Master of Arts / Department of History / Andrew Orr / The history of Italy during World War I has often been characterized by the eleven bloody and inconsequential battles on the Isonzo River from 1915 to 1917. The twelfth battle, Caporetto, was one of the most lopsided defeats of the war. The subsequent development of an inter-Allied Supreme War Council has often been portrayed as a British and French creation with little Italian input. However, the defeat at Caporetto actually signified the rapid escalation of Italy’s influence among her Allies. Combined with American tentativeness and Russian collapse, the winter of 1917-1918 offered key Italian leaders the opportunity to manipulate debates on Allied strategy. Ultimately, the Italians could not keep true to the promises they made during a succession of inter-Allied conferences. This failure led to indecision by Italian leaders during the critical campaigns of 1918 and disillusionment in Italy itself during the post-war era.

La justice militaire est un champ historique encore peu exploré, y compris par les spécialistes de la justice en France. Les travaux récents menés sur le sujet témoignent cependant d'une actualité historiographique réelle. A partir de l'activité judiciaire du conseil de guerre de Tours entre 1875 et 1913, nous revenons sur les débats autour de la réforme de la justice militaire qui ont marqué la vie politique en France, notamment entre l'affaire Dreyfus et la Grande Guerre. Ces débats, qui n'ont rien de franco-français, sont alors particulièrement vifs au Parlement et au sein de sociétés comme la Société générale des Prisons. Pointant les nombreux dysfonctionnements de cette justice d'exception, ils aboutissent à de nombreux projets ou propositions de loi entre 1898 et 1913. S'appuyant sur une base de données constituée à partir des registres de jugements du conseil de guerre de Tours et enrichie par l'ouverture des dossiers de procédure, cette étude suit la marche de la procédure militaire. Elle se penche sur la légitimité de la justice militaire lors des premières décennies de la IIIe République, la compétence des tribunaux militaires en temps de paix, l'instruction, les prévenus et les infractions poursuivies, le déroulement de l'audience, les garanties procédurales, les peines prononcées et leur exécution. Faisant le choix d'étudier les pratiques judiciaires, elle examine les articulations entre les différents modes de règlement des conflits au sein de l’armée (infra-judiciaire, discipline et justice) ainsi que les logiques ou stratégies répressives pour réguler des peines particulièrement lourdes, considérées et/ou dénoncées comme telles. / The historical field of military justice is rarely explored even by specialists of justice in France. Recent research on this subject has revealed however that genuine historiographical issues are at stake. Taking the judicial activity of the WarCouncil of Tours between 1875 and 1913 as a starting point, the debate returns to the reform of military justice which had an impact on French political life especially from the Dreyfus affair to the Great War. These debates, which were not uniquely French, were particularly lively in Parliament and among societies such as the Société Générale des Prisons. They pointed out the numerous dysfunctions of unconventional justice and led to many bills of parliament between 1898 and 1913. Based on the judgement records and open case files of the War Council of Tours, this study follows the path of military procedure. It looks into the legitimacy of military justice during the first decades of the Third Republic, the competence of military courts in time of peace, investigation, the defendants’ offences, hearing procedures, procedural guarantees,sentences given and their execution. Taking judiciary practices as a focus, it studies the different ways of resolving conflict within the army (infra-judicial, discipline and justice) together with repressive logic and strategies to regulate heavy penalties, considered or denounced as such in particular.

This study examines the Allied notion of victory and how it was expressed in the depth of Allied strategic planning in 1918 for a campaign in 1919. Using the Supreme War Council (SWC) as a lens this study's arguments are threefold. The first is that, with the creation of the SWC, the Allies pursued a notion of victory that was focused on a decisive military defeat of the German army. Their timeline to victory over the enemy was affected by their perception of the enemy’s strength, their assessment of the difficulties inherent in overcoming the military advantage offered by the Central Powers' interior lines, their appraisal of the European members' morale to continue the war, and their ability to gather the necessary superiority in material and manpower resources. The second argument is that, through the SWC, the Allies were able to successfully coordinate strategy and resources. This study analyses the workings of the SWC as an international body and an early example of modern alliance warfare, comparing the perspectives of the British, French, American and Italian representatives in their willingness and unwillingness to coordinate national needs with alliance ones, arguing that the coalition did form a unified policy and strategy for the campaign in 1919. The abrupt ending of the war has obscured historians' understanding of coalition warfare in the First World War, as they have not sufficiently considered the serious planning that took place for 1919. Third, it argues that at the SWC level, the coalition members recognized the interdependent nature of the theatres, and thus the importance of all them for the conduct of the war.