This book provides fresh perspectives on a key period in the history of humanitarianism. Drawing on economic, cultural, social and diplomatic perspectives, it explores the scale and meaning of humanitarianism in the era of the Great War. Foregrounding the local and global dimensions of the humanitarian responses, it interrogates the entanglement of humanitarian and political interests and uncovers the motivations and agency of aid donors, relief workers and recipients. The chapters probe the limits of humanitarian engagement in a period of unprecedented violence and suffering and evaluate its long-term impact on humanitarian action. -- .

This collection provides the most comprehensive English-language survey of the conduct of neutral and non-belligerent states during the war for fifty years. The essays focus on how individual neutral governments perceived international developments and reveal the domestic political circumstances that critically affected their response to the course of the war. They therefore provide the political context that has been overlooked in recent controversies surrounding their humanitarian and financial activities, and offer analytical introductions to the large amount of historical writing unavailable in English.

This is the first comprehensive account of Britain's relations with Switzerland during World War II. It explains why Britain remained apparently so impassive towards Switzerland's financial and economic collaboration with the Axis and why it did so little to try to liberalize Switzerland's restrictive refugee policy. The extent and importance of Britain's covert activities in Switzerland are exposed for the first time.

This collection of essays on Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) sets out to meet two discrete objectives. The first is to explore the "non-military" aspects of British "special operations" over the course of the Second World War. SOE was established in the summer of 1940 to "set Europe ablaze," as Churchill memorably put it. This was a task it was meant to achieve by detonating popular resistance against Axis rule, and nurturing "secret armies," which might be capable of providing military and other forms of assistance for British forces when they were once again able to return to the offensive and conduct land operations in Europe. Naturally, most writing on SOE reflects these early priorities and devotes its attention to assessing SOE's contribution to Britain's military effort. Fostering resistance movements in enemy occupied territory was, however, only one aspect of SOE's war. The primary objective of the essays collected in this volume is to highlight the numerous other areas in which SOE was able to contribute to Britain's war effort. As these essays show, SOE played a major role in supporting Britain's political, economic, financial and humanitarian interests, in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific theatres The importance of the collection, however, goes beyond merely illuminating aspects of SOE's work which have largely been overlooked in previous scholarship. More significantly, by situating SOE within the context of Britain's broader political needs, the essays demonstrate the extent to which SOE came to epitomize and embody the range of skills that are found in today's secret service organizations. SOE showed itself capable of operating on a global scale anddeveloping the necessary expertise, equipment and personnel to conduct activities across the whole spectrum of what we have come to know as "covert operations." By bringing SOE's activities into sharper focus and exposing the scale of its involvement in Britain's wartime external relations, the essays echo current thinking on the place of the so-called "secret world" in international politics. As they emerge from the shadows, secret agencies are increasingly being seen not as niche-market service providers but rather as forceful and at times central players in the formation of governments' foreign and security policies. SOE may have worked at the margins of Britain's military effort, but its activities were none the smaller for it, nor any less significant for the history of the Second World War.

This collection provides a comprehensive English-language survey of the conduct of neutral and non-belligerent states during the war. Instead of narrowly focusing on the few neutrals that survived the war intact, the volume broadens our understanding of neutrality, by including chapters on 'non-belligerents' and those neutrals of south-east Europe, such as Romania and Yugoslavia. The essays focus on how individual neutral governments perceived international developments and throw light on the domestic political circumstances that critically affected their response to the course of the war. They therefore provide the political context that has been overlooked in controversies surrounding their humanitarian and financial activities. While based on the authors' own research, the essays draw widely on secondary literature and provide invaluable analytical introductions to the large amount of historical writing on these countries.

This fascinating new collection of essays on Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) explores the 'non-military' aspects of British special operations in the Second World War. It details how SOE was established in the summer of 1940 to 'set Europe ablaze', as Churchill memorably put it. This was a task it was meant to achieve by detonating popular resistance against Axis rule, and nurturing 'secret armies', which might be capable of providing military and other forms of assistance for British forces when they were once again able to return to the offensive and conduct land operations in Europe. The importance of the collection, however, goes beyond merely illuminating aspects of SOE's work which have largely been overlooked in previous scholarship. More significantly, by situating SOE within the context of Britain's broader political needs, the essays demonstrate the extent to which SOE came to epitomise and embody the range of skills that are found in today's secret service organisations. SOE showed itself capable of operating on a global scale and developing the necessary expertise, equipment and personnel to conduct activities across the whole spectrum of what we have come to know as 'covert operations'. By bringing SOE's activities into sharper focus and exposing the scale of its involvement in Britain's wartime external relations, the essays echo current thinking on the place of the so-called 'secret world' in international politics.

For over 150 years, the Red Cross has brought succour to the world's needy, from sick and wounded soldiers on the battlefield, to political detainees, to those suffering the effects of natural disasters. The world's oldest and most preeminent humanitarian movement, the relevance and status of the Red Cross Movement today is as high as it has ever been. Reimagining and re-evaluating the Red Cross as a global institutional network, this volume charts the rise of the Red Cross and analyses the emergence of humanitarianism through a series of turning points, practices and myths. The contributors explore the three unique elements that make up the Red Cross Movement: the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent formerly known as the League of Red Cross Societies (both based in Geneva) and the 192 national societies. With chapters by leading scholars and researchers from Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and America, the book offers a timely account of this unique, complex and contested organisation. -- .

Barbed Wire Diplomacy examines how the United Kingdom government went about protecting the interests, lives and well-being of its prisoners of war (POWs) in Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1945. The comparatively good treatment of British prisoners in Germany has largely been explained by historians in terms of rational self-interest, reciprocity, and influence of Nazi racism, which accorded Anglo-Saxon servicemen a higher status than other categories of POWs. By contrast, Neville Wylie offers a more nuanced picture of Anglo-German relations and the politics of prisoners of war. Drawing on British, German, United States and Swiss sources, he argues that German benevolence towards British POWs stemmed from London's success in working through neutral intermediaries, notably its protecting power (the United States and Switzerland) and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to promote German compliance with the 1929 Geneva convention, and building and sustaining a relationship with the German government that was capable of withstanding the corrosive effects of five years of warfare.
Expanding our understanding of both the formulation and execution of POW policy in both capitals, the book sheds new light on the dynamics in inter-belligerent relations during the war. It suggests that while the Second World War should be rightly acknowledged as a conflict in which traditional constraints were routinely abandoned in the pursuit of political, strategic and ideological goals, in this important area of Anglo-German relations, customary international norms were both resilient and effective.