GLOBAL WAR, GLOBAL CONNECTIONS,
GLOBAL MOMENTS
International Conference about the First World War
at the University of Zurich
31.01.2018 – 02.02.2018

Organizers
Thomas Schmutz (University of Zurich and Newcastle, Australia) and Gwendal Piegais (Université de Bretagne Occidentale)

Contact
global.war.conference@gmail.com

Website
https://globalwarzurich2018.wordpress.com/

Conference Venue
University of Zurich, Main Building, Rämistrasse 71
Rooms KOL-F-101, F-104 or F-117

Day 1 Wednesday January 31

08.40 Registration
University of Zurich, Main Building, Room KOL-F-104 (first floor)

09.10 Conference Opening
Introduction and Overview
Thomas Schmutz and Gwendal Piégais

09.15 I. Panel: Global Connections in Wartime
Chair: Dr. Konstantinos Karatzas (Research Fellow, Institute of International Economic Relations, Greece; London Center for Interdisciplinary Research):
- Martin Deuerlein (University of Tübingen): Global War, International Relations and the Question of Order in an Interdependent World.
- Dr. Steve Marti (Independent Scholar, Ontario, Canada): Dominion Over Empire: Race and Recruitment in Britain’s Settler Colonies.
- Dr. Francesca Piana (Swiss National Science Foundation): An Endless War: Gendering International Relief, 1914-1923.
- Dr. Daniel Palmieri (Red Cross Archive, Geneva): Humanitarianism in Global War: The International Committee of the Red Cross in WWI.

11.00 Coffee Break

11.20 Young Researcher Presentation
Adam Ohnesorge (University of Zurich): The forgotten civilian prisoners and Swiss peace mission in Corsica during the Great War.

11.45 II. Panel: A Question of Perspective – Soundscapes and Time Frames
Chair: Matthew Kovac (University of Oxford)
- Dr. Yaron Jean (Sapir College, Negev, Israel) : The Sounds of the Invisible: Warfare Technology, Obliteration and Global Wars.
- Sarah Laufs (Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf): Rethinking the Time-Frames of the Great War – Ruptures, Continuities and German Wartime Experiences.

12.30 Lunch Break

13.40 III. Panel: Global Switzerland
Chair: Dr. Adrian Hänni (Distance Learning University Switzerland).
- Dr. Peter Fleer (Swiss Federal Archives Berne): Archives and Issues of the First World War – Doing Research in the Swiss Federal Archives.
- PD Dr. Daniel Marc Segesser (University of Bern): From Bregenz via Turkestan to Solothurn: Military Migration in the First World War in Transnational Perspective.
- Dr. Michael Olsansky (MILAK ETH): Between Military Diplomacy and Transnational Military Exchange: Swiss Officers in the Theaters of War of the First World War.
- Nina Flurina Caprez (University of Fribourg): “When peace was difficult”- What the history of a monastery tells about World War I and its aftermath.

15.30 Coffee Break

15.50 IV. Panel: Migration in Wartime
Chair: Dr. Jonathan Krause (King’s College London; University of Oxford)
- Prof. Dr. Christian Koller (University of Zurich; Sozialarchiv): Intercontinental War Migration of French and British Colonial Troops.
- Dr. María Inés Tato (CONICET - University of Buenos Aires - Ravignani Institute / Superior School of War - Faculty of the Army - University of National Defense): Transnational solidarities: Immigrant communities in Argentina facing the Great War.
- Dr. Konstantinos Karatzas (Research Fellow, Institute of International Economic Relations, Greece; London Center for Interdisciplinary Research): The Greek perspective: Migration, Imperial Dreams and Tragedy.
- Dr. Shuang Wen (National University of Singapur): From Moral to Morale: The YMCA and the Chinese-Arab Laboureres in WWI.

17.20 Break and Swiss Dinner

Evening Programme – Keynote and Roundtable (History of Violence)
UZH Main Building, Room KOL-F-101
18.45 Opening Remarks
Dean Prof. Dr. Klaus Jonas (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Zurich)

*
19.00 Keynote I
Prof. Dr. Christian Gerlach (University of Bern):
“World War I within a global history of mass violence in the first third of the 20th century”
*
19.45 Roundtable
Chair: Prof. Dr. Philip Dwyer (Director of the Centre for the History of Violence at the University of Newcastle, Australia)

Mass Violence in the Beginning of the 20th century
Prof. Dr. Annette Becker (University of Nanterre, Paris)
Prof. Dr. Christian Gerlach (University of Bern)
Prof. Dr. Hans-Lukas Kieser (University of Newcastle, Australia, and Zurich)
Dr. Mark Jones (University College Dublin, Centre for War Studies)

 
Day 2 Thursday February 1

08.30 Registration (for newcomers) Room KOL-F-117
08.45 V. Panel: Networks, Intelligence and Secret Diplomacy
Chair: Dr. Adrian Hänni (Distance Learning University Switzerland)
- Matthew Kovac (University of Oxford): Traitors to the Crown: British Military Veterans in the IRA, 1918-1923.
- Samuel Krug (FU Berlin): A global network for a global revolution? Transnational connections of German WWI propaganda.
- Dr. Christian Stachelbeck (Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr): Shadowman or Bureaucrat in uniform – Walter Nicolai and the German military intelligence service in WWI.
- Dr. Jacopo Lorenzini (Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici (IISS), Naples): Military élites go to war: a global perspective.

10.30 Coffee Break

10.50 VI. Panel: Alliances, Loyalty and Intervention
Chair: Dr. Gabriela Frei (University of Oxford)
- Sam Klein (University of St. Andrews): Coalition Politics and the Preparations for the Coup de Grâce.
- Dr. William Thomas Allison (Georgia Southern University, USA): With Arms or Food? A Local View on the American Decision to Intervene in North Russia, 1918.
- Dr. Takuma Melber (University of Heidelberg): "Alle Menschen werden Brüder" - German soldiers in Japanese war captivity and the First World War in Far East.
- Tomáš Kykal (Military History Institute Prague): Conflict of Conscience and Duty - Czechs in the First World War.
- Aliaksandr Piahanau (University of Toulouse): A separate peace with Hungary? The Magyar peace feelers at the beginning of WWI (1914-1915).

12.30 Lunch

13.30 VII. Panel: Transnational Commemoration
Chair: Dr. Daniel Marc Segesser (University of Bern)
- Karla Vanraepenbusch (Université catholique de Louvain) : Le Mémorial interallié, un ‘mémorial de la paix’ qui exprime cependant un refus de démobiliser les esprits.
- Stefan Kurz (HGM, University of Vienna): A common museum for a common army beyond the nation? The ‘k.u.k. Heeresmuseum’ in Vienna and its claim to represent a supranational Austro-Hungarian view on the First World War.
- Prof. Dr. Georgi Verbeeck (Maastrich University and University of Leuven): Remembering the First World War in Belgium - From National to Global Perspectives.
- Anna Isaieva (Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kiev): Visual representation of colonial troops in British and French commemoration projects of the Centennial of the Great War.
- Mateusz Mazzini (Polish Academy of Sciences): The 100 years of Today. Poland`s WWI commemorations and the meta-memory of independence.

15.30 Coffee Break

15.50 Keynote II: Prof. Dr. Maartje Abbenhuis (University of Auckland):
«Global war, global Switzerland: Neutrals at the heart of the First World War»
Room KOL-F-101
16.45 Coffee Break

17.00 VIII. Panel: Neutrality and Diplomacy in the Global War
Chair: Prof. Dr. Philip Dwyer (University of Newcastle, Australia)
- Dr. Michael Auwers (University of Antwerp): Away with Neutrality. The ‘Colonial’ Coup of Belgian Diplomacy during the First World War.
- Elisabeth Marie Piller (Norwegian University of Science and Technology): The Great War and the Power of Neutrality: The Commission for Relief in Belgium and the Global Public ‘Conscience’
- Annalise Higgins (Trinity College, Cambridge): The international status of interoceanic canals after the First World War.
18.20 Coffee Break
18.40 Keynote III: Prof. Dr. Harald Fischer-Tiné (ETH Zurich) KOL-F-101
“Cheering up Soldiers, educating Civilians: The transnational Activities of the Indian YMCA during the Great War (1914-1920)”
19.30 Conference Dinner (optional) in the Old Town

Day 3 Friday February 2

09.00 Keynote IV: Main building, Room KOL-F-117
Prof. Dr. Annette Becker (University of Nanterre, Paris)
“The Ordeal of Civilians in a Globalized War”

10.00 IX. Panel: Religion and Diplomacy KOL-F-117
Chair: Dr. Gleb J. Albert (University of Zurich)
- Christoph Valentin (University of Münster): Between humanitarianism and own political interests. The politics of the Holy See during the First World War.
- Dr. Maik Schmerbauch (University of Frankfurt): The Catholic Church and the German Revolution 1918-1919 in the view of the catholic press.
- Joanna Simonow (ETH Zurich): Missionary Networks and the Global Response to Famine in India in the Wake of the First World War, c.1918-1920.
- Dr. Martin Arndt (University of Zagreb): Jews between the Frontlines.

11.20 X. Panel: From War to Peace
Chair: Dr. Steve Marti (Ontario, Canada).
- Dr. Jasper M. Trautsch (University of Regensburg): The Significance of the First World War for the Conceptual History of the West.
- Lukasz Mieszkowski (Imre Kertesz Kolleg Jena): A Foreign Lady – The Polish Episode in the influenza pandemic of 1918.
- Radhika Singha (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi): Terminating the war, conserving its trace: India 1918 – 1921.
- Dr. Ángel Alcalde (Center for the History of Global Development, Shanghai University): War Veterans as transnational actors – Veterans “Internationalisms” after World War I.
- Michaela Oberreiter (University of Vienna): The state structure of the Western Ukrainian People`s Republic and the Austrian legal heritage.

12.40 Lunch at Cafeteria of the University

14.00 Keynote V: Room KOL-F-117
Prof. Dr. Hans-Lukas Kieser (University of Newcastle and Zurich):
“Istanbul in the 1910s: A Hub of Diplomacy and Global Conflict”

15.00 XI. Panel: The Global Middle East – From Sideshow to Violent Epicenter KOL-F-117
Chair: Prof. Dr. Hans-Lukas Kieser (University of Newcastle and Zurich)
- Remzi Cagatay Cakirlar (Leiden University): Édouard Herriot, a vanguard French Radical endorsing the Young Turks` cause at the Dawn of the Great War.
- Dr. Jonathan Krause (King’s College London; University of Oxford): The Global Anticolonial Backlash, 1916-17.
- Carl-Leo Graf von Hohenthal (University of Freiburg): Ireland in Palestine? Jews, Arabs, Britons and new perspectives on the fight for the future of Mandate Palestine.
- Simona Berhe (University of Milan): From Colonial War to World War – Lybia during the First World War.
- Sebastian Willert (TU Berlin): Cultural Imperialism versus Protectionism? On the role of the Deutsch-türkische Denkmalschutz-Kommando during the First World War.

16.50 Coffee Break

17.10 XII. Panel: A New Order – International Law and Relations
Chair: Dr. Michael Auwers (University of Antwerp)
- Arno Barth (Duisburg-Essen University): „Nothing should be left to chance“ – Regulatory Models of Western Peace Planning.
- Dr. Aimé Raoul Sumo Tayo (Université de Yaoundé I, Cameroun): Finir un conflit: les modalitiés de sortie de guerre en Afrique pendant la Première Guerre Mondiale.
- Dr. Jan Pajor (University of Lodz): The United States and China`s entry into WWI.
- Prof. Dr. Michael Neiberg (US Army War College): America's Road to War, 1914-1917.

Final Comments and Discussion

Optional dinner in the Old Town with city tour