Violence against Prisoners of War in the First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914–1920

by Heather Jones

• ISBN13: 9780521117586
• ISBN10: 0521117585
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-07-11
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In this groundbreaking new study, Heather Jones provides the first in-depth and comparative examination of violence against First World War prisoners. She shows how the war radicalised captivity treatment in Britain, France and Germany, dramatically undermined international law protecting prisoners of war and led to new forms of forced prisoner labour and reprisals, which fuelled wartime propaganda that was often based on accurate prisoner testimony. This book reveals how, during the conflict, increasing numbers of captives were not sent to home front camps but retained in western front working units to labour directly for the British, French and German armies in the German case, by 1918, prisoners working for the German army endured widespread malnutrition and constant beatings. Dr Jones examines the significance of these new, violent trends and their later legacy, arguing that the Great War marked a key turning-point in the twentieth century evolution of the prison camp.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. vii
List of tables	p. x
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xiv
Introduction	p. 1
Propaganda representations of violence against prisoners	p. 29
Encountering the 'enemy': civilian violence towards prisoners of war in 1914	p. 33
Legitimate and illegitimate violence against prisoners: representations of atrocity, 1914-16	p. 70
Violence and prisoner of war forced labour	p. 121
The development of prisoner of war labour companies on the western front: the spring reprisals of 1917	p. 127
From discipline to retribution: violence in German prisoner of war labour companies in 1918	p. 167
Inevitable escalation? British and French treatment of forced prisoner labour, 1917-18	p. 223
The end of violence? Repatriation and remembrance	p. 253
Contested homecomings: prisoner repatriation and the formation of memory, 1918-21	p. 257
La Grande Illusion: the interwar historicisation of violence against prisoners of war, 1922-39	p. 315
Epilogue: the legacy of First World War captivity in 1939-45	p. 356
Conclusion	p. 371
Glossary of foreign terms	p. 377
Bibliography	p. 378
Index	p. 440
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