World War I Archives - Page 11 of 17 Bristol Radical History Group

Studio 1: Refusing to fight

Conscientious Decision-Making [Lois Bibbings] This talk gives a brief insight into what First World War conscientious objectors to military service meant when they talked about 'conscience' or the reasoning behind their decision and how their beliefs or thinking impacted upon the course of action they took during conscription. It does so by telling stories about a few of those who objected. Martyrs or Rebels? Another side of Britain’s 1914-18 war resisters [Cyril Pearce] Our view of Britain’s […]

Studio 2: Bristol Radical History Group highlights

Lady Blackshirts, The Smoke Dragon, Bristol's Aircraft Industry, From Wulfstan to Colston

A series of 10 minute 'taster talks' covering recently or soon to be published Bristol Radical History Group texts. These include: Lady Blackshirts: The Perils of Perception – suffragettes who became fascists [Rosemary Caldicott] During the 1930’s a small group of ultra-nationalistic women, who considered themselves feminists, joined Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Surprisingly some of these women were former high ranking members of the suffragette movement. The Smoke-Dragon and How […]

Studio 1: Black Lives in A White Man’s War

The impact of World War One on Africa

Few historians mention that both the first and last campaigns of World War One took place, not in Europe but in Africa. In 1914, all of sub-Saharan Africa, except Ethiopia and Liberia, was in the hands of European powers. Colonial subjects contributed people, money and resources to their imperial rulers to wage war not only in Africa but also in Europe. In both its costs and its consequences, WW1 had a major social, economic and political impact on Africa. Besides the huge human cost, the social […]

Studio 1: Mutiny

Mutinous murmuration – Ringleaders and resistance by British Army soldiers

The biggest revolt in the history of the British Army occurred during 1919 involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Massive mutinies by stroppy soldiers humiliated generals, terrified politicians and undermined the British Empire. British, Dominion and Colonial troops who had mostly obeyed their officers during the First World War decided that enough was enough. They demanded an end to military bullshit, speedy demobilisation and much, much more – and they mostly got what they wanted! In […]

Studio 1: Women against World War One

Bristol women campaigning for peace in World War One [June Hannam] June Hannam will focus on women in Bristol who opposed militarism and sought a negotiated peace. The most high profile activists were Mabel Tothill, Annie Townley and Mrs Higgins, all socialists from the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Others, such as the Quaker Helen Sturge, had been involved in the pre-war suffrage movement. The talk will explore what women did to push forward their cause and the ideas that underpinned their […]

Studio 2: Bristol and the arms trade

A look at the early development of Bristol's aeroplane industry and how Bristol planes helped 'police' the empire in the interwar years. Special reference to Afghanistan, Iraq and Aden (Yemen).

The War after the War

In the light of the elements of working-class economics

“Every intelligent person now admits that the antagonism among the nations of Europe that led to competition of armaments and the present world war was fundamentally due to a universal desire to secure increased empires for the deposit of capital, the enslavement and robbery of the conquered races, and the monopoly of the oil, rubber, tin, and other products of the annexed territories” – John Maclean (1918) Written in 1918, as World War One drew to its bloody close, The War after the War is […]

Smoke, Gas, Strikes, Metal and Slums

An historical walk through the Dings and St Philips

Due to popular demand, the Remembering the Real World War One history group are re-staging the Smoke, Gas, Strikes, Metal And Slums walk that was so well-attended twice last year. A two hour walk through St Philips and the Dings where Alfred Jefferies, the only man from Bristol shot for desertion, and his family lived and worked, including his brother Arthur who was killed in action on the Somme. Learn about the forgotten industries, back streets, schools and social history of Bristol in the […]

Sylvia Pankhurst, ‘The Dreadnought’ and the ‘Great War’

During the First World War Sylvia Pankhurst’s newspaper, The Dreadnought was the most consistently anti-war publication. It not only opposed the global conflict but condemned the crushing of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, supported the 1917 Russian Revolution and campaigned for a revolution in Britain. Professor Newsinger is the author of numerous books including The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire (2006), Fighting Back: The American Working Class in the 1930s […]

The Somme 1916: From Both Sides of the Wire

Episode 3: End Game

This BBC series uses original research in German military archives to interrogate long-standing assumptions and prevailing myths about the what happened in the most iconic battle of the First World War. The final programme, End Game questions the broadly accepted idea that the Somme campaign was the ‘decisive victory’, British Commander in Chief Douglas Haig claimed it to be. To do this, it examines the revealingly different military cultures of the British and Germany armies, not just in terms […]