The Great War and Medieval Memory: War, Remembrance and Medievalism in Britain and Germany, 1914–1940

by Stefan Goebel

A genuinely comparative study of the cultural impact of the Great War on British and German societies in the first half of the twentieth century. Taking public commemorations as its focus, this book unravels the British and German search for historical continuity and meaning in the shadow of an unprecedented human catastrophe. In both countries, the survivors of the Great War pictured the conflict as the 'Last Crusade' and sought consolation in imagery that connected the soldiers of the age of total war with the knights of the Middle Ages. Stefan Goebel shows that medievalism as a mode of war commemoration transcended national and cultural boundaries. This is an invaluable contribution to the burgeoning study of cultural memory and collective remembrance which will appeal to researchers and students in the history of the First World War, social and cultural history of warfare and medieval studies.

Genres: History, Medieval, World War I

380 pages, Hardcover

First published January 25, 2007

Reviews

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stefan Goebel's "The Great War and Medieval Memory" is a solid bit of comparative history that examines the ways in which the Middle Ages-its battles, its myths, its codes of conduct-were invoked during the Great War, especially in the memorializing of the dead in the aftermath of the War.

Standard history holds that, as horrifying as the Great War was, the victors and defeated were not left without a semiotics for explaining what had just happened to them and what they had done to each other. Supposedly (and Herr Goebel hews to this conventional wisdom) the Second World War's total nature and deliberate liquidations of civilians left the powers of Europe without the language to commemorate or even really comprehend what had happened to them (Adorno's famous quote about "Lyrical poetry" being impossible after the barbarity of Auschwitz comes to mind as a pretty good example of this thinking).

The study here is of course mainly concerned with World War I, but since its ken widens far enough to take in the "dark ages" and the high Medieval era, it only makes sense that it would also accommodate later periods (up to and including the postwar world, whose architectural and semiotic amnesia resulted in all things big, ugly, and postmodern).

The book is at its best when its focus is narrowest, most concrete, and well ...comparative. Goebel does a very good job of showing how ready the Germans were to invoke all things Medieval and even older (Teutoburg Forest, Charlemagne, the Nibelungenlieder, etc.) and why the English were reticent to bring Camelot and King Arthur into the conversation when memorializing or contextualizing their role and sacrifice in the Great War. Even more fascinating is that Goebel points out that much conflict over the meaning and use of symbols was intra-national rather than international, with some denominations more comfortable with iconographic memorials (Catholics, mainline Church of England adherents) while others were distrustful of what they regarded as the nearly-pagan superstitions of the old church (nonconformists, Calvinists, and Lutherans).

The book is written in academic language, and heavily footnoted so that one sometimes feels like they have to wade through the fine print just to get back to the main topic, but it is generally clearly-written and focused despite the probably necessary (though still distracting) digressions and constant citing of the original sources (usually in German).

Photos, paintings, and other visual materials are well-selected and copious. Many of the images, though in black and white, convey the tragic majesty of stained glass or the solemn, sepulchral eerie peace of stone monuments and cenotaphs. Recommended, especially as a companion piece to anything by Jay Winter (who contributed to the effort here), especially his "Sites of Memory" study.