Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War by Jerry White

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The centenary of the First World War is clearly prompting a flood of new books, each trying to find a fresh angle on those events, and I am sure the White would be unapologetic for joining that bandwagon.

The “Home Front” is well remembered in the Second World War, seen in particular through London's experience of the Blitz, indeed I would think for many the first images that would come to mind on mention of that War would be scenes of the Blitz. Events on the “Home Front” during the First World War are relatively speaking overlooked – in part due to being overshadowed by the similar but more intense events of the Second war, but also because for the First World War it is the “memory” of the trenches that is the defining one.

So what do we learn from White of the experiences of Londoners during the First World War?

First we learn of the intense divide within society, between the ruling elite and the working classes – and the essential fear the ruling class had of the masses – it is a Dickensian picture. Many less than helpful decisions can be “explained” by this dynamic which sought to control and pacify the supposedly brutish and uncivilised masses. The restrictions of the consumption of alcohol being just one example – how much of our continuing poor relationship with alcohol was born in these years, you had to drink fast because the pub was shutting soon?

The second, and perhaps closely linked to the first, is that the War forced a rapid increase in the involvement of “the Sate” in the organisation of society. It is now that the structures that would become the “Welfare State”, and allow the large scale nationalisation of industry, during and after the Second World War were born. But that birth was a painful and faltering one. The laissez faire approach that had dominated Victorian Britain is forced, often kicking and screaming, into retreat.

We also learn that despite some of the weaknesses in the measures adopted the War was actually, generally, a time of social improvement – mainly as a simple result of the reduced supply of labour, which acted to force the wages of the lowest rungs of society upwards, but also, and more significantly, gave these people greater consistency / security in employment. While these gains were not universally maintained in the post-war years, due to demobilisation and then the depression, there is a feeling that the very worst excesses of “Dickensian” poverty were permanently banished from London during the War.

While this is not a book of earth shattering revelations it is well written and insightful, and it tells a much bigger story about the evolution of British society than simply a tale of the war years.