World War 1: Changing faces of herosim

In this video Jessica considers the portrayal of the ‘ordinary’ or ‘citizen’ hero, starting with Bruce Bairnsfather’s famous ‘Old Bill’ cartoon character. The ‘citizen hero’ was an everyman figure, showing qualities of endurance, comradeship, and black humour. But there were differences in the ways that this ‘citizen hero’ was understood in British, French and German society after the war. This can be seen by the way that World War 1 deaths were commemorated in war memorials. Whereas both Britain and France built memorials to the ‘Unknown Warrior’, there was no equivalent in Germany. Yet war memorials also hark back to the past, evoking traditional symbols of grief and mourning, which may have brought comfort to the thousands who attended commemoration ceremonies in the 1920s.

In this video Alison and Claudia provide an account of heroines in occupied France and Belgium during World War 1. They focus in particular on Edith Cavell, a British nurse who spoke fluent French and ran a training school for Belgian nurses. When war broke out, she became involved in a local network of Belgians and helped around 200 French and British soldiers to escape. She was betrayed, arrested alongside other network members in August 1915, and when interrogated by the Germans admitted what she had done. Despite diplomatic attempts to overturn the sentence, she was executed in Brussels by firing squad on the 12 October 1915. Her death caused international outrage. Whereas during the war, propagandists were quick to use her story as a means of demonising the enemy, or as a recruitment tool, after the war her heroism took on different meanings. Alison and Claudia examine a number of images of Cavell in order to explore these evolving ways in which her heroism was understood.

In this video Ingrid describes the impossibility of heroism in post-World War 2 German culture. She compares German images of the Red Baron produced at the time of the war and since, as well as contrasting these with British representations.

Extended video of the conversations on classical heroism: Ingrid Sharp and Angie Hobbs consider key characteristics of classical models of heroism (Full length).

In this video Paul focusses on the way that World War 1 and questions of heroism are represented in films that have either been produced, or co-produced in Germany in the last few years.

In this video Ingrid considers key characteristics of classical models of heroism, illustrated with examples of classical heroism in European literature during this period. As Ingrid mentions, she recently had the pleasure of discussing this fascinating topic further with Professor Angie Hobbs from the University of Sheffield. If you would like to view this full length conversation please continue to track 3.

In this video Claudia describes the ways in which ideas of heroism have evolved and reflect changing cultural responses to the war. This reflection highlights the importance of further historical events and contrasting experiences in European countries since 1918. They strongly influence current representations of war and views on heroism. Anniversaries like the Centenary of the First World War are triggers to revisit the past from the point of view of the present. Different symbols and images are chosen as token of commemoration.

In this video Jessica considers how the First World War affected the heroic ideals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To explore this question, she looks at a range of posters used to encourage men to enlist and considers the story that British recruiting posters tell us and how this can help understandings of heroism.

In this video Alison and Jessica explore the rise of the traumatised veteran in French and British fiction and film. Many successful recent films and television dramas about the First World War are set in hospitals or homes rather than on battlefields. The heroic struggles that the main characters go through are not those in combat, but in dealing with the physical and psychological consequences and the difficult process of reintegration into society.

In this video, Alison and Ingrid discuss two well-known and very influential anti-war texts from France and Germany, Henri Barbusse’s Under Fire and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. They suggest that even though the books give us graphic descriptions of the death and suffering caused by trench warfare, they still contain heroic images of the soldiers who fought.

In this video Alison considers the realities of total war. As the months turned into years, high casualty figures and the attrition of trench warfare on the Western Front meant that the traditional versions of heroism had to be adapted or replaced by new models. Alison suggests that the way in which the war touched nearly all sections of society - what historians call ‘total war’ - meant there was a key shift in the way heroism was understood. Rather than heroism being the preserve of a few exceptional men, it became more democratised. However, designating everyone as a hero or a heroine brought its problems.

In this video Jessica considers the qualities that were seen as essential to the soldier hero in 19th century Europe. Illustrated through examples from paintings, statues and popular culture, she reflects on the differing representations from Britain, Germany and France. Jessica concludes that the ideal soldier-hero in western Europe was a man of status who displayed qualities of physical courage, patriotism, devotion to duty and self-sacrifice. This perception was underpinned by the classical education of the period.