Post by Airy W on Oct 23, 2017 18:15:36 GMT -6
Okay, name two histories written in the past twenty years that say so.
Heather Jones, 'As the Centenary Approaches: The Regeneration of the First World War Historiography', Historical Journal, 56, 2013
The literature review by Jones does not remotely indicate the consensus you claimed that France and Italy were on the verge of collapse. In fact she notes:
Jean-Jacques Becker showed that the majority of France's population, the peasantry, were horrified by the advent of war but reluctantly accepted that they had no choice other than to fight in response to the German invasion
So to put it mildly, Jones' review did not show the consensus you claimed. The work compiled by Strachan on the other hand just flatly states the exact opposite of what you claim:
Ultimately, and in stark contrast to Russian peasant soldiers’ alienation from their state, the mutinies demonstrated the resilience stemming from French Republican identity. French soldiers wanted peace, but an even more urgent priority was still the eviction of the German army from their land. The military made a bloody show of restoring its authority with repression—554 mutineers were condemned to death, and forty-nine actually executed—but troops were remobilized principally through the implicit renegotiation of their terms of service. Once the ruinous offensives were halted and conditions of army life improved, French soldiers proved ready to undergo further sacrifice.
So it appears to me that you claimed a consensus that doesn't exist. Then in order to support your claim you picked books on the subject and misrepresented their contents. Honestly, I'm pretty ticked off at you right now. The internet should be a tool for people to share knowledge. If you generally had some information to share that would have been cool. But you didn't. So now I just wasted an hour of my time looking up your sources in order to read something that I already knew. And to be blunt I was made to do this because you were lazy and dishonest. Not cool, dude.
Hew Strachan, The FIrst World War: A New Illustrated History (2006). And also in The Oxford Illustrated History of the First WOrld War (2000)
Heather Jones, 'As the Centenary Approaches: The Regeneration of the First World War Historiography', Historical Journal, 56, 2013
Is this just a book about the subject, or is it a book that is actually relevant to the argument? Because the point in question was the claim that France and Italy were on the verge of revolution with soldiers murdering their officers en masse. And after having just been burned once, I really dont have the patience of going through this crap again. So, does this book have anything to say about France and Italy being on the verge of revolution in 1917?
Thanks to everyone for the recent scholarship links.
Yes, it's definitely good to refer to sources. However it's even better to actually read the sources in question! Babylons sources say the exact opposite of what he claimed so dont let yourself be misled.