Captivity of the Great War on the Eastern Front: Traditions of «Belle Epoque» and Tendencies of «Total War»

Resumo

Taking the example of the prisoners of war during the First World War, the article analyses the continuity and the discontinuity in the process of the «totalization of acts of war» around which discussions among Western military historians are not likely to calm down any time soon. The simultaneity and the linkage of new tendencies and traditional structures are examined in the example of some important aspects of the German system of captivity: international law, national propaganda, maintenance of officers and soldiers in the camps to which up to now not enough attention has been paid.