Playing the Game: The British Junior Infantry Officer on the Western Front 1914-18 - Helion Studies in Military History (Hardback)

The British Army expanded significantly during the First World War, creating a huge demand for new officers to lead the infantry through the horrors and privations of trench warfare. Thousands of civilians accepted commissions with little or no previous military experience, and success on the Western Front depended to a large extent on their ability to learn new skills and responsibilities quickly. This book examines the lives and careers of these junior infantry officers, focusing especially on the transition from civilian to soldier, by looking particularly at the young men who volunteered in the early stages of the war having only recently left either public school or university. Products of Edwardian society, they reflected prevailing military opinions about the importance of entrusting command to 'gentlemen'. Once in the army, they continued to draw on traditional ideas, habits and practices to make sense of their new roles and surroundings but, faced with an unprecedented type of modern warfare, they also rapidly gained military knowledge and experience. The synthesis of these various influences gave junior infantry officers a distinctive character amongst the many voices of the First World War. This book follows their transition and the creation of this identity though its different stages. Christopher Moore-Bick studied at Cambridge and wrote his postgraduate theses on the experiences and culture of First World War officers. He concludes with an examination of the psychological challenges encountered on the Western Front, exploring the ways in which traditional concepts of heroism and a soldierly identity were remoulded in the face of an industrialised and impersonal war.