This chapter traces the increasingly rapid changes to stadia and sporting practices in France during the last half of the twentieth century, while simultaneously connecting those transformations to parallel developments beyond French frontiers. The new Parc des Princes, rebuilt between 1967 and 1972, reflected the ongoing processes of modernisation and urbanisation in France during the first thirty years after the Second World War. But the changes to sport and its spaces evident in the new Parc also constituted another aspect of postwar modernisation across Europe itself, constituted by efforts to reinvent mass spectatorship and to accommodate television broadcasting. The Stade de France’s completion in advance of the 1998 World Cup also showcased the way that the stadium in France was now optimistically envisioned as an anchor for highly-symbolic international sporting competitions that projected positive messages about French national prestige and sporting identity. At the same time, the changes to sport and sporting spaces in France were part of a process of sporting globalisation that reflected the increasingly common values placed on stadia as urban spaces in France and other countries in Europe, North America, Oceania and Asia.

In summer 1916, the British authorities established the Cypriot Mule Corps for service in the British army at the Salonica Front. This chapter deals with its formation, answering why and how it was formed, why Cypriot mules and men were selected, and outlining the roles of the various authorities involved. In the absence of a document that discloses why Cypriot mules and drivers were chosen, this chapter suggests prior British experiences. By integrating the local with the global, this chapter shows how the British Empire operated and how Cypriot mules and muleteers were selected for this important war service. A historical survey shows that Cypriot mules and muleteers had good reputations. The organisation and running of the Cypriot Mule Corps was a complex endeavour involving three different authorities: the British military authorities in Salonica; the Cypriot government in Nicosia and Troodos; and the Mule Purchasing Commission.

In this chapter the author attempts to evaluate the genuine reaction within the whole of France by analysing the comments made by persons and organisations who were either involved in the organisation of the Festival or were present at one or other of the actual events. The records are divided between those from official sources and those from individuals and demonstrate. The level of belief which can be given to many of these records, often written in the aftermath of the events of Thermidor is evaluated. Finally the chapter discusses what conclusion can be drawn from the majority of the records

The twentieth century came to be known as the century of the refugee, with the Great War marking the beginning of decades of forced human mobility. This chapter explores the dynamics of the Balkan War in the case of the modern Greek state. It describes the ferment in Ottoman society associated with ideas of nationalism during the nineteenth century. The chapter also describes how this process caused the important population mobility connected to an early attribution of a national identity and the forging of bonds among communities of the Ottoman population with different ethnic communities. It focuses on national antagonisms in the region during the early twentieth century and the turning point of the Balkan Wars. The chapter also focuses on the Great War and the eventual 'nationalisation' of the former Ottoman Empire.

This chapter explores the development of Cypriot society from its late Ottoman period and the first decades of British rule to understand the conditions that pushed and pulled so many Cypriot men to enlist in the Cypriot Mule Corps. During Ottoman rule Cypriot society had greater socio-economic and sociopolitical cleavages than religious or ethnic. Cyprus attained some strategic significance from mid-1916 as a bustling military, humanitarian and provisions base connected to the 'Eastern Campaigns', which impacted on the island. The chapter overviews the impact of the war and the role of Cyprus in it beyond the Cypriot Mule Corps. The war diary of the Director of Supplies and Transport, Salonica, Brigadier-General Arthur Long, shows how valuable Cyprus was for allied supplies in Egypt, Salonica and France.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides plenty of evidence of a dynamic cultural life among communities of refugees and its broader political and social import during wartime. Belgian refugees were sometimes despatched to designated camps in Holland and forced to live in squalid conditions in camps at Gouda, Nunspeet and elsewhere. The book points out that refugees encountered Polish colonies in Moscow, Petrograd and parts of Siberia, where the descendants of Polish rebels were living half a century after the great revolt of 1863. In Eastern Europe and the Balkans, by contrast, armies and civilians were regularly on the move, but the tribulations of refugees have barely registered in the literature.

The third chapter focuses on the stadium’s relationship to the efforts of French sporting elites to create a well-disciplined, deferential and masculine public at spectator sporting events in the period between 1918 and the mid-1950s. During this era, rugby, soccer and cycling became the pre-eminent spectator sports in France, promoted and analysed by a burgeoning media complex. Far from rejoicing at the burgeoning popularity of spectator sport, French sporting journalists and officials sought to ‘improve’ and reshape the crowd, both physically through the stadium and discursively in the narratives about ‘sporting education’ that surrounded it. However, these physical and rhetorical efforts to redefine the sporting public as respectable and masculine were continually undermined by the commercial logic of sport itself and the actual practices of male and female spectators present both inside and outside the stade. Faced with a public that resisted physical and rhetorical discipline and that created its own spectator experience, the journalists and sporting impresarios who promoted French sport slowly and somewhat begrudgingly came to recognize the crowd as a less overtly problematic public of male and female consumers which needed to be recruited and accommodated.