| Filename | constructing-the-enemy-within.pdf |
| Filesize | 211.37 KB |
| Version | 1 |
| Date added | 11 September 2019 |
| Downloaded | 798 times |
| Category | Articles |
Published version of article published as Brett Holman, ‘Constructing the enemy within: rumours of secret gun platforms and Zeppelin bases in Britain, August-October 1914’, British Journal for Military History 3, no. 2 (2017), 22-42. Also available at British Journal for Military History. Details here. PDF format.
Abstract: This article explores the false rumours of secret German gun platforms and Zeppelin bases which swept Britain in the early months of the First World War and climaxed with the fall of Antwerp in October 1914, so persistently that they were repeatedly investigated by both the police and the military. They were the latest manifestation of a long-standing myth- complex around the threatening figure of an enemy within. They also represent an important moment in the British people’s imaginative transition between the cautious optimism of the early months and the increasingly obvious likelihood of a long, total war.
Paul Drye
Thanks for this. I stumbled across it while researching the Swedish mystery airplane flap of the 1930s as part of a footnote to a bit I'm writing about the Swedish Ghost Rockets. I'm looking forward to getting a broader picture this afternoon once I'm finished footnoting and can settle down with my iPad for a read.
Brett Holman
Post authorI hope you find it useful! Please feel free to post a link here -- I see your post on the ghost rockets is up already. My more recent mystery aircraft posts can be found here.
Peter Garwood
I try downloading the Scareship Age and get nothing but pages of indecipherable text.
What am I doing wrong?
Brett Holman
Post authorI was able to download it, and it opened just fine for me. What ebook reader are you using?
JDK
I just tried a bit of experimentation, and attempting to download (clicking on the download button) the EPUB version without an EPUB reader on Firefox got the wall of junk text in a browser window. Downloading an EPUB reader, and trying again solved the problem. (Mac, Firefox).
Brett Holman
Post authorYes, it's quite possible there's no ebook reader software installed. Amazon makes some pretty slick, free Kindle software for MOBI, and there's Adobe Digital Editions for EPUB, also free. Of course there are others too.
jerrywarriner
The PDF version refused to download, so I downloaded the document as an EPUB. I found a converter on the Web at http://www.convertfiles.com/convert/ebook/EPUB-to-PDF.html.
It worked beautifully.
The Munich crisis is my favorite topic of the interwar years. I have more books, documents, documentaries and articles on that than almost any other subject from the period.
I'm in Heaven! Thanks for providing this valuable information.
Brett Holman
Post authorYou're welcome. Sorry you had problems with the PDF (it downloads okay for me) but I'm glad you were able to find a workaround!
Jenny Sloggett
Thank you for making these article available. I look forward to the Next War in the Air. I am a PhD student with the University of Newcastle and my topic involves civil and military defence preparations in south-eastern Australia from 1935 to 1945 (NSW, Qld, Vic), particularly the involvement of state and local governments. The impact of the British example and British instructions for defence planning cannot be overestimated.
Whilst I was in Melbourne last April for the 1942 Shadow of the War conference, I picked up a copy of At Home and Under Fire: air raids and culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz by Susan R Grayzel (Cambridge University Press, 2012). It make a useful supplement to Terence O'Brien's volume of the official history on civil defence in Great Britain because of its focus on popular literature and use of letters and diaries as sources.
Brett Holman
Post authorThat's a great topic. I read Kate Darian-Smith's book on Melbourne during the war a while back; Richard Waterhouse is also doing some interesting work on the panic in Australia after the fall of Singapore (which I mentioned here). I'd love to know more.
I'm actually writing a review of Grayzel's book for a journal at the moment, or not writing as the case may be…
Christopher
What the article says about the psychological aspects of the scare is fascinating. It might be worthwhile to explore if this links to the paranoia about empire and the threats to the latter.
Brett Holman
Post authorInteresting idea. Of course the danger to the Empire was always implicit in the question of the Navy, and sometimes explicit (particularly in the colonies themselves), but I can't think of any real imperial dimension to the airship panic. It was very much focused on the security of the British Isles themselves. Something to look out for, though -- thanks.
Gary Ball
Thanks for this, a great resource as I am researching airships over Wales as part of a centenary project.
http://www.projectzerohistorymatters.blogspot.co.uk and was not aware of the extent of the scare ship stories.
Brett Holman
Post authorGlad you've found something useful here. South Wales was an epicentre of phantom airship sightings in both 1909 and 1913. It's hard to imagine that E. T. Willows isn't connected somehow, though it seems clear he wasn't actually present at the time, so I suspect inspiration more than anything else.