The Great War and Veterans' Internationalism

J. Eichenberg, J. Newman, J. Eichenberg, J. Newman

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137281623
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

After the Great War, Veterans were a new transnational mass phenomenon. This volume uses case studies to discuss the extent and impact of international veterans' organisations and draws out important comparative points between well-researched and documented movements and those that are less well-known.

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Introduction: The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism

Julia Eichenberg and John Paul Newman

The Great War created a new social group throughout Europe: ex-servicemen. Mass conscription and total warfare led to a vast number of combatants returning from the various battlefields. Unlike previous wars and times – and in what turned out to be a long-term legacy of the First World War – veterans emerged as a distinct group, defined by a construction of war commemoration and identity, as well as by their legal demands and rights.

The destructive capacity of the First World War and the divisive legacies the conflict left throughout Europe and the wider world are not in doubt. Quite rightly, historians have written at great length about the twentieth century’s ‘seminal catastrophe’ (George F. Keenan) and the tense ‘twenty year armistice’ (Ferdinand Foch) left in its wake. But, in charting a course directly from the First World War to the Second World War, historians are at risk of neglecting equally important ‘positive’ legacies left by the conflict. Zara Steiner’s ground-breaking history of Europe during the first decade after the First World War highlights the positive steps taken towards reconstruction and reconciliation across the continent after the war.¹ Steiner’s work also takes into account the radical departures in international relations embodied in institutions such as the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization. Similarly, and often following her lead, other recent works have emphasized the contingency of the inter-war period, showing that there were many and various developments after the First World War, not all destructive, and not all leading to renewed conflict.² The international veterans’ movement was one of them.

More specifically concerned with consequences of the war is, for example, the recently published biography of French activist and ancien combattant René Cassin by Antoine Prost and Jay Winter; a work which eschews prevailing periodization to show how an influential individual was shaped by pre-war and wartime experiences, and in turn went on to shape inter-war and post-1945 history.³ In this way, Prost and Winter are able to escape hermetically sealed time-frames and teleological conclusions about the inevitability of the Second World War.⁴

This volume aims to contribute to this growing body of research. It sheds light on the positive and constructive steps taken towards international co-operation and reconciliation. More specifically, it is concerned with analysing the important role played by veterans of the First World War in creating this long-lasting international culture of peace and reconciliation. One of the most important legacies of the war was the creation of a mass, transnational cohort of men bound by the fact that they had all served as soldiers during the war. With very few exceptions, veterans were a new phenomenon within their own nation states and on the international stage. As the first example of ‘total war’ (Chickering, Förster), the First World War involved the mass participation of populations across the continent; conscription, ‘citizen armies’ and the Levèe en Masse meant that men from various backgrounds and of differing social status served together in uniform. Their status as veterans after 1918 raised a number of new questions about the presence of ex-soldiers in society, their entitlement in terms of welfare (pensions, disability benefits, etc.) and their role in politics and on the international stage. On this last point, once again, historians of fascism and the European right in the inter-war period have dwelt at length on the enduring camaraderie and the ‘trenchocracy’ (to use a term allegedly introduced by Mussolini himself) which led ex-servicemen – most notably in Italy and Germany – to duplicate the military forms and practices they had experienced during 1914–1918. But there is another, equally important, side to this story: the many men who returned from war committed not to its continuation but to its cessation, and not to a radical nationalist agenda but to one of internationalism. Whereas it could be argued that the ‘dead-end’ of right-wing veterans’ militancy arrived with the end of the Second World War, this volume will show that the traditions of internationalism, of commitment to international institutions as the foundations of a peaceful community of nation states, and of a universalist welfare programme, were highly influential in the inter-war period and went on to survive into the post-1945 world.

So far, veterans have been examined primarily in a national framework. At first sight, veterans might seem like the paradigm of a national interest group. They volunteered – or were conscripted – to fight for their nation state, they experienced war within the lines of their national armies. The experience of fighting and extreme violence could reinforce the demarcation of members of other nations, specifically those of the enemies. At the same time, the common experience of soldiers fighting for their home country enforced a sense of a specific national identity. Looking closer at the life of soldiers’ and former soldiers, however, it is obvious that the phenomenon of the veterans’ movement goes beyond national borders. Ute Frevert pointed out that the Great War constituted a powerful transnational experience, a period of multinational contacts and transfers.⁵ This experience naturally influenced veterans’ lives and mind-sets in the post-war period, and left them feeling a bond that distinguished them from ‘civilians’ – for better or for worse. This was especially true with regard to the many ex-servicemen, who, due to the massive changes to European political landscapes and borders after 1918, did not necessarily share their war experience with ex-servicemen of the same national citizenship.

War experiences were manifold, and they could not be separated according to the post-1918 national borders. By the same token, the interests of veterans were of transnational relevance. Ex-soldiers of all states struggled with problems of demobilization, that is to say, with problems of re-integration into the labour markets and claiming social benefits. Throughout the world, they were concerned with their medical, material and social needs, and also with their political lobbying power. Beyond national boundaries, veterans expanded their activities to an international level, seeking contacts and collaboration with their fellow ex-servicemen. Returning home to a civilian life and trying to re-adapt after the long absence pointed out to many of them that they had more in common with ex-servicemen of other states than with the broader civilian population; this was even more true in the case of disabled veterans. Just as being a soldier of the Great War was a transnational experience, so was being a veteran of the Great War. This transnational experience provided the basis for the emergence of an international veterans’ movement, embodied not only, but predominantly by the inter-Allied veterans’ organization FIDAC and the international veterans and war victims’ organization CIAMAC.

Therefore, this volume will explore veterans and veterans’ transnational activism at an international level. Veterans’ internationalism distinguishes two different, sometimes intertwined, spheres. On the one hand, connections between the former Allied powers became highly influential, because they controlled international relations – this also shaped the emergence of veteran internationalism. This aspect of veteran internationalism focused on the former war alliances as the foundation for future collaboration between states and between veterans. Accordingly, Allied veterans sought to maintain their links and were involved in an inter-Allied transnational network to promote a peaceful political international system, relying on the existing treaties. In societies that were victorious and helped make the peace, veterans are often considered less likely to engage in political violence. But veterans’ internationalism could also transcend these war alliances. Many ex-soldiers from different countries all over the world believed that stable peace could only be achieved through reconciliation with former enemies. Thus, a significant number of veterans’ organizations followed a more international approach to achieve a lasting peace and to promote a political international system which regulated non-armed state conflicts.⁶

In the reading and usage of transnationalism, the editors embrace the suggestion of Patricia Clavin to represent the transnational community as a honeycomb, in which the respective national group forms a larger unity with its own identity.⁷ The coherence of this volume is structured accordingly: each chapter deals with an individual national case study, but follows the same key questions with regard to their respective engagement in international activities. While the veterans’ meetings may be described as international encounters, the network and the identities formed are truly transnational, constructing their own aims and dynamics via communication processes and personal encounters. In this understanding, transnational history does not claim to compete, but to give a new perspective to the history of international relations.⁸

International veterans’ associations – how they form and how they function

A network of contacts developed from the collaboration of First World War veterans in international ex-servicemen’s associations to form a new transnational infrastructure, in particular the Fédération Interalliée des Anciens Combattants (FIDAC) and the Conférence Internationale des Associations de Mutilés et Anciens Combattants (CIAMAC). Annual meetings, lively correspondence and personal contacts created a transnational community. Even ex-combatants who fought each other only a short time ago now cultivated a joint commemoration of the dead and engaged in pursuing common interests.

Initiated by the mostly pacifist French ex-servicemen, FIDAC was founded in 1920 as an assembly of veterans who had served the armed forces of the Allies. FIDAC wanted to provide a forum for an inter-Allied commemoration of war and the dead, to organize inter-Allied assemblies and thereby conserve an inter-Allied comradeship of ex-servicemen.⁹ Membership was restricted to veterans of the Allied forces. This, among other reasons, set the need for the foundation of a second organization.

CIAMAC aimed to unite all ex-servicemen and war invalids of the Great War, including the former enemies: Germany, Austria and Bulgaria. Again, the idea of founding the organization was initiated by French veterans’ associations. Both the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the League of Nations supported the co-operation of ex-servicemen, intending to take advantage of its network, in awareness that the associations of invalids and ex-servicemen seem to provide an effective way to campaign the ideas of both organizations. ‘They count more than 10 million members, are highly organized and hold a periodic press, which is read by all their members with the utmost attention.’¹⁰

Both FIDAC and CIAMAC stated as their principal aims ‘the protection of material and moral interests of war victims and former combatants’. The material interests meant welfare and supply, the moral interest referred to an active engagement against war.¹¹ The majority of FIDAC members eventually decided to join CIAMAC (with the notable exception of the British Legion), but despite this and their frequent collaboration the two organizations remained fundamentally distinct in their world-view. While CIAMAC envisaged international reconciliation on a level that eventually would lead to appeasement, FIDAC was based on a belief in the continuity of wartime alliances into peacetime. To pursue their principal aims, to fight the case of First World War veterans, they were, however, ready to collaborate. Their shared past motivated the ex-servicemen to unite in transnational organizations to fight a common battle: against the threat of a new upcoming war. Not just in spite of, but in fact because of being ex-servicemen, they thought of themselves as morally able, responsible and justified to step up for peace. Not surprisingly, CIAMAC, with its programmatic reconciliation with former non-Allies and the proximity to the League of Nations, was the most pacifistic. But even FIDAC, with its continuity of wartime alliances, stated disarmament and arbitration in international and bi-national conflicts as one of its major policies. By supporting new international politics, based on conflict resolution, their activities for the League of Nations and their international collaboration, the veterans qualify as a ‘proactive’ peace movement.¹²

The aim of the transnational veterans’ movement to support demands for disarmament, peaceful conflict solutions and pacifism provided a dilemma for most of the participating former combatants. Veterans chose a ‘non-dogmatic concept of pacifism’ that denied militarism and supported any form of peace-building and peace-keeping policy, but allowed defence.¹³ In doing so, ex-servicemen often found themselves in direct opposition to the more nationalized and militarized policies of their own national governments. The assembled veterans’ organizations tried to use their moral capital as war victims and ex-servicemen. By taking a firm stand on the subject of war, the veterans opposed their respective national slants for the benefit of the common interest of a transnational ex-servicemen’s community. Besides the actual reduction of weapons and arms, the former combatants demanded a demilitarization of thoughts and the elimination of prejudices and hate among nations, and the moral disarmament of European societies.¹⁴

In addition to their fight against a new war, veterans continued fighting to solve the tragic heritage of the previous one. International contacts provided an opportunity to bundle their interests and demands for pensions and medical care and to strengthen their position at home by exchanging knowledge and strategies with their peers. As early as 1921, invalids’ organizations from France, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Austria and Poland addressed the joint wish for international meetings and turned to the ILO for support.¹⁵ They were try...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Introduction: The Great War and Veterans’ Internationalism
• Part I   Cultures of Victory
• Part II   Aspirational Allies
• Part III   The Revisionist Challenge
• Part IV   The International Dimension
• Annex: Meetings of the International Veterans’ Movement
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Index