Imperial & Transnational Histories of War
Jake Gasson (KCL), The Social Dynamics of Imperial War: Service Records and the Global History of Mobilisation in the British Empire during the Second World War

Wartime mobilisation during the Second World War generated unprecedented quantities of data about society. Attestation, medical, and demobilisation forms contained information as varied as date of birth, address, physique, ethnicity, civilian occupation, and service history. Yet, the rich social history potentially ‘hidden’ in service records has remained largely out of reach. Only four out of the eighteen million German records for the war have survived and around 80 per cent of American files were lost in a fire in 1973. Until recently, moreover, the vast extant archives across the former British Empire remained closed. But the unique and transformative opportunity for building a transnational social profile of a people in armed service to the state offered by these collections is becoming ever more attainable. This paper utilises record samples examined by the National Army Museum and King’s College London funded Forces Record Project to explore how such sources can not only transform our understanding of the individual experience of the conflict but provide a more inclusive picture of how the British Empire fought a world war. In part, this paper is methodological, outlining the challenges of using underutilised process-generated data in comparative transnational perspective. Exemplar files for Australian, British, Canadian, East African, Ghanaian, Sierra Leonean, and New Zealand service reveal how local variations as much as imperial commonalities determined the information contained therein and how this was recorded. On the other hand, through unit case studies, this paper reveals how service records, in detailing the journeys of servicemen from enlistment to the battlefield, shed light on variations in service and sacrifice across the empire as well as reveal the transnational ties of belonging created by intra-imperial migration. In doing so, this paper outlines the methodological and evidential basis for more comprehensively interrogating surviving collections of service records.

Salvador Lima (EUI), Transnational Trajectories in the French Foreign Legion. Warfare, Politics and Migrations in Europe and the Mediterranean, 1919-1939

The French Foreign Legion was a colonial military corps created to mobilise expendable military assets to the empire. As a professional unit that did not demand documentation from potential volunteers, it was a seductive destination for economic migrants, defeated soldiers and exiled activists. This proposal addresses the transnational trajectories of foreign legionnaires in the interwar period, from their home countries through France to the imperial territories. The years from 1919 to 1939 were marked by turmoil in Europe and the Mediterranean, impacting the recruitment, organisation, and esprit de corps of the Legion. European civil wars, colonial conflicts, rearmament campaigns and political radicalisation shaped global migration patterns and influenced the availability of recruits, as well as the overall direction of the Legion. Having its headquarters in Marseille, the Maghreb and Syria, most legionnaires would serve and circulate over the military outposts of the Mediterranean basin for the duration of their contracts. This paper aims to provide a twofold analysis of foreign legionnaires through a combination of French military documents, soldiers’ memoirs, and press articles. First, I intend to explore how military events in Europe and the Mediterranean had an impact on the Foreign Legion’s manpower and morale. The transnational and global dimensions of France’s most renowned colonial corps could serve to understand different perspectives on the interconnected networks between European powers’ politics and their Mediterranean empires. Then, I aim to explore the intersection of personal circumstances and ideological factors that shaped the legionnaires’ transnational journeys. As colonial soldiers and foreign volunteers, they offer an alternative perspective on the relationship between the army and the state; their motivations and experiences may suggest that military actors in the colonies functioned with a certain degree of autonomy from prevailing political or nationalist ideologies.
Date: 12 March 2025, 14:00
Venue: Venue to be announced
Speakers: Jake Gasson (King's College London), Salvador Lima (European University Institute)
Organising department: Faculty of History
Organisers: Suchintan Das (Oxford), Sana Shah (Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: admin@oxfordtghs.com
Part of: Transnational & Global History Seminar
Booking required?: Recommended
Booking url: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/gs5JspLfRnWHG9EDbmSoew#/registration
Audience: Public
Editor: Suchintan Das