English Life in the First World War

This book, which is a part of the English life series, tells the story of life on the home front in the First World War. It aims to present a panoramic picture of English social history at that time by using eye-witness descriptions and a variety of photographs, engravings and cartoons. The contemporary accounts and illustrations serve to draw the reader's attention to the great changes in everyday English life brought about by the First World War: the enthusiastic young recruits who paraded the streets and crowded the railway stations, the women doing jobs previously reserved for men, and the propaganda posters on every hoarding. The text covers the grim realities of war: air-raids by German Zeppelins and Gotha bombers, the dreaded telegram announcing a relative's death, food queues and rationing. The author shows how State power grew rapidly as the country was organized for the massive war effort. The individual, remarkably free of state control before 1914, became part of the collective state created by war, one of the crowd fanned by propaganda into a frenzy of anti-German hysteria, or relentlessly controlled by regulations concerning every detail of daily life. The text is supported by a glossary, a further reading list and an index...