A Welsh County at War

A Welsh County at War opens an unusual window on the First World War. This is not a military history of horror in the trenches, but a social and cultural history of life in one county in west Wales during this fraught period. Through detailed historical research in primary and secondary sources, Gwyn Jenkins shows the impact of the Great War on people’s everyday lives, opinions and actions, and although soldiers do of course feature in it, it is through the prism of their relationships with their loved ones back home that we see them.

Subjects discussed include: changing attitudes to the military before the war, army recruitment, responses of religious leaders, treatment of Germans resident in the county, ‘unpatriotic’ farmers, attitudes in military appeal tribunals, family life, children and teachers in schools, patriotism and pacifism, and how returning soldiers responded to coming back to home life again.