Casualties of War? Refining the Civilian-Military Dichotomy in World War I

Key Question Being Explored in This Insight:

Throughout the First World War, newspapers around the world mocked the British state for its lavish spending on captured German officers kept at Donington Hall, a refurbished English estate. Why was this camp such a controversial space of perceived decadence?

View the page of: Eric Grube

Institution: Boston College

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This video discusses the historical significance of Donington Hall, a former estate used during World War I as an internment camp for captured German officers. It highlights the contrasts between the luxurious accommodations provided to these officers and public criticism of such indulgence during a time of total war, which was viewed as inappropriate and even traitorous. The author examines the cultural expectations of warfare in that era, particularly regarding class distinctions and notions of honor, and how these ideals were challenged by the realities of modern warfare.

The narrative reveals that while traditional views upheld the idea of humane treatment for captured officers, this conflicted with the public's perception of resource allocation during a national crisis. This video also delves into social dynamics, including the role of women in public discourse surrounding the perceived privileges of German officers, and specific incidents involving the wife of the British Prime Minister, who faced scandal and criticism for allegedly favoring enemy officers.

Ultimately, the author posits that Donington Hall serves as a symbol of the outdated aristocratic values that were increasingly deemed inappropriate within the context of a modern, brutalized total war, suggesting that it represents a clash between lingering class privileges and the new demands of national survival. The analysis invites further comparison with earlier conflicts to understand the evolution of military and civilian relationships during warfare.

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Here are five key points derived from the video:

1. **Inversion of Expectations in Internment**: The video discusses the unique juxtaposition of a former aristocratic estate, Donington Hall, being used as a prisoner of war camp for captured German officers during WWI. This setting represents an interesting inversion of expectations, as it contrasts the brutal conditions typically associated with POW camps, highlighting a perceived indulgence towards the enemy that conflicted with the notion of total war.

2. **Public Outcry and Class Critique**: There was a significant public backlash against the perceived luxury afforded to the German officers at Donington Hall, which was viewed as inappropriate in the convideo of national sacrifice during wartime. Criticism often centered around the idea that such accommodations for enemy officers constituted a betrayal of the British people and a misuse of public funds.

3. **Cultural and Social Norms**: The piece mentions how the convideo of total war led to changing cultural norms regarding the separation between military and civilian life. The expectation that POWs, particularly officers, could enjoy a lifestyle akin to those of the upper class was increasingly seen as outdated. This clash reveals broader societal tensions regarding class privilege and the roles of individuals in times of war.

4. **Role of Women in wartime discourse**: Discussions surrounding women, particularly Margaret Asquith, the Prime Minister's wife, illustrate how women's involvement in public discourse about military strategy and the treatment of POWs was met with criticism. The video highlights societal attitudes towards women's behavior and the perception of women as transgressing accepted norms, particularly in the convideo of aiding enemy officers.

5. **Historical Reflection on Warfare and Expectations**: The video suggests that Donington Hall serves as a historical inflection point that reveals the changing attitudes towards warfare and class during World War I. It emphasizes how the principles governing military and civilian interactions became increasingly relevant in a total war scenario, reflecting a broader shift away from earlier, gentler understandings of warfare to more strict, utilitarian approaches in later conflicts, including World War II.

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Here are some key quotes and ideas extracted from the video, reflecting its central themes and arguments:

1. **Critique of Indulgence:**
- "The patterns I was noticing about this place... critiques of it being overly indulgent, right overly accommodating to these officers."
- This reflects the tension between the expectations of wartime austerity and the reality of luxurious accommodations for POWs.

2. **Cultural Expectations and Class:**
- "Here we get to see... cultural expectations, norms, often along class lines, right? About what it means to be a honorable opponent or an honorable foe in a war."
- This emphasizes how class distinctions informed perceptions of honor and treatment of enemy officers.

3. **Inversion of Space:**
- "To have this manor estate serving as a ostensibly internment camp... was to me just this very interesting inverted space, sort of like a fun house mirror."
- The contrast between a former aristocratic estate and its use as a POW camp illustrates conflicting narratives.

4. **Public Perception:**
- "This military internment camp... was to the public, seen as an inappropriate breach of those two categories... civilian style comforts... surpassing the rations available to the average British citizen."
- Highlights the public outcry regarding perceived favoritism towards the enemy at the expense of national morale.

5. **Historical Convideo of Warfare:**
- "This was a different time... these armies entered World War I with a set of expectations that were very much... a kind of gentlemanly, genteel reciprocity."
- Discusses the historical convideo of military and civilian roles and the changing perceptions of honor during wartime.

6. **Role of Women in Public Critique:**
- "The men interned there would often gender their frustration... It was these British women who are screaming at us."
- Reflects the societal tensions regarding gender roles and women's involvement in public discourse about military affairs.

7. **Public Scandal and Gender:**
- "Margaret Asquith... accused of providing overly decadent care packages... seen as a betrayal of the national cause."
- This highlights societal expectations of women's behavior and their scrutiny in the convideo of wartime patriotism.

8. **Dunnington Hall as a Symbol:**
- "Dunnington Hall was sort of... a living anachronism... perceived as... aristocratic understanding of what it meant to be an officer."
- Establishes the manor as a microcosm of the broader societal conflicts surrounding war, class, and national identity.

9. **A Shift in Military and Civilian Norms:**
- "The obsession with separating our civilian and military categories... can also come with costs."
- Points to the implications of rigidly separating military from civilian as a societal norm during total war.

These excerpts capture the essence of the video's exploration of class dynamics, societal expectations, gender roles, and the cultural clash presented by the historical convideo of World War I.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:90000

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Was a former kind of menial estate of the marquee

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of Hastings that during the First World War was used

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as a site of internment for German officers

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who had been captured so prisoners of war.

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Um, and the sort of what led me to this study

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is the patterns I was noticing about this place

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that were always critiques of it being overly indulgent,

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right overly, accommodating to these officers who

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were granted privileges

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and comforts that were not seen as appropriate

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or fitting for a total mechanized modern war.

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They were seen as sort of, in many ways, kind of a betrayal

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of the British people, to be catering to the enemy,

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so, so strongly and with such hospitality.

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And so to me, this, this idea of a prisoner of war camp,

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being at a former kind of aristocratic estate manor house,

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that kind of turned into almost kind

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of like an officer's club

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or kind of like a, a clubhouse, a country clubhouse,

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was to me just this very interesting inversion

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or kind of subversion of expectations for

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what we would see in the first World war.

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Most of the historiography on the topic,

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discusses a narrative of brutalization across the war,

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in terms of interment conditions for prisoners of war,

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to say nothing of the brutalization of the front, all

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of which is true and valid.

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I'm not here to refute that.

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Uh, what I'm trying to do is sort of,

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flesh out a larger picture

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and see, I'm very interested in spaces that kind of,

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as I said, sort of upend our expectations.

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Um, so to have this manure estate, serving as a,

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a ostensibly internment camp,

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but really kind of more of a, a, mansion

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for the officer click of the captured German officers was

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to me just this very interesting inverted space, sort

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of like a fun house mirror, in which we could start

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to sort of poke questions at the

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assumptions that went into how the space was curated

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and created and why these accommodations were on offer.

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Here we get to see, kind of cultural expectations,

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norms, often along class lines, right?

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About what it means to be a honorable opponent

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or an honorable foe in a war,

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that was increasingly totalized, right?

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And how those expectations from an earlier time period

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started to come across as sort of inappropriate hangovers,

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that no longer fit the requirements,

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the demands of a total war.

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In that sense, to me, it was, it was sort

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Of a, you know, and a small case study for sure,

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but one that, that kind of served as a anachronistic space

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during the total war, or at least was perceived as such.

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Um, so it was interesting to see sort of this clash

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of cultural assumptions, within Britain over

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how the, the hun should be treated.

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I would say, the public, either news in the form

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of newspapers and

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or critique in parliament, representatives trying to kind

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of voice their concerns for their constituents, often

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crystallized around a very modern assumption

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that the categories of the civilian

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and the military should be separate,

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clear cut hermetically divided, right?

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And that this supposedly military space,

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this military internment camp for prisoners of war

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or the prisoner of war camp, was

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to the public, seen as a inappropriate breach

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of those two categories, an inappropriate blending

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of those two categories in which,

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civilian style comforts, right soap, various forms

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of alcohol and alcohol menu, right?

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Various forms of electrical lighting, various forms of food

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that in many ways surpassed the rations available

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to the average British citizen.

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Um, the ability to play, lawn tennis, right?

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For these, these officers, was seen

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as two inappropriately civilian to,

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decadent for what was supposed to be crystallized

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as a military space in which things should be Spartan

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or Prussian, right?

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Fitting for German officers, right?

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Uh, it should be, sparse baron, right?

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Resources for national defense should be centered

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around the British,

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the British people, the British soldiers, right?

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Which makes sense in an era, an epoch

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that champions total national struggle, right?

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So most of the public perceptions were basically framed

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around misuse of funds, misuse of public money, to cater

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to the enemy, right?

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In this total war where they said, you know,

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it is fundamentally inappropriate that civilian style,

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civilian kind of caliber amenities are

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bleeding into what should be a spartan,

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Prussian militarized austere space,

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should have been sort of the, you know, prisoners

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of war were to get sort of the scraps of public funds,

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rather than all kinds of public money

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and surplus rations that exceeded, what the British

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population was afforded to say nothing of various forms

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of entertainment and from recreation on offer, right?

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From the kind of, governmental side

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of things, the reigning government,

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the reigning liberal government,

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plus the officers themselves.

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This sort of accommodation was in many ways

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expected actually.

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Um, this was a different time, right?

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This was a set over a century ago,

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and these armies entered World War I, right?

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With a set of expectations that were very much,

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came over from the long 19th century.

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And in this sort of cultural milieu,

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particularly the Officer Corps, things were supposed

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to be a bit aristocratic.

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Things were supposed to be gentlemanly.

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The Officer Corps, particularly in continental Europe,

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was very much traditionally always the aristocracy,

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particularly for the army, the navy, a little bit different

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that had a more of a blending of kind

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of middle class presence, but that was in

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and of itself a source of stigma between the army

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and the Navy, right?

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Um, and so there was this expectation among officers,

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particularly at the start of the war, that, well, of course,

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if I get captured as an officer, I will be afforded,

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the accommodations to live in kind of a better setting

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than kind of the rank and file enlisted troops.

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And this sort of expectation of kind of aristocratic,

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genteel reciprocity, came from, as I said,

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at an earlier time in which the military

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and civilian categories were not so, hermetically,

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sealed off were not so siloed.

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It was kind of an older understanding of civil meaning, kind

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of refined, elegant rather than civilian as a kind

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of a legal category we think of today.

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Um, it was sort of this older, as I said, kind

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of gentlemanly, gente, noble sense of,

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of aristocratic privilege that was supposed to be, kind

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of a given in a militarized setting, right?

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So you see kind of this clash of worlds

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or kind of cultural expectations between

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kind of an older world assumption of class privilege

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and officer privilege, that was

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normal, right?

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And a increasingly more modern

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perception, particularly among the public

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and the opposition in government, that

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this fusion, this amalgam of civilian or civil

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and military kind

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of lifestyle was fundamentally inappropriate,

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fundamentally anachronistic.

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And that public outcry about this is what's so new here.

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In previous conflicts, this would've just been a given

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and not really discussed.

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But here in World War I, the rules have changed, right?

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The rules have changed, and the public was being sold on

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this narrative of total imperial war, fight for survival.

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And it was sort of this sort of whiplash of, well then

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how can we, on the one hand, be being told to do without,

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as a British, you know, good British citizen?

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And at the same time, the enemy officers are being afforded,

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you know, games of tennis and their choice of alcohol.

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Normally in a prisoner of war camp,

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the existing historiography, focuses on

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understandings of masculinity, which makes sense, right?

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They were homosocial space, it's it's men,

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who have captured and are interning other men.

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Um, and so the role

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of women is usually in the existing literature

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not discussed, or it's discussed when talking about,

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men doing, sort

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of performances in drag in theater usually is kind

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of comedy routines for entertainment

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or discussing, kind of just the opposite side

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of the coin of masculinity or perceived masculinity

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and how captivity was an affront to the masculine ideal.

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However, Dunnington Hall, if you dive deeply has

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interesting cases of gender discourse around women.

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And two regards.

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One, the men in turn there would often gender

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their frustration at the public outcry

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against their privileged, interment circumstances.

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As female, they would say it's, it's these British women

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who are screaming at us, either on our, you know, walks

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or on in transit from the train station to Dunnington Hall

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or in, public spaces more broadly.

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They were saying it was a very female discourse of, kind

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of castigating throwing,

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insults at US German officers for receiving such,

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kind of refined, elegant treatment.

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And this did not sit well with them,

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particularly coming from kind of an older

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aristocratic masculine milieu.

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Uh, this was seen as an inappropriate kind of breach

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of women into the public sphere of

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voicing critique about military strategy, which was seen as

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inappropriate for their sex, right,

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to use the, the terms of the time.

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Um, the other way that women

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there just discourses surrounding women,

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factored at this,

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or featured in this space, was a kind

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of public scandal, involving the wife

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of then British Prime Minister, Asquith,

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his wife, Margaret Asquith.

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Margot was accused kind of in, in,

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public discourse kind of room, the rumor mills at the time

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of providing

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overly decadent kind of care packages

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to the German officers, who it was in these rumor mills

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who said that she was, friends with many Germans, right?

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And she was seen as sending what were called dainty

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and ible, so basically like,

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baked goods, desserts, right, to these German men,

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which was seen as, as on the one hand, a betrayal

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of the national cause,

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particularly given her husband's

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position as the prime Minister.

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It was also seen as kind of playing up the trope

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of the duplicitous woman, kind of the,

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who is want to kind of associate with the enemy,

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that kind of cultural trope

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that is still kind of with us, I think.

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Um, it was also a class critique of her as a woman, right?

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Saying that she was part of the, kind of the Novo risk.

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She and her husband were not super high class

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or not perceived as such, were seen as trying too hard

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to sort of flaunt their money, their privilege,

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their position, their power, and

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therefore be overly accommodating.

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Another register that was at play here was the role

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of her daughter, who was also put

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through a lot of this rumor mill, all kinds

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of accusations that she was engaged to, the son

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of a German admiral, right?

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So all kinds of just kind of mudslinging going on,

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in the public sphere about the proper role of a woman,

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particularly the wife of the Prime Minister

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during a total war.

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And she did not take kindly to these rumors.

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They were completely false. She was not

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providing care packages to these officers,

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nor was her daughter engaged to any German admiral son,

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and it did not sit well with her to have her name kind

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of dragged through the mud here.

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So she took kind of recourse that was afforded

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to her as a woman, right?

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She, she was not in the position to engage in a formal dual,

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which was not unheard of to these German officers.

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The officer cadre more broadly, dueling was part of a

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rite of passage to an extent.

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It had been, I believe, formally illegalized by

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that time, but it was still sort of a, badge

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of honor in many ways for the men,

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particularly in their fraternities,

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to have dued with each other.

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So that was not an option for her as a woman.

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Uh, however, she kind of took a, a legal dual route,

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and she took the various newspapers to court,

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for these rumors for printing this, these stories.

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And she won restitution, right?

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So she, she got public clearance.

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She got, or at least her name cleared in the public arena,

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at least officially

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and, one financial, financial compensation,

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I think the name, the reputation was

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worth infinitely more to her.

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Um, that said, you could argue that it still left a bit

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of a, a taint or a stain on her, her name

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and that of her husband, right?

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The Prime Minister who would be, kind of pushed out,

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in favor of Lloyd George, right?

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So there's sort of this, you know, not that

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that was the main cause of all this,

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but it's, it's faked in, right?

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Um, another interesting kind of personal tidbit here about

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her was that she was in fact, the sister of a man named,

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tenet, right?

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Who was the undersecretary of state

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in the reigning liberal government.

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And so this was who also had been enduring extreme amounts

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of flack for all of this in the House

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of Commons day in day out, getting sort

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of raked over the coals

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by the opposition conservative government

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for this inappropriate expenditure on Dunnington Hall.

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So, attacking Margo was in many ways a alternate front

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to perhaps get at

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and, discredit, tenant as being,

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negligent with use of funds

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by being overly decadent with use of funds.

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In many ways, Dunnington Hall was sort of the, as a space,

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this, kind of living anachronism, at the start

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of World War I were perceived

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as a living anachronism at the start of World War.

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I, has

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presented us with kind of the death rows of an older

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kind of aristocratic, genteel, understanding,

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cultural understanding of what it meant to be an officer

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and to wait war in that these sort of civil, refined,

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elegant accommodations were pretty much now deemed,

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by the public and the oppositional government as

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inappropriate, right?

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No longer, worth the government's money and time,

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and in fact, arguably traitorous, right?

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To be doing this sort of indulgent behavior

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or enabling this sort of indulgent behavior.

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And it leads to sort

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of this as sort of this, a death row

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of this older understanding of warfare in the face of a new

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national existential total war,

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shows the kind of the, the track, the kind of, the, the,

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in many ways, this still fits well

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with the brutalization narrative of the kind

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of larger histography

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because, this space was kind of cast aside

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or relegated to the dust bin of history as it were.

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And the more kind of austere

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Prussian conditions were to win out.

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Um, class privilege would not overnight

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by any means, but start to be seen as,

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needing to be subordinated to national concerns.

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And obviously, the story

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of the Second World War would take this

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to even more extreme heights, right?

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That said, I do think this sort of

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Dunnington Hall as inflection point, right?

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This moment of the old becoming perceived as old, outdated,

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and being,

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discarded as inappropriate.

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While it does point to that kind of

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larger scale intensification of total warfare

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and the kind of the dark side of

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clearly separating our civilian and military categories,

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or at least being obsessed with that, that obsession,

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right.

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In many ways it can be good,

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but it can also come with with costs, right?

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I would say we, for future research, would want to kind of,

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in many ways look further into the past.

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Actually, I think the kind of usual point of comparison

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for World War I is to go to the Second World War as kind

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of the, juxtaposition there there, right?

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And the kind of the narrative

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there, kind of lumping them together.

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But people didn't enter the first World War expecting,

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or even having any knowledge of the Second World War, right?

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Um, instead people enter as kind of a truism

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that people enter war expecting

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to fight the previous conflict, right?

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That would've been the Franco Prussian war in this kind

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of German continental context.

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So, it would be kind of, I think an interesting point

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of comparison to actually kind of look backward to

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these earlier, 19th century conflicts in which,

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these aristocratic office serial privileges were a given

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and as an assumed obvious assumption, right?

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Something that didn't need questioning or debate

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or public outcry about, because it was, it was normal.

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Um, so I think that would be interesting to look in

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that direction and compare Dunnington Hall as this sort of,

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as I said, a, final vestige

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of this cultural practice.

Discomforts of Comfort: A Study of Dunnington Hall During WWI

00:00:00 - Was a former kind of menial estate of the marquee of Hastings that during the First World War was used as a site of internment for German officers who had been captured so prisoners of war. and the sort of what led me to this study is the patterns I was noticing about this place that were always critiques of it being overly indulgent, right overly, accommodating to these officers who

00:00:35 - and comforts that were not seen as appropriate or fitting for a total mechanized modern war. They were seen as sort of, in many ways, kind of a betrayal of the British people, to be catering to the enemy, so, so strongly and with such hospitality. And so to me, this, this idea of a prisoner of war camp, being at a former kind of aristocratic estate manor house,

00:01:08 - of like an officer's club or kind of like a, a clubhouse, a country clubhouse, was to me just this very interesting inversion or kind of subversion of expectations for what we would see in the first World war. Most of the historiography on the topic, discusses a narrative of brutalization across the war, in terms of interment conditions for prisoners of war, to say nothing of the brutalization of the front, all of which is true and valid. I'm not here to refute that.

Inverted Expectations: The Anachronism of Dunnington Hall

00:01:41 - flesh out a larger picture and see, I'm very interested in spaces that kind of, as I said, sort of upend our expectations. so to have this manure estate, serving as a, a ostensibly internment camp, but really kind of more of a, a, mansion for the officer click of the captured German officers was to me just this very interesting inverted space, sort of like a fun house mirror, in which we could start

00:02:17 - assumptions that went into how the space was curated and created and why these accommodations were on offer. Here we get to see, kind of cultural expectations, norms, often along class lines, right? About what it means to be a honorable opponent or an honorable foe in a war, that was increasingly totalized, right? And how those expectations from an earlier time period

00:02:49 - that no longer fit the requirements, the demands of a total war. In that sense, to me, it was, it was sort Of a, you know, and a small case study for sure, but one that, that kind of served as a anachronistic space during the total war, or at least was perceived as such. so it was interesting to see sort of this clash of cultural assumptions, within Britain over

Class Tensions in Civilian-Military Boundaries

00:03:20 - I would say, the public, either news in the form of newspapers and or critique in parliament, representatives trying to kind of voice their concerns for their constituents, often crystallized around a very modern assumption that the categories of the civilian and the military should be separate, clear cut hermetically divided, right?

00:03:51 - this military internment camp for prisoners of war or the prisoner of war camp, was to the public, seen as a inappropriate breach of those two categories, an inappropriate blending of those two categories in which, civilian style comforts, right soap, various forms of alcohol and alcohol menu, right?

00:04:20 - that in many ways surpassed the rations available to the average British citizen. the ability to play, lawn tennis, right? For these, these officers, was seen as two inappropriately civilian to, decadent for what was supposed to be crystallized as a military space in which things should be Spartan or Prussian, right? Fitting for German officers, right?

Misguided Priorities: Public Perception of Resources in Total War

00:04:52 - Resources for national defense should be centered around the British, the British people, the British soldiers, right? Which makes sense in an era, an epoch that champions total national struggle, right? So most of the public perceptions were basically framed around misuse of funds, misuse of public money, to cater to the enemy, right? In this total war where they said, you know, it is fundamentally inappropriate that civilian style,

00:05:26 - bleeding into what should be a spartan, Prussian militarized austere space, should have been sort of the, you know, prisoners of war were to get sort of the scraps of public funds, rather than all kinds of public money and surplus rations that exceeded, what the British population was afforded to say nothing of various forms of entertainment and from recreation on offer, right?

00:05:58 - of things, the reigning government, the reigning liberal government, plus the officers themselves. This sort of accommodation was in many ways expected actually. this was a different time, right? This was a set over a century ago, and these armies entered World War I, right? With a set of expectations that were very much,

Aristocratic Expectations in the Officer Corps

00:06:27 - And in this sort of cultural milieu, particularly the Officer Corps, things were supposed to be a bit aristocratic. Things were supposed to be gentlemanly. The Officer Corps, particularly in continental Europe, was very much traditionally always the aristocracy, particularly for the army, the navy, a little bit different that had a more of a blending of kind of middle class presence, but that was in and of itself a source of stigma between the army and the Navy, right?

00:06:57 - particularly at the start of the war, that, well, of course, if I get captured as an officer, I will be afforded, the accommodations to live in kind of a better setting than kind of the rank and file enlisted troops. And this sort of expectation of kind of aristocratic, genteel reciprocity, came from, as I said, at an earlier time in which the military and civilian categories were not so, hermetically,

00:07:31 - It was kind of an older understanding of civil meaning, kind of refined, elegant rather than civilian as a kind of a legal category we think of today. it was sort of this older, as I said, kind of gentlemanly, gente, noble sense of, of aristocratic privilege that was supposed to be, kind of a given in a militarized setting, right? So you see kind of this clash of worlds

Class Privilege and Changing Norms in World War I

00:08:04 - kind of an older world assumption of class privilege and officer privilege, that was normal, right? And a increasingly more modern perception, particularly among the public and the opposition in government, that this fusion, this amalgam of civilian or civil

00:08:32 - of lifestyle was fundamentally inappropriate, fundamentally anachronistic. And that public outcry about this is what's so new here. In previous conflicts, this would've just been a given and not really discussed. But here in World War I, the rules have changed, right? The rules have changed, and the public was being sold on this narrative of total imperial war, fight for survival. And it was sort of this sort of whiplash of, well then how can we, on the one hand, be being told to do without,

00:09:07 - And at the same time, the enemy officers are being afforded, you know, games of tennis and their choice of alcohol. Normally in a prisoner of war camp, the existing historiography, focuses on understandings of masculinity, which makes sense, right? They were homosocial space, it's it's men, who have captured and are interning other men. and so the role

Gender Dynamics and Masculinity in Wartime Interment

00:09:37 - not discussed, or it's discussed when talking about, men doing, sort of performances in drag in theater usually is kind of comedy routines for entertainment or discussing, kind of just the opposite side of the coin of masculinity or perceived masculinity and how captivity was an affront to the masculine ideal. However, Dunnington Hall, if you dive deeply has

00:10:09 - And two regards. One, the men in turn there would often gender their frustration at the public outcry against their privileged, interment circumstances. As female, they would say it's, it's these British women who are screaming at us, either on our, you know, walks

00:10:41 - or in, public spaces more broadly. They were saying it was a very female discourse of, kind of castigating throwing, insults at US German officers for receiving such, kind of refined, elegant treatment. And this did not sit well with them, particularly coming from kind of an older aristocratic masculine milieu.

Gendered Critique and Public Scandal: The Case of Margaret Asquith

00:11:09 - of women into the public sphere of voicing critique about military strategy, which was seen as inappropriate for their sex, right, to use the, the terms of the time. the other way that women there just discourses surrounding women, factored at this, or featured in this space, was a kind of public scandal, involving the wife

00:11:47 - his wife, Margaret Asquith. Margot was accused kind of in, in, public discourse kind of room, the rumor mills at the time of providing overly decadent kind of care packages to the German officers, who it was in these rumor mills who said that she was, friends with many Germans, right?

00:12:16 - and ible, so basically like, baked goods, desserts, right, to these German men, which was seen as, as on the one hand, a betrayal of the national cause, particularly given her husband's position as the prime Minister. It was also seen as kind of playing up the trope of the duplicitous woman, kind of the,

Class Critique and Public Scandal: The Asquith Family During Total War

00:12:50 - that kind of cultural trope that is still kind of with us, I think. it was also a class critique of her as a woman, right? Saying that she was part of the, kind of the Novo risk. She and her husband were not super high class or not perceived as such, were seen as trying too hard to sort of flaunt their money, their privilege, their position, their power, and therefore be overly accommodating.

00:13:21 - of her daughter, who was also put through a lot of this rumor mill, all kinds of accusations that she was engaged to, the son of a German admiral, right? So all kinds of just kind of mudslinging going on, in the public sphere about the proper role of a woman, particularly the wife of the Prime Minister during a total war. And she did not take kindly to these rumors.

00:13:56 - providing care packages to these officers, nor was her daughter engaged to any German admiral son, and it did not sit well with her to have her name kind of dragged through the mud here. So she took kind of recourse that was afforded to her as a woman, right? She, she was not in the position to engage in a formal dual, which was not unheard of to these German officers.

Women’s Agency amidst Wartime Scandal

00:14:27 - rite of passage to an extent. It had been, I believe, formally illegalized by that time, but it was still sort of a, badge of honor in many ways for the men, particularly in their fraternities, to have dued with each other. So that was not an option for her as a woman. however, she kind of took a, a legal dual route, and she took the various newspapers to court,

00:14:59 - And she won restitution, right? So she, she got public clearance. She got, or at least her name cleared in the public arena, at least officially and, one financial, financial compensation, I think the name, the reputation was worth infinitely more to her. that said, you could argue that it still left a bit of a, a taint or a stain on her, her name

00:15:27 - The Prime Minister who would be, kind of pushed out, in favor of Lloyd George, right? So there's sort of this, you know, not that that was the main cause of all this, but it's, it's faked in, right? another interesting kind of personal tidbit here about her was that she was in fact, the sister of a man named, tenet, right?

Critique of Dunnington Hall: A Symbol of Aristocratic Indulgence in Wartime

00:15:59 - in the reigning liberal government. And so this was who also had been enduring extreme amounts of flack for all of this in the House of Commons day in day out, getting sort of raked over the coals by the opposition conservative government for this inappropriate expenditure on Dunnington Hall. So, attacking Margo was in many ways a alternate front to perhaps get at

00:16:32 - negligent with use of funds by being overly decadent with use of funds. In many ways, Dunnington Hall was sort of the, as a space, this, kind of living anachronism, at the start of World War I were perceived as a living anachronism at the start of World War. I, has

00:17:02 - kind of aristocratic, genteel, understanding, cultural understanding of what it meant to be an officer and to wait war in that these sort of civil, refined, elegant accommodations were pretty much now deemed, by the public and the oppositional government as inappropriate, right? No longer, worth the government's money and time,

Transitioning Warfare and Class Privilege

00:17:34 - To be doing this sort of indulgent behavior or enabling this sort of indulgent behavior. And it leads to sort of this as sort of this, a death row of this older understanding of warfare in the face of a new national existential total war, shows the kind of the, the track, the kind of, the, the,

00:18:03 - with the brutalization narrative of the kind of larger histography because, this space was kind of cast aside or relegated to the dust bin of history as it were. And the more kind of austere Prussian conditions were to win out. class privilege would not overnight by any means, but start to be seen as, needing to be subordinated to national concerns.

00:18:37 - of the Second World War would take this to even more extreme heights, right? That said, I do think this sort of Dunnington Hall as inflection point, right? This moment of the old becoming perceived as old, outdated, and being, discarded as inappropriate. While it does point to that kind of

Reassessing Civilian-Military Boundaries in Historical Conflicts

00:19:12 - and the kind of the dark side of clearly separating our civilian and military categories, or at least being obsessed with that, that obsession, right. In many ways it can be good, but it can also come with with costs, right? I would say we, for future research, would want to kind of, in many ways look further into the past. Actually, I think the kind of usual point of comparison for World War I is to go to the Second World War as kind of the, juxtaposition there there, right?

00:19:41 - there, kind of lumping them together. But people didn't enter the first World War expecting, or even having any knowledge of the Second World War, right? instead people enter as kind of a truism that people enter war expecting to fight the previous conflict, right? That would've been the Franco Prussian war in this kind of German continental context. So, it would be kind of, I think an interesting point of comparison to actually kind of look backward to these earlier, 19th century conflicts in which,

00:20:40 - and as an assumed obvious assumption, right? Something that didn't need questioning or debate or public outcry about, because it was, it was normal. so I think that would be interesting to look in that direction and compare Dunnington Hall as this sort of, as I said, a, final vestige of this cultural practice.

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Casualties of War? Refining the Civilian-Military Dichotomy in World War I

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