to shape politics within countries for decades to come. Governments learned the value of propaganda, both in print and in film. Society changed: women were emancipated in some countries and citizenship was altered in many places, while aristocracy and monarchies went into decline. European empires were transformed and in some cases destroyed; in the Middle East, the change was enormous, beginning with the final collapse of Ottoman hegemony in the region. Fascism and communism, mass migration, independence, militarism, an influenza epidemic, the rise of Wall Street and American economic power, a slowdown in the process of globalization, and the pursuit of world peace by an organization based on collective security numbered among the most significant and lasting legacies of this conflict. Beyond 1917 explores how and why the war has become an integral milepost for human history, reflects the importance of the conflict, the forces that led to it, and the forces it unleashed. On the occasion of the centennial commemorations, an international group of scholars considers the long-term policy, political, social, economic, and cultural consequences of the war for the United States itself and for the world. In addition to interpretive essays, the volume provides a comprehensive bibliography and timeline of events.