From the “New Republic” to the Spanish Flu: the Azores and the Armistice
II International Congress

Faial Theatre, Horta, Faial, Azores, 18-20 October 2018
Azores Military Museum, Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores, 15-17 November 2018

Sidónio Pais died on December 14, 1918, murdered in Lisbon. As a republican, he would successively occupy the positions of deputy, senator, minister and ambassador, returning to Portugal when the First World War was already predicted. In power by the conspiracy that established the “New Republic” (1917-18), he would lead a confederation of disgruntled republicans, monarchists, clericals and anti-war forces, and legitimize the presidency by elections, exercising a mixed power of authoritarianism and populism. His homicide left the country in great political, economic and social instability, aggravated by the Spanish flu, the Influenza A virus.

In the Azores, the year of 1918 was marked by the war in the sea; the Spanish Flu; the Azores Detachment of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and the High Commissar of the Republic, General Simas Machado, was sent by the President of the Republic to control the civil, military and diplomatic areas in the archipelago. To this scenario were added the war in the sea, the TSF and submarine cables and the communication of the Armistice to North America; a German POW in Terceira island and a deep trade crisis, with big social misery, promoted in many cases by the action of hoarders.

This meeting aims to analyze the last year of World War I, with particular emphasis on the Azores in its relationship with the Atlantic, belligerence, economic crisis, communications and Atlantic ports, and international affairs with Sidonism and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Likewise, 1918 also marks a year of profound reflection about the hygienic-sanitary conditions, and is even a starting point for the study of war traumas or morpho-functional sciences / biomedical engineering, to which we can ally the relevance of the female activism, with some echoes in the Azores.

The organizing committee calls for proposals that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

The maritime and terrestrial dimension of the involvement of the Azores in World War I;
The naval and submarine war;
The Atlantic and telecommunications during the Great War;
The maritime connections in the Trenches War, or in the colonies;
The Sidonism and the High Commissioner of the Republic for the Azores;
Health services, health conditions and the Spanish Flu;
The Armistice and the return to normality;
Women’s Emancipation.


Submission deadline: 17 July 2018

Submission process: Please send your identification (name, institutional affiliation and mail address), Paper title, place of preference (Horta/Ponta Delgada), Abstract (maximum 700 words), and academic CV (1 page) via mail to: azoreswar@gmail.com

Working languages: English, Portuguese (no simultaneous interpretation is available).

Organising committee:

Ana Paula Pires (IHC – NOVA FCSH and Stanford University)
Rita Nunes (Comité Olímpico de Portugal and IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Sérgio Rezendes (IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Manuel Marchã (Museu Militar dos Açores)
Carlos Lobão (Escola Secundária Manuel de Arriaga /CHAM Açores)


Scientific committee:

António Paulo Duarte (IDN and IHC – NOVA FCSH)
Carolina Garcìa Sanz (Universidad de Sevilha)
Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses (University of Maynooth)
Luís Manuel Vieira de Andrade (Universidade dos Açores)
Maria Inès Tato (CONICET and Universidad de Buenos Aires)