REPORT Ends & Beginnings, Legacies of the Great War, Saturday 6 July 2019

6 June 2019
by Grainger, Andy
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A one day conference about the legacies of the Great War was held at the National Army Museum on Saturday 6 July.

BCMH, Western Front Association (WFA) and the National Army Museum (NAM) had collaborated to launch it.

  

Justin Maciejeski, Director of the NAM, welcomed us to the Museum, expressing the hope that the Conference would be the first in a series of collaborations with BCMH and WFA.
Hew Strachan opened the programme with a mid-stretching overview of the challenges facing the peacemakers in November 1918. The German peace overtures took everyone by surprise and the relationships between the frocks and brasshats, built up so carefully during the war, felt apart almost instantly. We think of the War ending in 1918 but the final peace agreement was only signed in 1923 and Hew estimated that over twenty wars and conflicts resurfaced or were instituted after the Armstice.
Ireland was the site of one of those conflicts and Richard Grayson presented us with a micro treatment of the impact of the war - and the peace - on the Shankill in Belfast and in Dublin.  Memorialisation in the Shankill today focusses on 1 July 1916 to the virtual exclusion of the large number of those men who served elsewhere, in different formations and units and at different times and places. In Dublin Richard explained the impact of the Dardanelles, the reason why the Easter Rising had so little support initially and how allegiances altered during the post war conflicts.
Catriona Pennell then reflected on the centenary commemorations in the UK and, in particular, the local nature of the projects following the lack of interest by central Government. Lessons had been learnt by the DCMS and the 'Heritage industry', the former now trying, probably too late, to capture something of the many small projects which had benefitted from Lottery funding.  Catriona's talk was very topical and generated particularly strong debate.  She felt that the anniversaries of the Second World WAr would be handled very differently.
In the afternoon Mungo Melvin and Jo Hook respectively discussed how military and civilian audiences could learning from the battlefields. Gary Sheffield concluded with a thought provoking comparison of Gallipoli and D-Day in which he compared the developments in technology and command between 1915 and 1944.  Having attended the Conference on the Falklands at Manchester in April which BCMH sponsored my own mind shot forward to the many parallels sparked by the 1982 war!
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“Ends and Beginnings: Legacies of the Great War” will explore aspects of the conflict following the Armistice on 11 November 1918.  Organised jointly by the British Commission for Military History (BCMH), the National Army Museum (NAM) and the Western Front Association (WFA), the conference will examine the immediate impacts of the war, as well as reflect on the war’s legacy and the way in which it was commemorated during the 2014-18 centenary.
Registration will open at 09.30 and the Conference will start at 10.00.
The Conference will finish at 17.00

Programme

Speakers

Prof Hew Strachan 'Peacemaking after the Great War'

Prof Richard Grayson 'Conflict in Ireland, 1916-23'

Prof Catriona Pennell  ‘Commemoration in 'an era of existential crises': Community history projects and cultural memory of the First World War in Britain, 2014-2018’

Panel:  'Staff Rides, Battlefield Tours, and the First World War Centenary"

Maj Gen Mungo Melvin Ret’d (BCMH)  'Operation REFLECT: Recent Military Learning from the Great War'

Jo Hook MA (Guild of Battlefield Guides) ‘Guiding the Western Front from an Educational and International Perspective’

Gary Sheffield (University of Wolverhampton) ‘Learning “Joint” lessons from the First World War? Gallipoli and D-Day as Staff Rides’

The cost of the Conference is £25 including buffet lunch and tea and coffee at the breaks.

Booking is now open at the National Army Museum website https://www.nam.ac.uk/whats-on/ends-and-beginnings-legacies-great-war

Any difficulties with the booking engine should be addressed to NAM and not to BCMH or WFA.

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