Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #311482 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 358 pages

Synopsis
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.

Customer Reviews

A Challenging Change Management project
This timely reissue of Peter Simkin's excellent study of the raising of the New Armies is most welcome.
The book documents the various aspects that emerged from the need to create a `continental' army and details the logistic and organisational problems that arose.
It also explains how the problems had their origin in the Haldane reforms and how the dynamics of a public pre-war apathy to the Army, coupled with the Government's unwillingness to anticipate the consequences of its foreign policy and the likelihood of involvement in a European war. In short, conscription was unacceptable yet conscription seemed to be the only way to create an Army of the size needed. That the British volunteer Army was created and acquitted itself so well is testament to the magnificent men who volunteered and those who, under difficult circumstances, trained them.
Simkins also offers thoughts on the iniquity of the volunteer system and why many men did not rush to the colours.
It is an object lesson in change management and a very useful reference as well as being a `good read'.

An excellent and essential work of reference
This is a welcome reprint of an important work that first appeared in 1988 and has long since been difficult to find.

Peter Simkins, who worked for over thirty-five years at the Imperial War Museum, retired as its Senior Historian in 1999. His book is among those rare works that has both academic rigour and plain-talking readability. Anyone who has an interest in the war, the army, the incredible expansion of military forces to face the Germans, Austrians and Turks or the units of the new armies will find much to delight them here.

Kitchener was not alone in August 1914 in believing that Britain would need to face a long war on a huge continental scale but he alone was in a position to do something about it. The authorisation by Parliament of the raising of 100,000 volunteers was followed by further similar "waves" and ultimately the army enlisted more than 5 million troops. This was not only globally unprecedented: it brought with it immense problems. The army was short of everything for these men: officers, NCOs, arms and equipment, accommodation, uniform, food and supplies. The fact that all were arranged, albeit often in a typically British improvised fashion, in a short timeframe is one of the forgotten triumphs of the war. Kitchener's men were arriving in France from early 1915.

Peter Simkins takes us through it all, from the official expansion of the "first hundred thousand" of Kitchener's first army, K1, to the unofficial raising of the many local, pals, units. He explores the motivations for men who joined up and in so doing challenges the many myths that men of 1914 were simpletons, doing what they were told in a fervour of misplaced patriotism. Our grandfathers enlisted for a whole variety of reasons, some positive and some negative, such as escaping a prison sentence or nagging wife. Factors such as the huge unemployment that arose early in the war as the peacetime economic machinery ground to a halt are explored in vivid and fascinating detail by reference to many individual cases. He also tracks and analyses the recruiting trends as initial enthusiasm wavered.

Well worth the money.