Scotland And The Great War

A study of the impact of the Great War in Scotland. Topics include: conscientious objection; voluntary recruitment; press coverage; gender and the war; and the Scottish Highlands and the war.

The shared experiences and sacrifices of Scots in London in World War One - often untold stories and unseen pictures illustrate this fascinating new account.

The New Higher History series offers a full-colour, topic-based approach to the revised Higher History syllabus. Covering all of the main issues within each topic area, this series includes investigative techniques, use of evidence and a variety of activities to enable students to develop the necessary skills to tackle both essay-based and source-based questions successfully. This book begins with an overview of Scottish politics and the economy in 1914, examines the role of Scottish soldiers on the Western front, and goes on to consider the Home Front, including the issues of conscription and the changing role of women in wartime. Further sections cover the effects of war on industry, agriculture and fishing, price rises and rationing. The nature of political change during the war covers Radicalism, the ILP and Red Clydeside, and Unionism and the crisis of Scottish identity. The book goes on to look at Scotland after the war, and considers economic change, emigration and the land issue in the Highlands and Islands. It concludes with sections on Scottish society after the Great War, commemoration and remembrance, and the significance of the Great War in the development of Scottish identity.

On the brink of the First World War, Scotland was regarded throughout the British Isles as 'the workshop of the Empire'. Not only were Clyde-built ships known the world over, Scotland produced half of Britain's total production of railway equipment, and the cotton and jute industries flourished in Paisley and Dundee. In addition, Scots were a hugely important source of manpower for the colonies. Yet after the war, Scotland became an industrial and financial backwater. Emigration increased as morale slumped in the face of economic stagnation and decline. The country had paid a disproportionately high price in casualties, a result of huge numbers of volunteers and the use of Scottish battalions as shock troops in the fighting on the Western Front and Gallipoli--young men whom the novelist Ian hay called 'the vanished generation'. There was a sudden crisis of national self-confidence, leading the poet Edwin Muir to suggest in 1927 that 'the Scots are a dying race'. In the book, Trevor Royle provides the first full account of how the war changed Scotland irrevocably by exploring a wide range of themes -- the overwhelming response to the call for volunteers; the performance of Scottish military formations in 1915 and 1916; the militarisation of the Scottish homeland; the resistance to war in Glasgow and the west of Scotland; the boom in the heavy industries and the strengthening of women's role in society following on from wartime employment. One of the historical ironies of the period is that a Scottish home rule bill had passed its second reading in May 1914 but failed to find sufficient support in the post-war years. -- Inside jacket flap.

What did war look like in the cultural imagination of 1914? Why did men in Scotland sign up to fight in unprecedented numbers? What were the martial myths shaping Scottish identity from the aftermath of Bannockburn to the close of the nineteenth century, and what did the Scottish soldiers of the First World War think they were fighting for? Scotland and the First World War: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Bannockburn is a collection of new interdisciplinary essays interrogating the trans-historical myths of nation, belonging and martial identity that shaped Scotland’s encounter with the First World War. In a series of thematically linked essays, experts from the fields of literature, history and cultural studies examine how Scotland remembers war, and how remembering war has shaped Scotland.

For two centuries the officers and men of the London Scottish have faithfully served their country, never more so than during the terrible years of the Great War. Initially with the 1st Guards Brigade, and later with the 56th (London) Division, the 1st Battalion was so committed to the prosecution of its cause that by November 1918 its numbers included only three survivors of the original Battle of Messines.The 2nd Battalion saw action in campaigns as diverse as France and Flanders, Ireland, the Balkans and Palestine where it won two Victoria Crosses.The London Scottish in the Great War does not set out to recite the oft-told famous battles fought and won. Rather it employs a wealth of previously unpublished war journals, diaries and photographs to provide a unique insight into this most auspicious Regiment.It demonstrates as no history of the London Scottish has before the hopes sufferings and aspirations of the volunteers who filled its ranks, so many of who made the supreme sacrifice.

The war memorial in the Scottish village of Bridge of Weir lists 72 men who died during the First World War. Their deaths occurred in almost every theatre of the war. They were awarded very few medals and their military careers were not remarkable - except in the important respect that they, like countless other peaceful civilians, answered their country's call in its time of need. This book follows the lives of these sons of Bridge of Weir, not just as soldiers, sailors and airmen, but as husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and members of a small local community which felt their loss intensely. At the same time it also paints a larger picture of the war - of the politicians and generals and military campaigns which shaped it. The brave men of Bridge of Weir know little of the wider context - their experience was of the little histories in which they fought and died. Readers of this book will understand what the 72 never knew: why and how the war was fought that claimed their lives.

“A most interesting book, both from a World War I historical perspective and from the major changes in medicine that are so well outlined.” —British Journal of Surgery The First World War resulted in appalling wounds that quickly became grossly infected. The medical profession had to rapidly modify its clinical practice to deal with the major problems presented by overwhelming sepsis. Besides risk of infection, there were many other issues to be addressed including casualty evacuation, anesthesia, the use of X-rays, and how to deal with disfiguring wounds—plastic surgery in its infancy. This book focuses closely on the human aspects of the surgery of warfare, and how developments in the understanding of combat injuries occurred. Ten essays covering a wide variety of topics, including the evacuation of casualties; anesthesia, shock, and resuscitation; pathology; X-rays; orthopedic wounds; abdominal wounds; chest wounds; wounds of the skull and brain; and the development of plastic surgery. All material is supported by an extensive number of figures, tables, and images. Those with a passion for the history of this period, even if they have no medical training, will find fascinating information about those surgeons who worked in Casualty Clearing Stations between 1914 and 1918—and laid the foundations for modern war surgery as practiced today.