A century has passed from one of the largest worldwide military conflicts, also known as the Great War. Even though it only took two of decades for Europe to reach for arms again and drag many other countries to an even more devastating war, the experience of World War I receives a more prominent place in the historical memory of several nations than that of World War II. Eastern Europe, however, views WW I as a mere prelude to revolutions, wars of independence and statehood. The aim of an international military history conference on 15th April 2014 organized by the Estonian War Museum — General Laidoner Museum in Tallinn, Estonia is to compare, analyze and synthesize those various emphases.
The 1,600 km long Eastern Front of World War I was much longer than the Western Front, as it reached from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and Caucasus. The countries that battled on the Eastern Front were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia, and Romania. The number of casualties suffered by both sides, which reaches 16 million, speaks eloquently of how many people the War affected. The armies of empires were multinational but by the end of the war, many nations had lost the link with the empires they fought for. World War I led to the self-determination of many nations and the creation of new nation states; nevertheless, mostly independence had to be won in continuation wars fought long after the major powers concluded the Armistice at Compiègne on 11th November 1918. This makes the World War I experience of Eastern Europe much different from what we have become accustomed to reading about from the history books of big nations.
A war always has universal consequences. Injuries and death, coping with loss and shock, the routine of war both on the front and at the civilian rear, relationships of soldiers with their companions and those at home, occupation and perceiving it by the subjugator and subdued, etc. It cannot be left unnoticed that for most survivors, participation in the war was their most important life event — a thing remembered and retold for the rest of their lives.
At the conference a discuss of the following subjects is proposed:
1. National units as the root of future armies
2. The independence movements of national minorities in the service of countries at war (Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, etc.)
3. Political choices: political propaganda from various sources aimed at national units, national vs political ideas, etc.
4. Ober Ost and the United Baltic Duchy
5. Failure of launching the Ukrainian and Belorussian nation states and its causes
6. Occupation policies of Germany and Austria-Hungary primarily in 1918
7. Mobilisation, war and the society, art, arms, uniforms, death, medicine, relations with kin, etc.
8. The interests of major powers in the Baltic Sea region
9. Nationalist movements in neutral countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc.) and the Estonian War of Independence
10. Iron Division, Baltic Landeswehr and the West Russian Volunteer Army led by Bermondt-Avalov: men forgotten in battle
The Estonian War Museum awaits your conference paper proposals (length up to 4,000 characters) in English or Estonian by 10th March 2014 at the latest. Please forward the proposals to conference@esm.ee. We also kindly ask you to send a short CV with an overview of your research work so far. The length of presentations is 20 minutes. The working languages of the conference are English and Estonian. All the presentations in Estonian will be translated into English. The articles based on the presentations will be published in the Estonian Yearbook of Military History of 2015. The Estonian War Museum—General Laidoner Museum will cover the travel and accommodation costs of speakers.