The Ordeal of Peace

Adam R. Seipp is an Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University, USA

Taking a transnational perspective on demobilization this study demonstrates that the experience of mass industrial war generated remarkably similar pressures within both the defeated and victorious countries. Using as examples the important provincial centres of Munich and Manchester, it examines the experiences of European urban-dwellers from the last year of the war until the early 1920s, showing how peace could bring unexpected difficulties to economies and societies that had rapidly and fully adapted to the demands of industrial world war.

Contents: Introduction: Munich, Manchester, and the demobilization of Europe. 1917-1921; Manchester. Munich, and urban Europe in 1914. Section I Visions of the End: 1917-18 and the Beginnings of Demobilization: 'Do something!': Manchester in transition and war, 1917-18; An immeasurable sacrifice of blood and treasure: Munich at war, 1917-18. Section II 'The Man Afterwards Changed Completely': Demobilizations, Homecomings, and Transformations: 'The fabric of Europe and the world was being remade': the Armistice and after in Manchester; 'We don't want gratitude, we want our rights': demobilization, violence, and politics in Munich, 1919. Section III 'The Dregs of this Bitter Chalice': Crisis and the End of Demobilization, 1920-1921: 'Ordeal by peace': Manchester 1920-21; Scapegoats for a lost war; the crisis of demobilization in Munich, 1920-21; Conclusion: ending and beginning again; Bibliography; Index.