scholarly journals Programming Men and Machines. Changing Organisation in the Artillery Computations at Aberdeen Proving Ground (1916-1946)

2018 ◽  
Vol 139 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 241-266
Author(s):  
Maarten Bullynck

Abstract After the First World War mathematics and the organisation of ballistic computations at Aberdeen Proving Ground changed considerably. This was the basis for the development of a number of computing aids that were constructed and used during the years 1920 to 1950. This article looks how the computational organisation forms and changes the instruments of calculation. After the differential analyzer relay-based machines were built by Bell Labs and, finally, the ENIAC, one of the first electronic computers, was built, to satisfy the need for computational power in ballistics during the second World War.

Author(s):  
Igor Lyubchyk

The research issue peculiarities of wide Russian propaganda among the most Western ethnographic group – Lemkies is revealed in the article. The character and orientation of Russian and Soviet agitation through the social, religious and social movements aimed at supporting Russian identity in the region are traced. Tragic pages during the First World War were Thalrogian prisons for Lemkas, which actually swept Lemkivshchyna through Muscovophilian influences. Agitation for Russian Orthodoxy has provoked frequent cases of sharp conflicts between Lemkas. In general, attempts by moskvophile agitators to impose russian identity on the Orthodox rite were failed. Taking advantage of the complex socio-economic situation of Lemkos, Russian campaigners began to promote moving to the USSR. Another stage of Russian propaganda among Lemkos began with the onset of the Second World War. Throughout the territory of the Galician Lemkivshchyna, Soviet propaganda for resettlement to the USSR began rather quickly. During the dramatic events of the Second World War and the post-war period, despite the outbreaks of the liberation movement, among the Lemkoswere manifestations of political sympathies oriented toward the USSR. Keywords: borderlands, Lemkivshchyna, Lemky, Lemkivsky schism, Moskvophile, Orthodoxy, agitation, ethnopolitics


Author(s):  
Mark Rawlinson

This chapter explores how Anglophone literature and culture envisioned and questioned an economy of sacrificial exchange, particularly its symbolic aspect, as driving the compulsions entangled in the Second World War. After considering how Elizabeth Bowen’s short stories cast light on the Home Front rhetorics of sacrifice and reconstruction, it looks at how poets Robert Graves, Keith Douglas, and Alun Lewis reflect on First World War poetry of sacrifice. With reference to René Girard’s and Carl von Clausewitz’s writings on war, I take up Elaine Cobley’s assertion about the differing valencies of the First and Second World Wars, arguing that the contrast is better seen in terms of sacrificial economy. I develop that argument with reference to examples from Second World War literature depicting sacrificial exchange (while often harking back to the First World War), including Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952–61), and William Wharton’s memoir Shrapnel (2012).


Author(s):  
Phillip Drew

Drawing on several examples through history, this chapter illustrates the devastating potential that maritime blockades can have when they are employed against modern societies that are dependent on maritime trade, and particularly on the importation of foodstuffs and agricutltural materials for the survival of their civilian populations. Revealing statistics that show that the blockade of Germany during the First World War caused more civilian deaths than did the allied strategic bombing campaign of the Second World War, and that the sanctions regime against Iraq killed far more people than did the 1991 Gulf War, it demonstrates that civilian casualties are often the true unseen cost of conducting blockade operations.


Südosteuropa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-281
Author(s):  
Dubravka Stojanović

AbstractThe author comments on the political and economic options in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that started at the beginning of 2020. She revisits responses to the crises of the First World War, the Great Crash of 1929, and the Second World War, sorting them into ‘pessimistic’ and ‘optimistic’ responses, and outlining their respective consequences.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerzy Grzybowski

The books presents the life of archbishop brygadier general Sawa (Sowietow). The author explores its successive stages: young years during the First World War, priesthood in the Second Polish Republic, wanderings during the Second World War, service in Polish Armed Forces in the West (as the chief military chaplain of the Orthodox Church), and religious service among Polish citizens abroad after the Yalta Conference.


2021 ◽  
pp. 133-149
Author(s):  
I. Vietrynskyi

The paper focuses on the initial stage of the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the process of its establishing as an independent State. The international political context for the development of the country, from the period of creation of the Federation to the beginning of the Second World War, is primarily viewed. The Commonwealth’s international position, its place and role in the regional and global geopolitical processes of the early XX century, in particular in the context of its relations with Great Britain, are analyzed. The features of the transformation of British colonial policies on the eve of the First World War are examined. The specifics of the UK system of relations with Australia, as well as other dominions, are being examined. The features of status of the dominions in the British Empire system are shown. The role of the dominions and, in particular, the Commonwealth of Australia in the preparatory process for the First World War, as well as the peculiarities of its participation in hostilities, is analyzed. The significance of the actions of the First World War on the domestic political situation in Australia, as well as its impact on dominions relations with the British Empire, is revealed. The history of the foundation of the Australian-New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and its participation in imperial forces on the frontline of the First World War is analyzed. The success and failure of its fighters, as well as the role of ANZAC, in the process of formation an Australian political nation are analyzed. The economic, humanitarian and international political consequences of the First World War for the Commonwealth of Australia are examined, as well as the influence of these consequences on the structure of relations between the dominions and the British Empire. The socio-economic situation of the Commonwealth of Australia on the eve of World War II, in particular the impact of the Great depression on the development of the country as a whole and its internal political situation in particular, is analyzed. The ideological, military-strategic and international political prerequisites for Australia’s entry into the Second World War are being considered.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-116
Author(s):  
Paul Solomon

War frames our lives. We live, as Billy Bragg (1985) put it, “Between the Wars”; or we live during wars, or after wars; or we live in terror of the threat of war; or get passionately aroused into war. We may watch helplessly as TV news shows us events of horror and violence overseas; on 19th June this year New Zealanders watched video on TV3 News of Kiwi troops under fire in Afghanistan, recorded on a soldier’s helmet-cam. Recent events unfolded once more on TVNZ with gut-wrenching inevitability: I watched as two soldiers were killed, and four injured. The survivors probably will return home traumatised. My interest in reviewing The War Hotel was personal: my grandfather fought in the First World War, my father in the Second World War. I served in the Israeli Defense Force, 1965-1967, and soon felt appalled by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Some of my Jewish extended family perished in Poland during the Shoah. All humanity is touched by war, in varying degrees of separation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Rosoux ◽  
Laurence van Ypersele

This article examines the gradual deconstruction of the Belgian national identity. Is it possible to speak of a de facto differentiation or even ‘federalization’ of the so-called ‘national past’ in Belgium? How do Belgians choose to remember and forget this past? To contribute to an understanding of these issues, the article considers two very different episodes of Belgian history, namely the First World War and the colonization of the Congo. On the one hand, the memory of the First World War appears to provide the template for memory conflicts in Belgium, and thus informs the memories of other tragedies such as the Second World War. On the other hand, the memory of the colonial past remains much more consensual – providing a more nuanced picture of competing views on the past. Beyond the differences between the ways in which these episodes are officially portrayed, the same fundamental trend may be observed: the gradual fragmentation of a supposedly smooth and reliable national version of history.


Author(s):  
Gerard L. Weinberg

‘The inter-war years’ looks at the period after the First World War when the victorious powers were drafting peace treaties with Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the successor of the Ottoman Empire. The fundamental issue was how to reorganize Europe and territories elsewhere as the basic assumption of territoriality shifted from the dynastic to the national principle. The treaty with Germany had numerous aspects including provisions for war crime trials, the demilitarization of Germany's western border, reparations, and limitations on Germany's military, which were deeply resented by the German people. Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and the increasing disregard for the peace treaty brought a Second World War closer.


Author(s):  
Gerard L. Weinberg

The enormous loss of life and physical destruction caused by the First World War led people to hope that there would never be another such catastrophe. How then did it come about that there was a Second World War causing twice the 30 million deaths and many times more destruction as had been caused in the previous conflict? The ‘Introduction’ poses several questions: why did this war start so soon after World War I? Why was it considered a world war and not just European? What triggered the involvement of various nations? How did the Allies win? These questions are considered in subsequent chapters.


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