All Quiet on the Home Front
All Quiet on the Home Front

Author: Richard van Emden

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2017-04-30

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1473891965

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A “fascinating” look at hardship, heroism, and civilian life in England during the Great War (World War One Illustrated). The truth about the sacrifice and suffering among British civilians during World War I is rarely discussed. In this book, people who were there speak about experiences and events that have remained buried for decades. Their testimony shows the same candor and courage we have become accustomed to hearing from military veterans of this war. Those interviewed include a survivor of a Zeppelin raid in 1915; a Welsh munitions worker recruited as a girl; and a woman rescued from a bombed school after five days. There are also accounts of rural famine, bereavement, and the effects on families back home—and even the story of a woman who planned to kill her family to save them further suffering.

The British Home Front 1939–45
The British Home Front 1939–45

Author: Martin Brayley

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-07-20

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 1782001239

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The population of Britain was mobilized to support the war effort on a scale unseen in any other Western democracy – or in Nazi Germany. They endured long working shifts, shortages of food and all other goods, and complete government control of their daily lives. Most men and women were conscripted or volunteered for additional tasks outside their formal working hours. Under the air raids that destroyed the centres of many towns and made about 2 million homeless, more than 60,000 civilians were killed and 86,000 seriously injured. This fascinating illustrated summary of wartime life, and the organizations that served on the Home front, is a striking record of endurance and sacrifice.

The Home Front in World War Two
The Home Front in World War Two

Author: Susie Hodge

Publisher: Casemate Publishers

Published: 2013-02-19

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 178346979X

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This book brings an era to life with vivid stories and information from those who were there. During World War Two, 90% of the British population remained civilians. The War affected daily life more than any other war had done before. The majority of British people faced this will fortitude, courage and determination and this is their story, the telling of events and situations that forced their ingenuity and survival instincts to rise. Make do and mend came to mean so much more than reworking old clothes and this book describes the enterprise that went on and has long been forgotten. From the coasts and the countryside, this is how those at home faced and fought the war passively, particularly women whose job it was to keep the home fires burning. These ordinary people were crucial to the war effort; without their courage and inventiveness, the outcome could have been very different. Packed with interviews, photographs and other firsthand information, this book will appeal to all those who were there, but even more for those with little or no experience of World War Two, who will gain insights into the humor, strength and creativity that emerged in the face of hardship and tragedy. The book explores how people lived in Britain during times of fear, hardship and uncertainty; how they functioned and supported those away fighting and how they dealt with the enormous challenges and adversities

Deserters of the First World War
Deserters of the First World War

Author: Andrea Hetherington

Publisher: Pen and Sword Military

Published: 2021-07-07

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 1526748002

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The story of First World War deserters who were shot at dawn, then pardoned nearly a century later has often been told, but these 306 soldiers represent a tiny proportion of deserters. More than 80,000 cases of desertion and absence were tried at courts martial on the home front but these soldiers have been ignored. Andrea Hetherington, in this thought-provoking and meticulously researched account, sets the record straight by describing the deserters who disappeared from camps and barracks within Great Britain at an alarming rate. She reveals how they employed a range of survival strategies, some ridding themselves of all connection with the military while others hid in plain sight. Their reasons for desertion varied. Some were already living a life of crime whilst others were conscientious objectors who refused to respond to their call-up papers. Boredom, protest, troubles at home or physical and mental disabilities all played their part in men deciding to go on the run. Andrea Hetherington’s timely book gives us a vivid insight into a hitherto overlooked aspect of the First World War.

Facing Armageddon
Facing Armageddon

Author: Hugh Cecil

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2003-04-01

Total Pages: 974

ISBN-13: 1473813972

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Facing Armageddon is the first scholarly work on the 1914-18 War to explore, on a world-wide basis, the real nature of the participants experience. Sixty-four scholars from all over the globe deliver the fruits of recent research in what civilians and servicemen passed through, in the air, on the sea and on land.

British Widows of the First World War
British Widows of the First World War

Author: Andrea Hetherington

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2018-04-30

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1473886783

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Widows of the Great War is the first major account of the experience of women who had to cope with the death of their husbands during the conflict and then rebuild their lives. It explores each stage of their bereavement, from the shock of receiving the news that their husband had been killed, through grief and mourning to the practical issues of compensation and a widow's pension. The way in which the state and society treated the widows during this process is a vital theme running through the book as it reveals in vivid detail how the bureaucracy of war helped and hindered them as they sought to come to terms with their loss. Andrea Hetherington also describes often overlooked aspects of bereavement, and she features many telling first-hand accounts from the widows themselves which show how they saw their situation and how they reacted to it. Her study gives us a fascinating insight into the way in which the armed services and the government regarded war widows during the early years of the twentieth century.

Britain and World War One
Britain and World War One

Author: Alan G. V. Simmonds

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1136629971

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The First World War appears as a fault line in Britain’s twentieth-century history. Between August 1914 and November 1918 the titanic struggle against Imperial Germany and her allies consumed more people, more money and more resources than any other conflict Britain had hitherto experienced. For the first time, it opened up a Home Front that stretched into all parts of the British polity, society and culture, touching the lives of every citizen regardless of age, gender and class. Even vegetables were grown in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. Britain and World War One throws attention on these civilians who fought the war on the Home Front. Harnessing recent scholarship, and drawing on original documents, oral testimony and historical texts, this book casts a fresh look over different aspects of British society during the four long years of war. It revisits the early war enthusiasm and the making of Kitchener’s new armies; the emotive debates over conscription; the relationships between politics, government and popular opinion; women working in wartime industries; the popular experience of war and the question of social change. The book also explores areas of wartime Britain overlooked by recent histories, including the impact of the war on rural society; the mobilization of industry, and the importance of technology, as well as exploring responses to air raids, food and housing shortages; the challenges to traditional social and sexual mores and wartime culture. Britain and World War One is an essential book for all students and interested lay readers of the First World War.

Fighting on the Home Front
Fighting on the Home Front

Author: Kate Adie

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Published: 2013-09-26

Total Pages: 511

ISBN-13: 1444759701

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'History at its most celebratory' Daily Telegraph 'Adie uses her journalistic eye for personal stories and natural compassion to create a book definitely worthy of her heroines' Big Issue 'Fascinating, very readable . . . provides a complete wartime women's history' Discover Your History * * * * * * Bestselling author and award-winning former BBC Chief News Correspondent Kate Adie reveals the ways in which women's lives changed during World War One and what the impact has been for women in its centenary year. IN 1914 THE WORLD CHANGED forever. When World War One broke out and a generation of men went off to fight, bestselling author and From Our Own Correspondent presenter Kate Adie shows how women emerged from the shadows of their domestic lives. Now a visible force in public life, they began to take up essential roles - from transport to policing, munitions to sport, entertainment, even politics. They had finally become citizens, a recognised part of the war machine, acquiring their own rights and often an independent income. The former BBC Chief News Correspondent charts the seismic move towards equal rights with men that began a century ago and through unique first-hand research shows just how momentous the achievements of those pioneering women were. This is history at its best - a vivid, compelling account of the women who helped win the war as well as a revealing assessment of their legacy for women's lives today.

The Last Great War
The Last Great War

Author: Adrian Gregory

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-10-16

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 0521450373

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A groundbreaking new history of the British home front during the First World War.