The Western Front: Battleground and Home Front in the First World War (review)

Abstract

There are increasing numbers of introductory surveys of the Great War. Tooley's contribution to the European History in Perspective series is actually the second published by Palgrave, since Gerard de Groot's The First World War (2001) has already appeared in their Wars of the Twentieth Century series. In theory, Tooley's approach differs from de Groot's—though both are broadly chronological treatments—by concentrating on the Western Front and its relationship with domestic events. In practice, Tooley deals with both causes and consequences of the war as a whole, and finds it difficult to avoid mentioning events on the Eastern Front or further afield. At times, too, the attempt to link battlefront and home front directly is somewhat strained. The production of munitions is an obvious linkage, but to suggest, for example, that the Anglo-Irish War of 1919-21 and the subsequent history of Ulster after 1922 is "another battle front/home front connection" due to the different ways the war was commemorated in Ireland appears tenuous at best.