Tuesday, 23 May 2017

La Grande Guerra +100 - May 1917: economics and the Great War

The May episode of the digital calendar that traces back the main events of World War I is now online

Versione stampabile

The core of this May episode of the digital calendar "LaGrandeGuerra+100" is the paper by Jacopo Calussi on war economics.

Modern mass warfare, typical of World War I, required considerable economic resources and the profound transformation of the entities that governed the economy: less freedom for private business and a stronger state intervention.

The photo gallery deals with the same subject.

The infographics by Elisa Corni gives a picture of the shortage of foodstuffs in Austro-Hungarian times, more specifically, in Vienna, where the situation worsened dramatically in 1917-18. 

Silvia Sartori presents excerpts from the testimonies of Italian soldiers who wrote about trench life with in-depth descriptions of the terrible moments of assaults.

The panel by Adriano Siesser tells about Antarctica. Little more than a century ago, in May 1916, British explorer Ernst H. Shackelton was trapped by the ice on his boat and after an epic journey on foot was able to rescue all of his crew. War was not enough to stop the mission of polar explorers.

To conclude, Gunda Barth-Scalmani, from the University of Innsbruck, presents some biographical details on Virginia Brunner: as many other women from the European bourgeoisie who did their part in the war, organizing rescues, she set an example for women empowerment.

The digital calendar has been included in the poster section of the first national conference of the Italian Association for Public History, which will take place in Ravenna, 5-9 June: http://aiph.hypotheses.org/208

Follow the Great War Calendar on Facebook (La Grande Guerra più 100) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/GGpiu100).

Since May 2015 all the website content are available in English. Special features are prepared by historians from the universities of Innsbruck, Krakow and Montpellier, to learn about the other war fronts.

The calendar month by month