1st Edition
Domestic Surveillance and Social Control in Britain and France during World War I
Domestic Surveillance and Social Control in Britain and France during World War I examines the rapid development and expansion of agencies and governmental power to monitor and control the homefront in Britain and France during World War I. It documents the rapid shift in focus from the feared but unimportant threat of German espionage toward homegrown radicals. The book utilizes a vast array of documents generated during the war by top-level government committees, intelligence agencies, and police services as it demonstrates the emergence of mass domestic surveillance. Detailing how events and ideas in one country impacted the other, the book argues that Britain and France developed remarkably similar intelligence agencies and policies due to their shared experiences before, during, and after the war.
This book will appeal to students and scholars alike, though its moderate length and chronological approach make it accessible to a wider audience. Additionally, it will fit a number of courses, including studies of the state, intelligence studies, and modern European history courses.
Introduction
Theorizing Surveillance
The historical development of domestic surveillance in Britain & France from the French Revolution to the mid-18th Century
Fear shifted from the middle and working classes to foreign spies and subversives
A Shared History: The development of domestic surveillance in France and Britain
Methodology, Sources and Organization
Chapter 1: Control through Cooperation, Pre-War through 1914
Britain, The Press and Public Opinion before the War
Silencing and Tracking Dissent
France: The Union Sacrée
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Total War and Internal Surveillance, Britain and France 1915
Britain: Conscientious Objectors and Industrial Unrest on the Clyde
France: Police, Labor movements and Pacifism
Conclusion
Chapter 3: Successful Suppression? 1916
Britain: Crushing Labor and the Anti-War Movement
France: The Last Calm
Conclusion
Chapter 4: 1917: The May Strikes
Lloyd George’s War
France: The Breaking Point
Conclusion
Chapter 5: 1918: The Specter of Communism and the Surveillance of Citizens
Countering Bolshevism in Britain
Le Tigre
Conclusion
Chapter 6: The Uneasy Aftermath
Britain: The Battle of George Square
Victory and Defeat in France
Conclusion
Conclusion
Bibliography
Biography
Gary Edward Girod received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 2021. He researches World War I-era domestic intelligence and labor. His article “The women who make the guns” (2019) examines women munition workers in Paris and Glasgow between 1914 and 1919.
