Numbering over five million men, Britain's army in the First World War was the biggest in the country's history. Remarkably, nearly half those men who served in it were volunteers. 2,466,719 men enlisted between August 1914 and December 1915, many in response to the appeals of the Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener. How did Britain succeed in creating a mass army, almost from scratch, in the middle of a major war ? What compelled so many men to volunteer ' and what happened to them once they had taken the King's shilling ? Peter Simkins describes how Kitchener's New Armies were raised and reviews the main political, economic and social effects of the recruiting campaign. He examines the experiences and impressions of the officers and men who made up the New Armies. As well as analysing their motives for enlisting, he explores how they were fed, housed, equipped and trained before they set off for active service abroad. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, ranging from government papers to the diaries and letters of individual soldiers, he questions long-held assumptions about the 'rush to the colours' and the nature of patriotism in 1914. The book will be of interest not only to those studying social, political and economic history, but also to general readers who wish to know more about the story of Britain's citizen soldiers in the Great War.

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A new study of one of Britain's most famous soldiers.

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Written well over ninety years ago while the experiences of youth were still fresh in the authors mind, this is the story of a seventeen-year-old boy from the time he joined Kitcheners Army, as one of the first hundred thousand in 1914, until he found himself in hospital—an officer with the Military Cross—recovering from his last wound, on the day of the Armistice, 11 November, 1918.In no way a formal record of the great and terrible events it describes, this is a purely personal, almost private, account. It is a plain, unvarnished tale—and even more effective for that—of heroism, and the horror peculiar to trench warfare of the First World War.Interspersed with moments of pity, humor and a deep response to natural beauty and peace out of the firing line, it is a record, which in its details, direct simplicity and manner of telling, comes nearer to the truth than many more ambitious accounts.

Would it have been possible for the First World War to be avoided? Steve Cliffe, author of Churchill, Kitchener and Lloyd George: First World Warlords, believes so, as did David Lloyd George, Britain's wartime prime minister. In a bloody act of annihilation that killed over half a million young British men, Lloyd George was one of three powerful personalities who indelibly stamped their authority and influence on the conduct and final outcome of the war to end all wars'. Of the other two, Winston Churchill became better known for his role in the Second World War, although his role in the earlier conflict was considerable firstly as First Lord of the Admiralty and later outside the government. Lord Kitchener was arguably the greatest instigator of Britain's war effort.

The Great War was the first conflict to draw men and women into uniform on a massive scale. From a small regular force of barely 250,000, the British Army rapidly expanded into a national force of over five million. A Nation in Arms brings together original research into the impact of the war on the army as an institution, gives a revealing account of those who served in it and offers fascinating insights into its social history during one of the bloodiest wars.

A comprehensive new history of the shaping and performance of the British army during the First World War.