Civilian experience of World War 1 in the Mediterranean

Famous for its Western Front, the First World War was far from a conflict restricted to the trenches of Northern France and Flanders. The First World War unleashed a series of land and sea fronts across the Mediterranean, including the maritime blockade of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary, the Gallipoli, Salonika, and Palestine land fronts, and the Central Power’s unrestricted submarine campaign. From Venice to the Dalmatian coast, from the shoreline of Anatolia to North African port cities, the war interrupted and disrupted civilian life. In this year’s Armistice Public Lecture, Dr Heather Jones, Professor of Modern and Contemporary European History at University College London, will explore the impact of the conflict in the Mediterranean on civilians, focusing on aerial bombardment, blockade, and population displacement. It will examine why the war’s effects on civilians were rapidly forgotten and how reincorporating them impacts how we understand the totalising processes of violence that were at the heart of the First World War.

For more information contact; Telephone Number: 07966 830 923 

Email Address: a.s.leoussi@reading.ac.uk