Fighting with the Frogs, Part 0

As promised months ago, I'm finally going to start blogging the interesting bits from my MPhil dissertation. I start my PhD at Brown next week, so, while I'll be busy with reading, I should also have the flexibility to devote 45 minutes to blogging a few times a week.

For now, some background.

Back in 2004-2005 I did an MPhil in modern European history at the University of Cambridge. My dissertation was, rather clumsily, entitled "British attitudes towards France during the early months of the First World War, July-December 1914." I had wanted to call it "Fighting with the Frogs," but the degree committee must have found it a bit flip as they silently amended it.

My initial attraction to representations of France in wartime came, no doubt, from the torrents of Francophobia in America that accompanied the beginning of the war in Iraq. Freedom fries and all that. I was curious to see if the same phenomenon had happened (in reverse) when Britain and France joined forces in the summer of 1914.

My broader interest in how people make use of the past also drew me to the topic. There's a long history of conflict between Britain and France, of course, and I wanted to see exactly what the British did with that past once their old enemies became their new friends.

As you'll see, I discovered plenty of newspaper articles and editorials that helped me answer those questions, and more.