For King and Country
The British Monarchy and the First World War

Was the First World War really 'For King and Country'? This is the first full history of the monarchy's role.

Heather Jones (Author)

9781108429368, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 September 2021

320 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 3.2 cm, 1.05 kg

'For King and Country advances our understanding of the way in which institutions can be reconfigured to meet new social and political pressures. It makes a significant contribution to the large literature on the evolution of institutions. Thus, its relevance is not limited to the Great War and the British monarchy, substantial and worthwhile as her contribution to these subjects certainly is … her wonderfully written and engaging book is an outstanding piece of scholarship.' Sam Clark, The British Journal for Military History

This is a ground-breaking history of the British monarchy in the First World War and of the social and cultural functions of monarchism in the British war effort. Heather Jones examines how the conflict changed British cultural attitudes to the monarchy, arguing that the conflict ultimately helped to consolidate the crown's sacralised status. She looks at how the monarchy engaged with war recruitment, bereavement, gender norms, as well as at its political and military powers and its relationship with Ireland and the empire. She considers the role that monarchism played in military culture and examines royal visits to the front, as well as the monarchy's role in home front morale and in interwar war commemoration. Her findings suggest that the rise of republicanism in wartime Britain has been overestimated and that war commemoration was central to the monarchy's revered interwar status up to the abdication crisis.

Introduction
Prelude: The monarchy and wartime political power. Part I. The role of the British monarchy in cultural mobilisation for war: 1. Monarchist mentalities and British mobilisation, 1914–1916
2. Monarchist culture and combatant practices. Part II. The emperor's new clothes: Changing cultures of deference: 3. The royal body in wartime
4. De-sacralisation discourses – challenges to the monarchy's status, 1916–1918. Part III. The unknown soldier: The role of the monarchy in post-war commemoration
5. The monarchy and the armistice: Ritualising victory, channelling war grief
6. The monarchy's role in sacralising post-war commemoration
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], British & Irish history [HBJD1]