The front-line soldiers of the First World War endured appalling conditions in the trenches and suffered unprecedented slaughter in battle. Their morale, as much as the strategy of their commanders, played the crucial part in determining the outcome of `the war to end all wars'. J. G. Fuller examines the experience of the soldiers of the British and Dominion armies. How did the troops regard their plight? What did they think they were fighting for?
Dr Fuller draws on a variety of contemporary sources, including over a hundred magazines produced by the soldiers themselves. This is the first scholarly analysis of the trench journalism which
played an important role in the lives of the ordinary soldiers. Other themes explored include the nature of patriotism, discipline, living conditions, and leisure activities such as sport, concert parties, and the music hall. Dr Fuller's vivid and detailed study throws new light on the question of warfare, and in particular how the British and Dominion armies differed from those of their allies and opponents, which were wracked by mutiny or defeat as the war went on.
Industry Reviews
`His intelligent and incisive study has opened up a new front in the literature of the First World War.'
Times Literary Supplement
`a stimulating new perspective ... He has a previously untapped and important source - trench newspapers ... There is certainly more to explore here, but Dr Fuller has both set up a sign-post and started to clear the brush from the path.'
Times Higher Education Supplement
'Dr Fuller, who has identified more than 100 trench newspapers, employs them as his principal source for a scholarly and original study of the morale of the British and Dominion armies in the bloodiest of wars. Those of us who have never been happy with the simple separation of front and rear will find in Fuller's text a convincing confirmation of their scepticism. They will also admire his use of carefully selected comparisons to question primary group
theory and other current orthodoxies. Above all, they will applaud his determination to make the humanity of the soldier centras to the historian's concerns.'
David Englander, The Open University, History June '92
'careful and informed study ... As an aid to his study Fuller has made an extensive examination of the trench journals produced by units of the army in every major theatre of war. Because he employs quotations with circumspection and in conjunction with other, more familiar materials, Dr Fuller achieves a balanced account and demonstrates the values of his 'new' source.'
A.J.A. Morris, University of Ulster, Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1992
'As a demonstration of the importance of distinguishing high culture from popular culture, Fuller's study is unparalleled. It is a remarkable achievement, contributing to military history, social history, and cultural history in equal parts.'
J.M. Winter, Pembroke College, Journal of Modern History, September 1992
'It is a compelling and, in the British context, original work, pithily written and incisively argued, which does much to furnish answers to a familiar puzzle concerning the Great War ... this is vivid and unusual work of miltary-cum-social history which refuses to treat the soldier and the civilian as separate species.'
P.J. Waller, Merton College, Oxford EHR Jun 94
