@article{discovery1476595,
          number = {346},
            note = {This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Hewitson, M; (2016) German Soldiers and the Horror of War: Fear of Death and the Joy of Killing in 1870 and 1914. History: the journal of the Historical Association , 101 (346) pp. 396-424. 10.1111/1468-229X.12234, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.12234. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.},
           pages = {396--424},
         journal = {History},
          volume = {101},
           title = {German Soldiers and the Horror of War: Fear of Death and the Joy of Killing in 1870 and 1914},
           month = {July},
            year = {2016},
            issn = {1468-229X},
          author = {Hewitson, M},
        abstract = {This chapter investigates the relationship between the legitimization of acts
of aggression in wars and the outlawing of violence at home. It focuses on
soldiers' responses to violence during the transition from nineteenth century
warfare to total war, which relied not only on mass conscription
but also on the mobilization of civilians. In the 'wars of the masses' of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century - the Franco-German War
(1870-71) and the First World War (1914-18) - large numbers of
individuals were required to kill on behalf of the state. For 'more developed
industrial states', this was the point at which, as Norbert Elias recognized,
'the gradient between pacification within the state and the threat between
states is often especially steep.' Soldiers were thus caught between a taboo
on aggression and killing in civilian life, and the encouragement and
rewarding of violence during wartime. The article points to important
similarities between combatants' responses in 1870 and 1914 whilst also
accepting that the inhibition of aggression had become more pronounced
by 1914, despite more widespread expressions of national feeling, which
served to legitimize the violent actions of conscript soldiers. At the same
time, the reversal of civilized norms took place quickly during modern wars
and with lasting effects during peacetime. Under certain conditions, acts of
violence, the prohibition of which was supposedly necessary for the very
existence of civilized societies, were rapidly accepted as a part of warfare
and seem subsequently to have been accepted by sections of civil society.},
             url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.12234}
}