Product Description

The familiar pictures of the First World War show soldiers in their trenches: hellish images of mud. But there is another dimension not depicted by these frightening representations of battle: the mundane everyday routine of the majority of the soldier's life that was spent away from the Front. This book explores the life of the average British 'Tommy' of the Great War, in battle and at rest, in training, and on his return home. Illustrated with evocative images of the war, and items of the soldier's kit, it provides an answer to the question: What was it like to be a soldier in the trenches on the front line?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12824 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 56 pages

Customer Reviews

Intelligent introduction to the material culture of World War One
For a small book this carries a surprising breadth and wealth of information. Doyle uses a framework of chronology to organise his survey of the material culture of World War One, which examines the tools, weapons, uniforms and insignia of the soldier, some of the forms, documents, postcards, posters, and goes on to include photographs, personal items, medals and examples of trench art.

The book aims to help people interpret "fragments of memory", but manages to go beyond this, to give a concentrated view of the way British people, soldiers, families and the War Office, produced a material culture that continues to communicate some of the experience of the First World War. The book begins with a well-known silhouette photograph of Tommies moving up to the Front. In attempting to "resolve those silhouettes into an image of a fighting soldier at war" the book also contextualises the soldier within the attitudes and activities of a country supporting its soldiers while not fully comprehending their often uncommunicable experience.

As well as using postcards and cartoons to show some of the ways that soldiers managed to deal with their condition, the books also points out some of the ways in which the soldiers were let down, by some aspects of their uniforms and equipment, and particularly by the treatment they received after the war. For many the heroes' welcome received from family and friends was matched officially by a set of uninspiring medals and little prospect of employment.

The book uses photographs of soldiers in and out of combat in a variety of hues - colour, monochrome, sepia and hand-coloured - in a proportion that fairly reflects the ratio of time spent in combat to that spent in preparation, rest or the soldier's attempts to make sense of his situation through humour, sentimentality, creativity or the assertion of individuality. Doyle writes concisely, conveying a vast amount of information clearly, in a book that functions as introduction, reference work and celebration.

When this lousy war is over
When this lousy war is over

I pose the question are there any duff title in the Shire Library?

They are great little books at only 56 pages but they are stuffed full of information. The author has created a logic by dividing the chapter into joining the colours, in the trenches, at rest to being demobilised.

It is a guide to the life of the poor bloody infantry,Plenty of black and white and colour photographs of uniforms, badges medals and memorabilia

My dad served in the second world war but on page 13 I have photo of my dad after his basic training in his RAF uniform that is the dead spit of a First world ward soldier with his bayonet and rifle. So not a lot of changes took place between the war.

Equipment and tactics develop rapidly as the war goes on so by the end of the war usually the soldiers are dressed entirely differently


90 years on and the first world war has become an important historical event so more and more are studying it. I have been to the Western Front many times but there is always something new to learn and this is a great little book.

I bought my copy just outside the Menin gate in Ypres.

A very interesting read
This book was a very interesting introduction to the life of the British Soldier in WW1.
Having just returned from a trip to the WW1 Battlefields in France, this provided excellent further reading both for myself and my children who are currently studying the subject, at school.