Violence against prisoners of war in the First World War : Britain, France and Germany, 1914-1920 / Heather Jones.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

pt. 1. Propaganda representations of violence against prisoners -- Encountering the "enemy" : civilian violence towards prisoners of war in 1914 -- Legitimate and illegitimate violence against prisoners : representations of atrocity, 1914-1916 -- part 2. Violence and prisoner of war forced labour -- The development of prisoner of war labour companies on the Western Front : the spring reprisals of 1917 -- From discipline to retribution : violence in German prisoner of war labour companies in 1918 -- Inevitable escalation? : British and French treatment of forced prisoner labour, 1917-1918 -- part 3. The end of violence? : repatriation and remembrance -- Contested homecomings : prisoner repatriation and the formation of memory, 1918-1921 -- La grande illusion : the interwar historicisation of violence against prisoners of war, 1922-1939 -- Epilogue: The legacy of First World War captivity in 1939-1945 -- Conclusion.

"In this groundbreaking new study, Heather Jones provides the first in-depth and comparative examination of violence against First World War prisoners. She shows how the war radicalised captivity treatment in Britain, France, and Germany, dramatically undermined international law protecting prisoners of war, and led to new forms of forced prisoner labour and reprisals, which fuelled wartime propaganda that was often based on accurate prisoner testimony. This book reveals how, during the conflict, increasing numbers of captives were not sent to home front camps but retained in Western Front working units to labour directly for the British, French, and German armies--in the German case, by 1918, prisoners working for the German Army endured widespread malnutrition and constant beatings. Dr. Jones examines the significance of these new, violent trends and their later legacy, arguing that the Great War marked a key turning-point in the twentieth century evolution of the prison camp."

"The First World War unleashed a paroxysm of violence, both within Europe and overseas. Marking a major radicalisation of warfare, the extent of this violence and its effect on societies has long attracted the attention of scholars. In the interwar period, accounting for how violence was collectively represented and sanctioned through cultural practices was an underlying theme of the work of Marc Bloch, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Norton Cru, among others. Later military historians analysed the brutal nature of trench combat on the Western Front in enormous detail. More recently, there has been a new wave of historical analysis, exploring the cultural context of combatant violence, both on the battlefield and against civilian populations."