Abstract
Battle-zone landscapes of modern industrialized war are unique locations for the creation and expression of individual identity. The massed ranks of modern armies, and the innumerable lethal technologies that accompany them, often appear to submerge and elide the life of the individual. In fact, the conditions of modern war sharpen the experiences of conflict, and emphasize the struggle to remain human, and to demonstrate one’s fragile humanity in the face of overwhelming impersonal force. During the First World War of 1914–1918, along the Western Front of northern France and Belgium, soldiers (and sometimes also civilians) found themselves in visceral life-and-death situations. They suffered physical and psychological trauma, and were often unable to verbally express what they had seen and endured, especially to those who waited at home. R.H. Tawney, on leave after being wounded on the Somme in 1916, expressed the ontological distance between himself and his family and friends.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
AWM. Australian War Memorial Military History Catalogue Worksheets/accession numbers. Canberra: Australian War Memorial.
Barbusse, H., 2003, Under Fire. Penguin, London.
Classen, C., 2005, The Book of Touch. Berg, Oxford.
Das, S., 2005, Touch and Intimacy in First World War Literature. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Dunn, J.C., 1997 [1938], The War the Infantry Knew 1914–1919: A Chronicle of Service in France and Belgium. Abacus, London.
Eksteins, M., 1990, The Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age. Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
Fussell, P., 1977, The Great War and Modern Memory. Oxford University Press, New York.
Gell, A., 1998, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Clarendon, Oxford.
Gwinell, 1919, Souvenirs. In The Golden Horseshoe: Men of the 37th Division B.E.F, pp. 45–7. Cassell, London.
Horne, A., 1981, The Price of Glory, Verdun 1916. Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Hoskins, J., 1998, Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of People’s Lives. Routledge, London.
Howes, D., 1991, Introduction: “To Summon All the Senses.” In D. Howes, ed., The Varieties of Sensory Experience, pp. 3–21. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
Hynes, S., 1990, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture. The Bodley Head, London.
IGW, 1914–1915, Illustrierte Geschichte des Weltkrieges, Vol. 3. Stuttgart.
Jünger, E., 2003, Storm of Steel. Allen Lane, London.
LC. Liddle Collection/reference numbers. The Liddle Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.
Ouditt, S., 1994, Fighting Forces, Writing Women: Identity and Ideology in the First World War. Routledge, London.
Patch, H., 2004, Nov. 7, Best of Times, Worst of Times. The Sunday Times Magazine, p. 13.
Pels, P., 1998, The Spirit of Matter: On Fetish, Rarity, Fact, and Fancy. In P. Spyer, ed., Border Fetishisms: Material Objects in Unstable Places, pp. 9–21. Routledge, London.
PTA (Projektgruppe Trench Art), 2002, Kleines aus dem Großen Krieg: Metamorphosen Militärischen Mülls. Ludwig-Uhland-Institut für Empirische Kulturwissenschaft der Universität Tübingen. Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde.
Richardson, M., 2008, Medals, Memory, and Meaning: Symbolism and Cultural Significance of Great War Medals. In N.J. Saunders and P. Cornish, eds., Contested Objects: Material Memories of the Great War. Routledge, Abingdon.
Saunders, N.J., 2003a, Crucifix, Calvary, and Cross: Materiality and Spirituality in Great War Landscapes. World Archaeology 35(1):7–21.
Saunders, N.J., 2003b, Trench Art: Materialities and Memories of War. Berg, Oxford.
Saunders, N.J., 2005, Culture, Conflict, and Materiality: The Social Lives of Great War Objects. In B. Finn and B.C. Hacker, eds., Materializing the Military, pp. 77–94. Science Museum, London.
Saunders, N.J., 2007, Killing Time: Archaeology and the First World War. Sutton, Stroud.
Saunders, N.J., and Dendooven, D., 2004, Trench Art: Lost Worlds of the Great War. The Trench Art Collection of the In Flanders Fields Museum. In Flanders Fields Museum and Uitgeverij Van de Wiele, Ieper and Bruges.
Schiffer, M.B., 1999, The Material Life of Human Beings: Artifacts, Behaviour, and Communication. Routledge, London.
Shanks, M., Platt, D., and Rathje, W.L., 2004, The Perfume of Garbage: Modernity and the Archaeological. Modernism/Modernity 11(1):61–83.
Skeggs, R.O., 1914–1915, Letters written by Lt. R.O. Skeggs, 3rd Batt. Rifle Brigade, BEF. Archive P. Barton, P. Doyle, M. Magnuson. Faversham.
Van Walleghem, A., 1965, De Oorlog te Dickebusch en Omstreken. II: 70–1. Brugge.
Winter, D., 1979, Death’s Men: Soldiers of the Great War. Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Saunders, N.J. (2009). People in Objects: Individuality and the Quotidian in the Material Culture of War. In: White, C. (eds) The Materiality of Individuality. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0498-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0498-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-0497-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-0498-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)