The practice of armed volunteering runs through recent European history. It is located in the 19th century, in full bloom, with the volunteers of the Cretan uprisings and those of the Franco-Prussian and Greco-Ottoman wars. It continues to thrive in the next century, with the Garibaldini redshirts and the volunteers of the military conflicts of the 1910s, up to those enlisted in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.

In the long tradition of voluntary military service in the European continent, the 1910s, which are the focus of the studies in this volume, hold a special place. During this period, armed volunteering reached its peak, but also showed the first signs of decline, as the practice of armed service, and the unarmed conscription that often accompanied it, transformed with the emergence, initially in the Balkans, and later in the rest of Europe, of new, "industrial" type of military conflicts. The mass slaughter with mechanical means weakened the romantic and heroic character of armed participation, which fueled the voluntary movements of the 19th century. Moreover, besides the nature of war itself, the terms and ways of participation in military conflicts changed at that time.

The 1910s constitute, from this perspective, a profound turning point in the long history of armed volunteering, both Greek and European. That is precisely why it was chosen as the focal period of this book, in order to highlight, through a comprehensive and multidimensional approach, the radical transformations and particular characteristics of voluntary practice.