World War I is not normally thought of as a war marked by conflict between soldiers and enemy civilians, in contrast to the wars that succeeded it (World War II and wars of decolonization) or, indeed, to some of those that preceded it (the Balkan Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, the American Civil War, or the Napoleonic Wars in Spain and Austria). In terms of the overall military reality of 1914-18, this is justified. There is no simple rising curve of warfare between soldiers and armed civilians in modern history. The phenomenon varies over time and with a range of factors. In World War I, the defensive preponderance of firepower that kept the principal antagonists locked in trench warfare for four years and that limited the zones under settled enemy occupation also restricted conflict between civilians and soldiers.

Nonetheless, more fluid zones and periods of interaction between soldiers and enemy civilians did occur, most notably during the invasions and mobile warfare of 1914-15, and they brought the issue of civilian resistance and military repression to prominence. Although “atrocities” and “war crimes” included other types of incidents (such as behavior toward wounded soldiers and prisoners, the treatment of occupied or even home populations, aerial bombardment, economic blockade, and unrestricted submarine warfare), the mutual recriminations over civilian aggression and the conduct of war against civilian populations dominated contemporary perceptions of the issue. They lay behind articles 227-230 of the Treaty of Versailles and the subsequent Allied attempts to bring German “war criminals” to trial in 1921. And if we move to the representational universe of the war - the images, values, and symbols through which it was signified by all sides — then this type of “atrocity“ occupied a central place, as its role in contemporary propaganda and its critical deconstruction by postwar intellectuals testify.