Alexander Watson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3597366 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexander Watson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexander |
| FAMILY NAME | Watson |
| SIGNATURE | WATSON A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Goldsmiths University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2135-4556 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Revolutionary Mass Propaganda”
This article examines the German Communist Party’s (KPD’s) propaganda campaign during the Reichstag election in the summer of 1932. It asks why a movement which openly rejected parliamentary democracy fervently contested elections and it analyzes the KPD’s strategy, campaign organization, and publicity. The article argues that the party’s culture created a distinctive electoral appeal. As a Stalinized, heavily bureaucratized party, the KPD ran a …
M eighen M c C rae . Coalition Strategy and the End of the First World War
The First World War was an almighty clash of powerful alliances. Although a predominantly national historiography long obscured this basic truth, the transnational turn of the past two decades has explored how, to beat the Germans and their allies, France, Britain, the United States, and Italy had to cooperate and embrace fraught and difficult compromises. Building on the work of David Stevenson, William Philpott, and, most directly, Elizabeth Gr…
Managing an ‘Army of Peoples’
This article examines the officers who led the Habsburg Army during the First World War. It highlights the complexity of their identities, demonstrating that this went well beyond the a-national – nationalist dichotomy in much historiography. It also argues that these officers' identities had a profound impact on how their army functioned in the field. The article first studies the senior command in 1914–16, showing how its wartime learning proce…
Ring of Steel
For the empires of Germany and Austria-Hungary the Great War - which had begun with such high hopes for a fast, dramatic outcome - rapidly degenerated as invasions of both France and Serbia ended in catastrophe. For four years the fighting now turned into a siege on a quite monstrous scale. Europe became the focus of fighting of a kind previously unimagined. Despite local successes - and an apparent triumph in Russia - Germany and Austria-Hungary…
Unheard-of Brutality
On August 11, 1914, a week and a half after war had broken out between Germany and Russia, a terrified crowd from the East Prussian border village of Radszen appeared at the office of the local district administrator. That morning, the people told him, there had been a clash between a German cavalry patrol and a larger Russian force in their village. When the Germans withdrew, the Russians had burned down almost every building and had "begun to b…
David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall
Bereaved and aggrieved
This article re-examines the role of sacrificial ideology in motivating Germans and Britons to fight between 1914 and 1918. Contrary to current historiography, it contends that the ideology remained relevant in the war's mass slaughter and even exacerbated the violence. It begins by noting the ubiquity of sacrificial rhetoric and symbolism during peacetime and explains their importance in the mobilization of August 1914. It then explores how the …
Culture and Combat in the Western World, 1900–1945
This article reviews recent research investigating the impact of societal culture on combat performance in the western world during the first half of the twentieth century. It identifies two main strands of historiography. One group of studies has focused on societal culture's influence in shaping the form and functioning of military institutions. A second approach adopted by current scholarship has been to examine societal culture's effect on in…
Junior Officership in the German Army during the Great War, 1914—1918
This article reassesses German junior officers' performance in the First World War. Contrary to current historiography, it argues that the peacetime corps's social elitism was successful in ensuring a militarily effective, naturally paternalistic and conscientious leadership. The infamous wartime Offiziershaβ (`officer hate') did not derive from social segregation between ranks but was rather a form of the `front—rear' tension common to all belli…
For Kaiser and Reich
Historiography on the volunteers has maintained that most were young, aggressive, ‘war enthused’ men from the Wilhelmine educated elite, who quickly became disillusioned or broke down when faced with war’s ghastly realities. By analysing a sample of 2584 volunteers from 36 units, examining unpublished letters and diaries, and studying the volunteers’ battle performance, this article questions these beliefs. It argues that in fact volunteers came …
Unheard-of Brutality
On August 11, 1914, a week and a half after war had broken out between Germany and Russia, a terrified crowd from the East Prussian border village of Radszen appeared at the office of the local district administrator. That morning, the people told him, there had been a clash between a German cavalry patrol and a larger Russian force in their village. When the Germans withdrew, the Russians had burned down almost every building and had "begun to b…
Bereaved and aggrieved
This article re-examines the role of sacrificial ideology in motivating Germans and Britons to fight between 1914 and 1918. Contrary to current historiography, it contends that the ideology remained relevant in the war's mass slaughter and even exacerbated the violence. It begins by noting the ubiquity of sacrificial rhetoric and symbolism during peacetime and explains their importance in the mobilization of August 1914. It then explores how the …
For Kaiser and Reich
Historiography on the volunteers has maintained that most were young, aggressive, ‘war enthused’ men from the Wilhelmine educated elite, who quickly became disillusioned or broke down when faced with war’s ghastly realities. By analysing a sample of 2584 volunteers from 36 units, examining unpublished letters and diaries, and studying the volunteers’ battle performance, this article questions these beliefs. It argues that in fact volunteers came …
Culture and Combat in the Western World, 1900–1945
This article reviews recent research investigating the impact of societal culture on combat performance in the western world during the first half of the twentieth century. It identifies two main strands of historiography. One group of studies has focused on societal culture's influence in shaping the form and functioning of military institutions. A second approach adopted by current scholarship has been to examine societal culture's effect on in…
For Kaiser and Reich
Historiography on the volunteers has maintained that most were young, aggressive, ‘war enthused’ men from the Wilhelmine educated elite, who quickly became disillusioned or broke down when faced with war’s ghastly realities. By analysing a sample of 2584 volunteers from 36 units, examining unpublished letters and diaries, and studying the volunteers’ battle performance, this article questions these beliefs. It argues that in fact volunteers came …
Junior Officership in the German Army during the Great War, 1914—1918
This article reassesses German junior officers' performance in the First World War. Contrary to current historiography, it argues that the peacetime corps's social elitism was successful in ensuring a militarily effective, naturally paternalistic and conscientious leadership. The infamous wartime Offiziershaβ (`officer hate') did not derive from social segregation between ranks but was rather a form of the `front—rear' tension common to all belli…
Culture and Combat in the Western World, 1900–1945
This article reviews recent research investigating the impact of societal culture on combat performance in the western world during the first half of the twentieth century. It identifies two main strands of historiography. One group of studies has focused on societal culture's influence in shaping the form and functioning of military institutions. A second approach adopted by current scholarship has been to examine societal culture's effect on in…
Bereaved and aggrieved
This article re-examines the role of sacrificial ideology in motivating Germans and Britons to fight between 1914 and 1918. Contrary to current historiography, it contends that the ideology remained relevant in the war's mass slaughter and even exacerbated the violence. It begins by noting the ubiquity of sacrificial rhetoric and symbolism during peacetime and explains their importance in the mobilization of August 1914. It then explores how the …
David Stevenson, With Our Backs to the Wall
Ring of Steel
For the empires of Germany and Austria-Hungary the Great War - which had begun with such high hopes for a fast, dramatic outcome - rapidly degenerated as invasions of both France and Serbia ended in catastrophe. For four years the fighting now turned into a siege on a quite monstrous scale. Europe became the focus of fighting of a kind previously unimagined. Despite local successes - and an apparent triumph in Russia - Germany and Austria-Hungary…
Unheard-of Brutality
On August 11, 1914, a week and a half after war had broken out between Germany and Russia, a terrified crowd from the East Prussian border village of Radszen appeared at the office of the local district administrator. That morning, the people told him, there had been a clash between a German cavalry patrol and a larger Russian force in their village. When the Germans withdrew, the Russians had burned down almost every building and had "begun to b…
Managing an ‘Army of Peoples’
This article examines the officers who led the Habsburg Army during the First World War. It highlights the complexity of their identities, demonstrating that this went well beyond the a-national – nationalist dichotomy in much historiography. It also argues that these officers' identities had a profound impact on how their army functioned in the field. The article first studies the senior command in 1914–16, showing how its wartime learning proce…
M eighen M c C rae . Coalition Strategy and the End of the First World War
The First World War was an almighty clash of powerful alliances. Although a predominantly national historiography long obscured this basic truth, the transnational turn of the past two decades has explored how, to beat the Germans and their allies, France, Britain, the United States, and Italy had to cooperate and embrace fraught and difficult compromises. Building on the work of David Stevenson, William Philpott, and, most directly, Elizabeth Gr…
Revolutionary Mass Propaganda”
This article examines the German Communist Party’s (KPD’s) propaganda campaign during the Reichstag election in the summer of 1932. It asks why a movement which openly rejected parliamentary democracy fervently contested elections and it analyzes the KPD’s strategy, campaign organization, and publicity. The article argues that the party’s culture created a distinctive electoral appeal. As a Stalinized, heavily bureaucratized party, the KPD ran a …
Law (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · History (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Historiography (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · German (5 works) · History (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact (5 works)