Kitchener's Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914-16 (War, Armed Forces and Society)

Numbering over five million men, Britain's army in World War I was the biggest in the country's history. Remarkably, nearly half those who served in it were volunteers, almost 2.5 million men enlisting between August 1914 and December 1915. How did Britain succeed in creating a mass army almost from scratch, in the midst of a major war? The author describes how Kitchener's New Armies were raised and reviews the main political, economic and social effects of the recruiting campaign. He then examines the experiences and impressions of the men who made up the New Armies. The book won the Society for Army Historical Research's Templar Medal for 1988 and will be of interest both to those studying the period and those who have a more personal interest in the story of Britain's citizen soldiers of the Great War.