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6 - Private Memory

from Part II - Memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2019

Justin Fantauzzo
Affiliation:
Memorial University of Newfoundland
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Summary

Chapter 6 examines the private memory of ex-servicemen who fought in the Middle East and Macedonia. It uses a source not meant to influence public opinion at all: scrapbooks. This chapter makes two arguments. First, it argues that scrapbooks were spaces of private memory and, to borrow from Pierre Nora, sites of memory. British and Dominion soldiers who had photographed the war and spent most of their service in the Middle East and Macedonia had to remember the war differently. Their campaigns bore little resemblance to the conflict on the Western Front. Ex-servicemen used scrapbooks as a way of actively constructing a past that was both recognisable and acceptable to them. Some ex-servicemen pictured the war as a relentless struggle against the Ottomans or Bulgarians, and the harsh climatic and environmental conditions of the Middle East and Macedonia. Others pictured the war as an exciting episode of travel. Others still pictured the war in chronological order, slotting their personal experience of the war into the narrative. While publicly, in memoirs, ex-servicemen made a number of claims that were meant to compete with the Western Front, privately, in scrapbooks, ex-servicemen focused almost entirely on travel, tourism, and camaraderie.

Type
Chapter
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The Other Wars
The Experience and Memory of the First World War in the Middle East and Macedonia
, pp. 205 - 219
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Private Memory
  • Justin Fantauzzo, Memorial University of Newfoundland
  • Book: The Other Wars
  • Online publication: 28 November 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108782067.007
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  • Private Memory
  • Justin Fantauzzo, Memorial University of Newfoundland
  • Book: The Other Wars
  • Online publication: 28 November 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108782067.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Private Memory
  • Justin Fantauzzo, Memorial University of Newfoundland
  • Book: The Other Wars
  • Online publication: 28 November 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108782067.007
Available formats
×