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The Great War: A Comparative History: Sources

Module description

This module examines the Great War from cultural, social, economic and military perspectives. It will allow you to explore the conflict (and the conflicts which surrounded it – known as the ‘Greater War’) from different thematic and geographical approaches. You will move away from a British and Western-Front-centric approach to consider this as a truly global conflict. This module utilises a ‘total historiography’ to consider this ‘total war’. This comparative perspective plays a crucial role in this exercise allowing us to consider such questions as: Did the nations face variants on the same problem or substantially different problems? Were they pursuing similar strategies or fundamentally different ones? You will utilise a wide variety of sources including letters, diaries, official and military documents, films, posters, literature, poetry, and ephemera to explore the war from the perspectives of both decision-makers and the civilians and soldiers who lived through it. These will be drawn from different combatant nations and will be available in translation.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module will promote reflective engagement with a variety of contemporary sources for studying the Great War as more than simply a series of military engagements. It aims to refocus your mind on the contemporary character of the war by divorcing it from the popular idiom of the Great War as ‘futility and slaughter’. It will achieve this through an analysis of the operational aspects of the war, and of the experiences of the men on the fighting fronts as well as that of civilians using letters, diaries, memoirs, and interviews to gain an insight into the war. It will then show how the memory of the war has come to be formulated as it has by later generations.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Identify the different sources available for the study of the Great War in various theatres, and be able to describe in detail those sources which you focus upon in their seminar presentations and written work
• 2. Analyse a range of complex and diverse sources relating to the study of the Great War
• 3. Understand and explain the key developments relating to the military, social, cultural, and political histories of the Great War

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Analyse closely original sources and to assess their reliability as historical evidence.
• 5. Comprehend complex historical texts.
• 6. Understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible and sophisticated manner.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Select, organise and analyse material for written work and/or oral presentations of different prescribed lengths and formats.
• 8. Present complex arguments orally.
• 9. Present an argument in a written form in a clear and organised manner, with appropriate use of correct English
• 10. Through essay development process, demonstrate ability to reflect critically on your own work, to respond constructively to feedback, and to implement suggestions and improve work on this basis

Syllabus plan

Topics covered in the sources module will complement those in the context section. Whilst the content may vary from year to year, using primary sources the module may examine the following topics:

• The ‘face of battle’
• Casualty care
• Reintegration of servicemen into society
• Pressures of command
• Radicalism and unrest
• Mutiny
• Atrocity and brutality
• Strikes and civil unrest
• Daily life at war
• Artistic representations of the war
• Responses to occupation
• Military identities and service ethos
• Remembering the war

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of a 4,000 word portfolio of source work, as in the original assessment, but replaces the individual presentation with a written script that could be delivered in such a presentation and which is the equivalent of 25 minutes of speech (2,500 words).

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Max Arthur, Lost Voices of the Royal Navy (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2005).
• Henri Barbusse, Under Fire (London: Dutton, 1926).
• Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1939).
• Daniel Horn (ed.), War, Mutiny and Revolution in the German Navy: The World War I Diary of Seaman Richard Stumpf (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1967).
• Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel (New York: Howard Fertig, 1975).
• David Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War: Soldiers' Letters, 1914-1918 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).
• Erik von Ludendorff, My War Memoirs 1914-1918 (London: Hutchinson, 1919).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=2554
• Project Façade (http://www.projectfacade.com/)
• The World War I Document Archive (http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Main_Page)
• Firstworldwar.com (http://www.firstworldwar.com/index.htm)
• The Great War Archive: A Community Collection (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa)
• The First World War Poetry Digital Archive (www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/)

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

Other documents will be available on ELE.

Key words search

Great War, transnational history, comparative history