Minorities and the First World War: From War to Peace

This book examines the particular experience of ethnic, religious and national minorities who participated in the First World War as members of the main belligerent powers: Britain, France, Germany and Russia. Individual chapters explore themes including contested loyalties, internment, refugees, racial violence, genocide and disputed memories from 1914 through into the interwar years to explore how minorities made the transition from war to peace at the end of the First World War. The first section discusses so-called ‘friendly minorities’, considering the way in which Jews, Muslims and refugees lived through the war and its aftermath. Section two looks at fears of ‘enemy aliens’, which prompted not only widespread internment, but also violence and genocide. The third section considers how the wartime experience of minorities played out in interwar Europe, exploring debates over political representation and remembrance. Bridging the gap between war and peace, this is the ideal book for all those interested in both First World War and minority histories.

About the Author

Hannah Ewence is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Chester, UK. She is the co-editor of Whatever Happened to British-Jewish Studies? (2012) and Visualizing Jews through the Ages: Literary and Material Representations of Jewishness and Judaism (2015). Tim Grady is Reader in Modern History at the University of Chester, UK. He is the author of German Jews and the First World War in History and Memory (2009), as well as the forthcoming book: A Deadly Legacy: German Jews and the Great War (2017).