The Great War: How 1914–18 Changed the Relationship between War and Civilians

Abstract

The First World War radically changed the relationship between war and civilians, in terms of altered expectations of conflict, the dismantling of the pre-war distinction between combatant and civilian, and the glorification of the soldier as the ideal citizen. Heather Jones asks why the war has been remembered as a ‘soldiers’ war’, exploring how the war disrupted civilian life, the forms of violence perpetrated against civilians during the conflict, and the role of conscription in creating new hierarchies that privileged ideals of male ‘warrior’, rather than civilian, citizenship.