First World War

Volunteer rationing in the First World War depended on patriotism, but that could only go so far.

Since the early 1960s, historians have shone a more positive light on the Battle of the Somme. But we must not forget the excesses and failures of that terrible campaign.  

Evidence from Britain’s First World War conscription tribunals reveals a surprisingly efficient and impartial system, as Rebecca Pyne-Edwards Banks asserts in this extract from her 2015 undergraduate dissertation prize-winning essay.   

The epic German offensive to take the strategically crucial fortress in north-east France reached its bloody end in September 1916. Robert Foley looks at how and why Erich von Falkenhayn, the Chief of the German General Staff, sought to break the deadlock on the Western Front.

A creature, part human, part machine – literature’s first true cyborg – was born of a desire to end the tragedy and waste of the Great War.

‘Shell shock’ is associated in particular with the First World War. Stuart M. Archer recounts the often brutal treatment meted out to sufferers of the condition and looks at how use of the term fell into disrepute. 

The First World War threw together people from all over the world. Anna Maguire considers images of these chance meetings and the light they shed on a global conflict.

On the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, Britain found itself in need of a national myth to bolster enlistment and morale. The victory of 1415 was soon put to service by the army of 1915.

Bulgaria suffered a swift and devastating defeat in the First World War, due, G.D. Sheppard argues, to its peasant leader-in-waiting’s shrewd use of propaganda.