Romain Fathi – författare

The global magnitude of World War I has meant that proximity and distance were highly influential in the ways the conflict was conducted, and how it was experienced at tactical, political and emotional levels.This book explores how participants and observers in World War I negotiated the temporal and spatial challenges of the conflict. International in scope, it investigates how technology, mass media, elite diplomacy and imperial networks interacted in conjunction with proximity and distance. The authors canvas a range of approaches to the conflict, from cultural history to social, political and military history. Proximity and distance were contingencies that participants had to continually adapt to. This book documents the ways in which these adaptations were approached.

In the first independent study of the League of Red Cross Societies, an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars examine its history, and how it influenced twentieth-century humanitarianism. They explore how the League evolved from 1919 to 1991 as a peacetime organisation of the Red Cross in contrast to the original wartime focus of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Investigating largely unknown, but significant actors, they shed new light on the League's activities in Southeast Asia, the Horn of Africa, Latin America and Europe through case studies focussing on its global health initiatives, the complexity of its networks in war and peace, and its role in providing relief. The authors argue that it is impossible to understand today's Red Cross and Red Crescent movement and global humanitarianism without considering the structures, expertise and training provided by the League to member National Societies from 1919 to 1991.

This book explores the ways in which non-government organisations have contributed to the reconstruction of, and care for populations in, Western European countries including but not limited to Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the World Wars.Historical research on voluntary or non-government organisations and their contribution to the reconstruction of states, communities and humanitarian assistance to civilian populations following conflicts, epidemics and disasters through the twentieth century has generally focused on non-Western European countries, except for Second World War II. The historiography suggests that it is mostly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa that natural or man-made disasters have occurred and that these places have been the focus for humanitarian assistance. Rather, the humanitarian enterprise is viewed through the binary of the Global North/Global South, those who save and those who are saved. The chapters in this volume investigate how the Red Cross movement – the League of Red Cross Societies, the International Committee of Red Cross and individual national societies – and other voluntary organisations such as the Rockefeller Foundation and a range of other international and local non-government bodies have contributed to reconstruction in these countries at both national and local levels following times of crises such as wars, civilian upheavals and disasters.This book will appeal to scholars and students of history, humanitarian studies, international relations and social sciences. The chapters in this book were originally published as special issues in European Review of History – Revue européenne d'histoire.

By the time of the Armistice, Villers-Bretonneux - once a lively and flourishing French town - had been largely destroyed, and half its population had fled or died. From March to August 1918, Villers-Bretonneux formed part of an active front line, at which Australian troops were heavily involved. As a result, it holds a significant place in Australian history. Villers-Bretonneux has since become an open-air memorial to Australia's participation in the First World War. Successive Australian governments have valourised the Australian engagement, contributing to an evolving Anzac narrative that has become entrenched in Australia's national identity. Our Corner of the Somme provides an eye-opening analysis of the memorialisation of Australia's role on the Western Front and the Anzac mythology that so heavily contributes to Australians' understanding of themselves. In this rigorous and richly detailed study, Romain Fathi challenges accepted historiography by examining the assembly, projection and performance of Australia's national identity in northern France.

Exiting war explores a particular 1918–20 ‘moment’ in the British Empire’s history, between the First World War’s armistices of 1918, and the peace treaties of 1919 and 1920. That moment, we argue, was a challenging and transformative time for the Empire. While British authorities successfully answered some of the post-war tests they faced, such as demobilisation, repatriation, and fighting the widespread effects of the Spanish flu, the racial, social, political and economic hallmarks of their imperialism set the scene for a wide range of expressions of loyalties and disloyalties, and anticolonial movements. The book documents and conceptualises this 1918–20 ‘moment’ and its characteristics as a crucial three-year period of transformation for and within the Empire, examining these years for the significant shifts in the imperial relationship that occurred and as laying the foundation for later change in the imperial system.

This book is about the Cannes Medical Conference of April 1919 and its long-lasting impacts in the humanitarian space. In the aftermath of the First World War, as the world order was being redesigned, this conference served to shift the Red Cross movement towards peacetime and public health work. The book examines the origins, course and consequences of the Cannes Medical Conference, and its wider legacy within the Red Cross movement: a legacy which is very significant yet almost completely undocumented. The book demonstrates that this medical conference was a watershed moment that served to pivot the Red Cross movement across the world, from war and conflict-related activities to peacetime programs such as relief, disease and disaster management.