New Book Chronicles WWI In The East

Sunday, November 11, 2018, marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Although much has been written about the Western Front in World War I, little attention has been given to developments in the east, especially during the crucial period of 1914-1915. Not only did these events have a significant impact on the fighting and outcome of the battles in the west, but all the major combatants in the east ultimately suffered collapses of their political systems with enormous consequences for the future.

Available for the first time in English, The Forgotten Front: The Eastern Theater of World War I, 1914-1915, edited by Gerhard P. Gross, features contributions from established and rising scholars from eight different countries who argue from German, central, and eastern European perspectives. Together, they illuminate diverse aspects of the Great War's Eastern Theater that have received scant attention in Western scholarship, including military strategy and combat, issues of national identity formation, perceptions of the enemy, the experiences of POWs, and links to World War II.

The contributors also look beyond the history of events in the east to show how they have been remembered in the years since. Eva Horn, professor of literary studies, analyzes German literature or the war, while professor of Slavic studies, Birgit Menzel, looks at Russian wartime literature. Historian and journalist Christine Beil shows how museums presented the war in exhibitions-both while it was being waged and in the years that followed. Gundula Bavendamm brings the story into the twenty-first century by discussing "The First World War on the Internet."

The scholarship on the First World War is dominated by the trauma of the modern, technologized war in the west, causing the significant political events and battles on the Eastern Front to shift to the background. The Forgotten Front illuminates overlooked, but vital, aspects of the conflict and will be an essential resource for students and scholars seeking to better understand the war and its legacy.

Colonel Gerhard P. Gross, Bundeswehr, is head of the Department of German Military History before 1945 at the Bundeswehr Center for Military History and Social Sciences in Potsdam. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles, including The Myth and Reality of German Warfare: Operational Thinking from Moltke the Elder to Heusinger, and coeditor of The Schlieffen Plan: International Perspectives on the German Strategy for World War I.