Welsh Journals

WALES AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR. The fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the first World War inspired a veritable 'deluge' of historical accounts, literary, visual and televisual, all illustrating the course of fighting at the front. Yet, surely of far more profound consequence in determining the subsequent course of British history was the influence of the war in transforming the structure of society and of the economy. It is this that forms the subject of Mr. Marwick's excellent book1, which will prove to be of enormous value to all students of the period. While other writers have considered individual aspects of the changes that occurred, Mr. Marwick is the first to provide a satisfying total synthesis. He shows the effect of total war in undermining class barriers and in extending social and sexual equality, in promoting new occupational mobility and new patterns of consumption, and in imposing a massive engine of state collectivism upon the fabric of industrial society. His judgements are always sensible and restrained, even when he turns to such speculative themes as the influence of the war years upon the visual arts or upon moral conventions. Here too, as R. D. Blumenfeld noted in 1917, 'that horrible ogre, Tradition, lies in the dust'. Further, Mr. Marwick never overstrains his argument or tries to make it prove too much. The limits to the changes of the war years are also suggested, and the points of continuity between pre- and post-war society firmly brought out. After 1918, the gulf between classes remained a wide one, while the old orthodoxies of fiscal and economic policy continued to prosper in the 'years of gold' in the later twenties. In some ways, indeed, the supposed effects of the war gave rise to legends that inhibited rational policies in the inter-war years: the 'missing generation' lost on Flanders' fields became a conventional alibi for failures of political leadership, while the more extreme ramifications of wartime bureaucracy served to encourage the dismantling of governmental controls by the post-war coalition government. Here and elsewhere, more detailed research is necessary into the implications of Mr. Marwick's conclusions. Historians will rejoice that the recent relaxation of the fifty-year rule makes this more feasible, freer from the obstructions of bureaucratic censorship. Inevitably, there are some defects to be noted in Mr. Marwick's analysis. There are a few inaccuracies. For instance, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century is persistently attributed to the wrong Thompson throughout (A.F., instead of F.M.L.). Welsh readers will be surprised to read that, amongst Lloyd George's political businessmen who are held to have served 'little or no political apprenticeship' (p. 201) before entry into the coalition government in 1916, are Lord Rhondda and Sir Alfred Mond-the former (as D. A. Thomas), a highly articulate 1 The Deluge: British Society and the First World War. By Arthur Marwick. Bodley Head. 1965. 42s;