Why were people in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Saint Petersburg so enthusiastic about the war? What were the motives that brought men to volunteer for battle together with real servicemen and in case of the British together with the professional army.

One of the most important reasons was the fact that for years the general public had lived in an atmosphere of nationalism and with a feeling of superiority. In all sorts of ways, at school, in the media, people had been influenced by the idea that defending and fighting for your country was a noble thing. Once the declarations of war had been sent, this patriotism evoked a strong enthusiasm. In the streets, total strangers started talking with each other about the inevitable subject of The War. A war which, according to most people, would only last for a short while: 'Home by Christmas'.

The happy bustle in the streets during the war summer evenings was mentioned elaborately in the newspapers. It contributed to what could best be called a kind of intoxication which caused a number of men to enlist as volunteers. Men who didn't were looked upon with disdain and in England they were even approached by women in the street condemning their behaviour.

The happiness was also mingled with the feeling that the conflict that had broken out also marked the ending of a long period in which there had been a repressed but serious tension in Europe. Germany would be able to free itself from the supposed besiegement; France could get its justified revenge; England would be able to break the German threat to her economy and supremacy at sea. Austria would teach the cursed Serbs a lesson and the Russians would be able to make their patronage of the Balkans a fact. These feelings lived mainly among the general public and in military circles, diplomats foresaw much better what was in store for Europe.

Characteristic for the English war feelings was the theme of 'Poor Little Belgium' which was used cleverly in the war propaganda as a justification for participating in this war. Belgium, the small and peace loving country which had so brutally been invaded by the Prussian hordes in spite of its neutrality. The German war crimes caused a strong anti-German feeling in the English newspapers and a noble urge for England as a civilized country to give Belgium the help it needed.

by P.M.T. van Walstijn



British historian G.M. Trevelyan writes the following about the pre-war days:

Sir Edward Grey had made every effort to avert the war, and thereby helped to win for Britain and her Allies the moral sympathy of a large part of mankind, particularly in America. But when those efforts failed, self-preservation dictated that we should not permit the Channel Ports, the Netherlands, and indeed all Europe, to fall into vassalage to a power that was already openly our rival at sea. The violation of Belgian neutrality and the invaders' treatment of Belgian resistance was a drama that brought home, on a wave of generous emotion, the dreadful facts and necessities of the hour to the unwilling mind of the British public, which craved for nothing but peace.

Up to the moment of the invasion of Belgium, in the first days of August, British opinion had been divided as to the necessity of taking part in a European war. Neutralist feeling at the end July was very strong, especially in the City, in the North of England, and in the Liberal and Labour parties. Half the Cabinet, headed by Mr Lloyd George, was neutralist. It would therefore have been utterly impossible for Grey, as is sometimes suggested in the retrospect, to threaten Germany with our participation in war a day earlier than he did. Any premature attempt in July to commit Great Britain to fight would have led to the break-up of the Cabinet, and the division of the country at the moment of its greatest peril. Such a disaster nearly occurred, and was only averted by the wisdom of Asquith, who held together his colleagues and his countrymen. In that week of tumult and alarm, the heated ash of opinion might have exploded into fragments flying in opposite directions. The danger of national division came to an end as a result of the actual invasion of Belgium, and on 4 August Great Britain went to war as a united country on behalf of her Treaty commitments to protect Belgian neutrality.

Belgium was not the only reason why we had to fight or perish; but it was the reason why we were able to strike as a united people, in time, but only just in time, to prevent the fall of Paris and the Channel Ports into the German power.

from: ‘A Shortened History of England’ by G.M. Trevelyan



For those who had volunteered there were all kinds of personal reasons to participate in this war. Siegfried Sassoon for instance was fed up with his idle life as an upper class squire, doing nothing but fox hunting and playing cricket. For a labourer the prospect of losing your job could be a reason to enlist. In one of his poems Rupert Brooke wrote that he had enough of the 'old world'. he compared the war to dipping into a clean bath together with some friends. This of course was quite a romantic view of the coming battle which didn't have anything to do with clean water but much more with mud and dirt. Brooke himself did not experience this. He died as a soldier a short time before the actual trench warfare started.

by P.M.T. Van Walstijn