The Siege of Strasbourg / Rachel Chrastil.
Chrastil, Rachel, author.
2014
DC308 .C47 2014
Available Online

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Title The Siege of Strasbourg / Rachel Chrastil.
Author Chrastil, Rachel, author.
ISBN 9780674416284
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674416284
Published Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]
Copyright ©2014
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource (302 p.) : 14 halftones, 3 maps
Other Standard Identifiers 10.4159/harvard.9780674416284 doi
Call Number DC308 .C47 2014
Dewey Decimal Classification 944.3954
Summary When war broke out between France and Prussia in the summer of 1870, one of the first targets of the invading German armies was Strasbourg. From August 15 to September 27, Prussian forces bombarded this border city, killing hundreds of citizens, wounding thousands more, and destroying many historic buildings and landmarks. For six terror-filled weeks, "the city at the crossroads" became the epicenter of a new kind of warfare whose indiscriminate violence shocked contemporaries and led to debates over the wartime protection of civilians. The Siege of Strasbourg recovers the forgotten history of this crisis and the experiences of civilians who survived it. Rachel Chrastil shows that many of the defining features of "total war," usually thought to be a twentieth-century phenomenon, characterized the siege. Deploying a modern tactic that traumatized city-dwellers, the Germans purposefully shelled nonmilitary targets. But an unintended consequence was that outsiders were prompted to act. Intervention by the Swiss on behalf of Strasbourg's beleaguered citizens was a transformative moment: the first example of wartime international humanitarian aid intended for civilians. Weaving firsthand accounts of suffering and resilience through her narrative, Chrastil examines the myriad ethical questions surrounding what is "legal" in war and what rights civilians trapped in a war zone possess. The implications of the siege of Strasbourg far exceed their local context, to inform the dilemmas that haunt our own age--in which collateral damage and humanitarian intervention have become a crucial part of our strategic vocabulary.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2021)
In EBOOK PACKAGE Complete Package 2014
EBOOK PACKAGE History 2014
Harvard University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
Linked Resources Online Access
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Frontmatter
Contents
Note to the Reader
Introduction
Chapter one. The Grey Areas
Chapter two. Insiders and Outsiders
Chapter three. Every Twenty Seconds
Chapter four. Victims in the Eye of the Beholder
Chapter five. Carrying On
Chapter six. A Fraternal Hand
Chapter seven. Heroic Measures
Chapter eight. Strassburg
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

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