THE FIRST WORLD WAR

SERIES ONE: European War, 1914-1919, The War Reserve Collection (WRA-WRE) from Cambridge University Library

Part 5: The Royal Army Medical Corps, Red Cross and other Ancillary Series

Part 6: The War at Sea and the War in the Air

Editorial Introduction to Part 6 by Dr J. M. Winter

The terms of engagement of military conflict were transformed between 1914 and 1918.  The distinction between military and civilian targets was blurred, and the rules which governed the legality and lethality of particular kinds of action in wartime were overturned.  Before the war, the notion that blockade would occur was discussed at length, as was the legal action of adversaries in dealing with contraband, and with carriers both neutral and hostile.  Whatever the words of lawyers and politicians, when war came, it mad shipping of any kind a potential or real target of enemy action.

How this new kind of warfare, in which neutrality was virtually shot out of the water, was developed in the subject of the material in Part 6 of this reproduction of material from the Cambridge War Collection.  It comes in two parts.  The first is an extensive collection of very rare pamphlets and books on the war at sea from the point of view of both Allied and Central Powers.  The second is a set of contemporary works on the air war, once again told from the angle of both sides in the war.

The great advantage of these material is that they enable us to escape from an Anglo-centric discussion of the crucial issues surrounding the spread of the war on land to the sea and air.  All three combined to create ‘total war’, which is a metaphor for a state of armed conflict in which the risks of violence were everywhere and their limits were dwindling fast.

Jay Winter

Pembroke College, Cambridge

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