Call for Papers

It is one of the most common military clichés that "generals are always preparing to fight the last war." Constituting a quip at the expense of professional soldiers who have failed to predict the future accurately, the saying is not as old as one might think. It originates from the early 20th century. Before the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, the pace of military reform had never been as rapid as to render the lessons of the previous war quite problematic. Developments in society, the state and technology present difficult challenges for modern armies to cope with.

Als "gewaltiger Transformator" veränderte der 1. Weltkrieg die europäischen Gesellschaften tiefgreifend und stellte die Weichen für eine Umgestaltung der weltpolitischen Ordnung. Viele historische Untersuchungen haben gezeigt, wie fundamental der Erste Weltkrieg für die Radikalisierung Deutschlands bis 1945 war. Bislang unbeleuchtet blieb hingegen das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen der "Grande Guerre" und dem "ersten sozialistischen Staat auf deutschem Boden". Bisher wurde die DDR vor allem als ein reines Produkt des Kalten Krieges, als "Stalins ungeliebtes Kind" (W. Loth) verstanden.

This international conference aims to examine the policies of the smaller European powers towards China - and vice versa - during the Cold War. Thereby it focuses, on the European side, on both Western and Eastern Europe - regardless of whether a country was part of the NATO or the Warsaw Pact. Meanwhile, on the Chinese side, the conference proposes to include both Chinas, namely the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (RoC).

Just decades after intense persecution and the struggle for recognition that marked the second half of the 19th century, Jewish leaders and ordinary Jews found themselves at an unprecedented social and political crossroads. The frenzied military, social, and cultural mobilisation of European societies from 1914 onwards, along with the outbreak of revolution in Russia and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East had a profound impact on Jewish communities worldwide.

Under the auspices of the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Turkey the International Commission of Military History (ICMH) will hold its annual conference in Istanbul.

From the invasion of Abyssinia to the end of World War II, Italy experienced a decade of war. This conference aims to re-evaluate the history of the Italian experience during this ten-year period with a unifying perspective that places the Italian Fascist regime and its foreign and military enterprises in an entirely internationalised framework of analysis. It will bring an international focus upon the Italian role in the break-down of the international system and appeasement, and will analyse the consequences of Italian militarism on a global scale.

1916 was a significant year in the Great War. In Europe it was the year of the Somme and Gallipoli. In Africa it was the year of Salaita and the British allied invasion into German East Africa, the loss of Cameroon to the Allies and the subsequent use of West African forces in East Africa. South African forces detoured via Egypt en route to the Somme and in Ethiopia Menelik was deposed.

7th Annual Baltic Military History Conference

Recent events in the Ukraine and the resurgence of Russia’s assertiveness towards the West have raised concerns regarding the security of the Baltic states. Historically, the region has been a battleground for many nations fighting to influence it, or a battlespace during wars among empires. The strong historical footprint has marked its influence on the overall fate of the three Baltic states and continues to affect the whole region which is located in a geo-strategically important part of Europe.

The Allied occupation of Western Germany after the Second World War has long constituted a classic component in academic histories of post-war Germany. Understood as an "interregnum" period, which initiated a process of democratisation and denazification and thus laid the ground for the "success story" of the Federal Republic in the subsequent decades, it has often been regarded as a crucial transitory period between the collapse of the Nazi state and the foundation of a democratic polity in Western Germany.

The commemoration of the battles of 1916 runs the risk of treating the latter as if they are self-evident and thus of reducing them to their purely military aspects, whereas the very use of the term "battle" is anything but self-evident.

Seiten