The civilian police during the First World War in Great Britain were central to the control of the population at home. This book will show the detail and challenges of police work during the First World War and how this impacted on ordinary people’s daily lives. The aim is to tell the story of the police as they saw themselves through the pages of their best-known journal, The Police Review and Parade Gossip, in addition to a wide range of other published, archival and private sources.

The civilian police during the First World War in Great Britain were central to the control of the population at home. This book will show the detail and challenges of police work during the First World War and how this impacted on ordinary people's daily lives. The aim is to tell the story of the police as they saw themselves through the pages of their best-known journal, The Police Review and Parade Gossip, in addition to a wide range of other published, archival and private sources.

This book explores the role of the British Police in home food production during the First World War, a critical time when decreasing food imports threatened population starvation around the country. Drawing from the police’s most popular weekly journal, the book provides insights into policemen’s lives, the political context in which they worked, and the pressures on police forces throughout Britain during the Great War. Unlike neighbouring countries in Europe, Britain avoided major food riots due to government control of farming from December 1916, which prioritised agriculture to feed the nation. The police force released over 400 policemen in England and Scotland to serve as ploughmen from March 1917 for around two months. Almost a third of policemen throughout Britain had previous agricultural backgrounds and so were welcomed by farmers as experienced workers. This book illustrates not only why the food crisis arose and the state of British farming during the war, but it also sheds light on how individual police forces were approached and encouraged to release their policemen, at a time when police forces themselves were critically short of staff due to recruitment into the war. The author discusses how the release of policemen into agriculture as first responders benefitted the police and provided surveillance over home food production in the national interest.

This book offers a global history of civilian, military and gendarmerie-style policing around the First World War. Whilst many aspects of the Great War have been revisited in light of the centenary, and in spite of the recent growth of modern policing history, the role and fate of police forces in the conflict has been largely forgotten. Yet the war affected all European and extra-European police forces. Despite their diversity, all were confronted with transnational factors and forms of disorder, and suffered generally from mass-conscription. During the conflict, societies and states were faced with a crisis situation of unprecedented magnitude with mass mechanised killing on the battle field, and starvation, occupation, destruction, and in some cases even revolution, on the home front. Based on a wide geographical and chronological scope – from the late nineteenth century to the interwar years – this collection of essays explores the policing of European belligerent countries, alongside their empires, and neutral countries. The book’s approach crosses traditional boundaries between neutral and belligerent nations, centres and peripheries, and frontline and rear areas. It focuses on the involvement and wartime transformations of these law-enforcement forces, thus highlighting underlying changes in police organisation, identity and practices across this period.

The Great War was the first in British history to have a deep impact on every aspect of civilian life. In an overdue attempt to portray the real effect of the War on life at home, David Bilton examines all the major events of the period and charts their effect on everyday life for those trying to live a normal existence. Examples are the air raids by Zeppelins and aircraft, rationing and shortages, recruitment, changes in employment habits and censorship. Extensive use is made of personal accounts and the author draws on many photographs, newspaper and magazine material and ephemera to make this very informative and atmospheric.

The story of First World War deserters who were shot at dawn, then pardoned nearly a century later has often been told, but these 306 soldiers represent a tiny proportion of deserters. More than 80,000 cases of desertion and absence were tried at courts martial on the home front but these soldiers have been ignored. Andrea Hetherington, in this thought-provoking and meticulously researched account, sets the record straight by describing the deserters who disappeared from camps and barracks within Great Britain at an alarming rate. She reveals how they employed a range of survival strategies, some ridding themselves of all connection with the military while others hid in plain sight. Their reasons for desertion varied. Some were already living a life of crime whilst others were conscientious objectors who refused to respond to their call-up papers. Boredom, protest, troubles at home or physical and mental disabilities all played their part in men deciding to go on the run. Andrea Hetherington’s timely book gives us a vivid insight into a hitherto overlooked aspect of the First World War.