Mars and Minerva: centres of geographical calculation in an age of total war

Abstract

This article examines both the political and strategic significance of geographical research during World War I and the wider impact of this period on the development of the discipline. Drawing on recent work on the history of geography and on the social and cultural history of war, the essay considers how the expertise of renowned geographers was 'mobilised' by the political and military leaderships in three Allied nations: Britain, France and the USA. Geographical knowledge was clearly recognised as important both for the development of strategic military objectives and in the formulation of wider geopolitical war aims. As a result, co-ordinated projects and new research initiatives were developed in each of these three states, centred on the principal geographical societies, to assist the military and political authorities. In each case, a pre-war scientific rhetoric that had emphasised the disinterested, objective and international nature of geographical inquiry was firmly rejected. Although ostensibly committed to a common cause, the war-time activities of British, French and American geographers also reflected divergent national intellectual traditions and the very different strategic and geopolitical objectives of each state. The essay concludes with a discussion of the moral and ethical questions raised by deployment of science in time of war.