IWM: The First World War on the Home Front

by Terry Charman

"Your country Needs YOU!" was the poster slogan that shouted out to many during World War I. And indeed, it did. As men of all ages joined the Forces and left their homes and jobs, so those left behind were forced to step up and take their place. Food shortages, rationing, the "First Blitz," and the appearance of women in the workplace all became familiar. Drawing on the archives of the Imperial War Museum, author Terry Charman presents a lively portrait of life on the Home Front in World War I. Filled with absorbing first-hand accounts taken from diaries, letters, and newspaper reports, the changing life in Britain between 1914 and 1918 is revealed in vivid and immensely personal detail by the people who actually lived through it. From the draconian effects of DORA (Defence of the Realm Act) to the threat of Zeppelin raids, to government propaganda, and the power of the press, this book recalls how the people of Britain not only faced up to the threats to their country, but also prepared for the fact that life in Britain would never be the same.

Genres: History

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2015

Reviews

[Julie Bozza · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, thorough, useful look at how the 'Great War' affected the communities and individuals who remained at home in Britain. Excellent content, with plenty of direct stories and quotations giving a feel for the genuine thing.

The volume was let down, however, by the need for one last pass from the proofreader. The lack of this made a mockery of the occasional use of '(sic)' in the quotations - and even some of them seemed missing or misapplied. A real pity in an otherwise professional effort!

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using archives from the Imperial War Museum, Terry Charman's "The First World War on the Home Front" makes for an extremely interesting and surprisingly personal account of Britain's struggle and perseverance during the most devastating conflict that the world had ever seen.

The book is structured into chapters focusing on different aspects of how the war impacted the nation from rationing to air raids to the role of women and children in making up for the sudden absence in a large portion of the male work force. The author uses first person accounts to personalise the events being depicted in the book from the tragic to the bizarre with a variety of age, gender and social groups being represented. The book occasionally suffers from needlessly long and mundane miscellaneous lists of, for example, how much particular items increased in price at a particular time, however this does not distract from how well the various topics and subtopics within each chapter blend seamlessly to make the endless supply of information easier to take in.

Overall, the book offers a very impressive collection of trivia mixed with emotive accounts of everyday life from a period that transformed the lives of the people who lived through them forever, hammering home the significance of the conflict in foreshadowing the similar events of the Second World War.

[Rue Baldry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of interesting anecdotes which give a good feeling of life in Britain during the First World War. It could do with a more thorough edit, there are missing words etc. The style is a little plodding, with a heavy reliance on the records of court cases, which become a bit of a list at times. As I commented while reading, it would also have been useful to have more frequent dates, rather than phrases like ‘earlier that month’ etc.

However, overall it’s a good set of interesting characters and events, running from the week before war was declared, to Armistice day. Some aspects of life then feel foreign, but a lot are similar to now, and the people of all classes and geographical areas respond as people probably would now. Some of it is funny, some sad, some heroic and some appalling. There are also interesting facts about ways in which things we now take for granted began at that time.

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1914, Great Britain was under the greatest threat of invasion since the Spanish Armada. Even the Armada did not manage to land its troops inland. But against the Germans the threat could not be any more real, that there were zeppelin bombings and everything, the British public was whipped into nationalistic frenzy at first with anti-German hysteria. However, the Brits held on. With rationing, war drive and so on, Great Britain experienced what it is called total war. And when the war is finally over in 1918, nobody would expect that they would be doing the same all over again.