Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies 1914-1918

The soldiers on the front line in the First World War endured appalling conditions in the trenches and suffered unprecedented casualties in battle. Drawing on a variety of contemporary sources, including over a hundred magazines produced by 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 that are explored include the nature of patriotism, discipline, living conditions, and leisure activities such as sport, concert parties, and the music hall. Fuller's vivid and detailed study throws new light on the question of what sustained men through the ordeal of trench 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.