Environmental Consequences of the Peace
The Great War, Dammed Lakes, and Hydraulic History in the Eastern Alps
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12452255 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marc Landry (0009-0003-5480-125X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 422-448 |
| Publication date | 2015-05-08 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1084-5453 • E-ISSN: 1930-8892 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1093/envhis/emv053 |
| OpenAlex | W2285749676 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 4 |
This article examines hydropower development in early twentieth-century Bavaria to suggest the importance of peace settlements in the environmental history of war. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Alpine lake Walchensee became the center of plans to transform the Alpine lake into a reservoir. At this time, engineers across the Alps recommended converting high-altitude lakes into reservoirs. The new infrastructure would deepen the hydroelectric transition in the Alps, enabling the substitution of hydro for coal and expanding water power’s role in the electricity supply. Despite the Bavarian state’s determination to take advantage of the Walchensee’s energy storage capabilities, societal and political opposition brought the project to a standstill on the eve of the First World War. The pressure of total war subsequently convinced Bavarians to move forward; however, crises accompanying the peace settlement of Versailles—above all Germany’s loss of coal reserves due to territorial changes—ensured that Bavaria finally broke ground on the facility in the postwar period. The Walchensee reservoir did fulfill some of its energy promises, but only at the price of dramatic environmental change. The new landscape of energy storage disrupted ecological and human communities alike. Only in the post–World War II period did Bavarians consider revising aspects of this environmental legacy of Versailles
Archaeology · Economic history · Economy · Environmental history · Environmental protection · Geography · Human settlement · Hydroelectricity · Hydropower · Opposition (politics · Period (music · Political science · Politics · World War II · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · European history and politics · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Ecology · History · Law
Building strategic infrastructure and managing scarce resources in a context with divergent interests. The transformation of Lake Idro into an artificial basin (1807–1934)
Kulturen des Reparierens
Uniquely Japan, Uniquely Alpine
From Beirut to Berlin (via Geneva)
The return of nature? Negotiating the ‘renaturation’ of the Isar as an envirotechnical landscape
Waterpower romance
(De)constructing meanings and pathways of water and peace
| Citations per year | 0.88 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |