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On 3 September 1914, the recruiting sergeants were kept frantically busy from dawn to dusk, coping with a phenomenon never matched before or since. That Thursday, a month after Britain went to war, 33,204 young men volunteered – more in one day than the army normally recruited in a year.
There has never been a rush to volunteer in the UK to compare with the fervour of August and September 1914. We cannot know how many were answering the call out of a genuine sense of patriotic duty, believing their country was under threat. A great many probably thought that soldiering would be an exciting life and a chance to see a bit of the world. Many were certainly induced by peer group pressure to sign up.
The British army was one of the few in 1914 that took volunteers only. The absence of conscripts meant that it was an effective force for its size: the British Expeditionary Force that set sail for France a few days after war was declared to be “incomparably the best trained, best organised and best equipped British army which ever went forth to war”, according to the official historian, Brigadier-General Sir James Edmonds. But the Germans had 2.2 million men under arms and the French more than a million, while the total strength of the British army was 450,000, and the BEF, the only force actually doing any fighting, consisted originally of just 100,000 officers and men.
Show all 149 1 /149In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Supporting troops of the 1st Australian Division walking on a duckboard track near Hooge, in the Ypres Sector
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Final moments: The Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand with his wife Sophie in Sarajevo minutes before his shooting
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Arresting Princip’s fellow conspirator Nedeljko Cabrinovic after a failed attempt to kill the Archduke on the same day
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in central London cheer Britain’s declaration of war on Germany
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The innocents: New recruits, with bicycles, training with the British Army in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 1914: A lone soldier with a bicycle stands amid the remains of a German motor convoy which lines a country lane after an attack by French field guns in the battle of the Aisne in France
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Troubled waters: The Cambridge eight included John Andrew Ritson (fourth from cox)
Museum of London, Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War John Andrew Ritson (left)
Museum of London, Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Dennis Ivor Day
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German infantry advance through Belgium in August 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Civilians near the Austrian lines in Serbia are strung up – probably as a reprisal for guerrilla resistance to the invaders
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wounded and exhausted British and Belgian soldiers retreating after the Battle of Mons
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds gather outside a recruitment office
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French General Joseph Joffre (second right), Commander- in-Chief of the French Armies, and General Michel Joseph Maunoury (right) on the front during the First Battle of the Marne. Six hundred scarlet taxis were requisitioned, at a cost of Fr70,102, to ferry reservist troops to the Battle of the Marne in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A French firing squad escorts a deserter to his execution in November 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the trenches from which deserters tried to escape
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German soldiers in Wirballen, a border town between the German Reich and Russia
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Carl Hans Lody, who spied in Britain
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Up to 12 million letters a week were sent to the front line via the wooden sorting office hastily set up in Regent’s Park in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Survivors from SMS ‘Gneisenau’ in the sea off the Falkland Islands, with HMS ‘Inflexible’ in the background, 8 December 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The ruins of the cloth hall and cathedral in Ypres during WWI
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Margot Asquith, the Countess of Oxford and Asquith and the wife of Britain’s wartime leader
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A wounded American in a London hospital reads a magazine with a red cross nurse by his bedside.
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Residents assess the damage after Suffolk was rocked by bomb attacks mounted by German Zeppelin
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German infantrymen attack through a cloud of poison gas. By the end of the war, both sides had employed various kinds of gas
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Children of Armenian refugees in a camp
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Armenian civilians being led away by Ottoman soldiers
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A pile of skulls from the Armenian village of Sheyxalan
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops at Anzac Cove (Gaba Tepe) during the Gallipoli campaign
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops unloading heavy guns in the Dardanelles
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Volunteer nurse Florence Farmborough was part of the Russian retreat from Gorlice
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Cunard liner RMS Lusitania, after secret Whitehall misgivings about the official account of one of the most controversial and tragic episodes of the First World War were revealed in newly-released government documents. Almost 70 years after the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland, some officials expressed concern that the truth was still being covered up
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The RMS Lusitania sailed from New York on 1 May 1915 on her last voyage; the liner was sunk off southern Ireland on 7 May
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Welsh Liberal politician and future Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1863 - 1945) enjoys a quiet read of a newspaper in his garden with his faithful dog for company
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French troops line up for inspection on a trench on the Western Front
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German military prisoners, at Southend-on-Sea, on their way to Knockaloe
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The railway line running the length of the access road into Knockaloe, the biggest camp in the British Isles
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Survivors of the sinking in Cobh, Co Cork
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Robert Graves (1895-1985), who served on the Western Front from 1915 to 1917
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 2nd Lieutenant John Kipling is thought to have been killed in The Chalk Pit, in Loos, France, on 27 September 1915
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Laid to rest: Edith Cavell circa 1905
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Her funeral cortege in London in May 1919
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War George Samson is celebrated on a cigarette card of the time
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Italian light infantry of the 1st Alpini Regiment on Monte Nero, during the Isonzo campaigns
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War As Italian as mozzarella cheese: Giuseppe Ungaretti
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A French soldier is shot during a counter attack
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Devastation near Fort Souville, Verdun
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Conscripts, among the first men ever to be compelled to join the British Army, undergo a medical
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Pavilion was meant as a seaside home for the Prince Regent
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Fun and games were vital
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Patients get some sea air
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The medical staff
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Britain saw the Easter Rising as a stab in the back and the rebels, pictured here being led to captivity, as traitors. Subsequent executions made them into national heroes
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A steamer hit by a torpedo during the First World War
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Ottoman army besieged the British forces for 147 days until they surrendered on 29 April 1916
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War General Sir Charles Townshend
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The tear-stained letter
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Siegfried Sassoon as a second lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His bravery won him the Military Cross in July 1916, but he later turned against the war
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The sinking of the ‘Queen Mary’
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the British fleet
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German destroyers off the English coast
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the architects of the revolt: Sharif Hussain, religious leader of Mecca
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the architects of the revolt: Sir Henry McMahon, British minister in Cairo
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Emilio Lussu, who fought in the battle with the Italian Army, on the side of the allies, against the Austrians, who sided with Germany
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, whose face appeared on the recruitment poster ‘Your Country Needs You’
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Conscientious objectors at a protest on Dartmoor in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Objectors were forced to cultivate the soil although many were said to have spent much of their time "strolling on the moors, reading, smoking and talking"
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War British conscientious objectors leaving Dartmoor Prison under a gateway inscribed with the words "Parcere subjectis" ("Spare the conquered")
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Going over the top during the Battle of the Somme in 1916
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The British Machine Gun Corps during the battle
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Canadian troops prepare for the charge
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Remains of the German airship shot down over Cuffley
Popperfoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captain William Leefe Robinson received the VC for his courage
Hulton/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British Mark 1 tank on the Western Front
Topical Press/Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British soldier covers a dead German on the firestep of a trench near the Somme
Hulton/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Carnage on the road to Romania’s Turnu Rosu Pass. A German NCO stands beside an Italian-made cannon and the body of what may have been a gun crew member
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edward Thomas, a Second-Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, at home on leave in early 1917
Edward Thomas Fellowship
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edward’s wife Helen with two of their three children, Merfyn and Bronwen
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War May Bradford writing a letter for an injured soldier in a French hospital
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Composer and poet Ivor Gurney (left) and the artist Paul Nash
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Filling shells at the Vickers munitions factory, Barrow-in-Furness. Strikers’ grievances included the use of female labour
BAE Systems Submarines
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The moment that ushered in the American century: President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to ratify a declaration of war against Imperial Germany
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Supporters greet Lenin on his arrival at Finland Station, Petrograd, on 16 April 1917, after a week-long journey by sealed train from Switzerland
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War War effort: Women war workers at Cross Farm, Shackleton, Surrey, in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French ‘poilus’ at Chemin des Dames, where the bloody Nivelle Offensive of 1917 pushed many into mutiny
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War An early colour photograph of the crater left by the biggest of the blasts beneath German positions near Messines on 14 June 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War British sappers laying the mines
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The remains of a German trench
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Ernst Jünger’s German platoon overcame the enemy forces with his ‘mastery of the situation and iron command’
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Siegfried Sassoon was sent to Craiglockhart Hospital to be treated for ‘shell shock’ following his protest
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), whose 1929 novel, ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’, was based on his wartime experiences. Here he is seen with Carl Laemmle of Universal Pictures (left)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The conscription of reserve soldiers in Greece to fight on the Salonika front in 1916. The Greek city was ravaged by a fire the following year, which devastated the area and left thousands homeless
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops marching down the Boulevard de la Victoire in Salonika in 1916, the year before the great fire which devastated the Greek city
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Women leaving a munitions factory on Eiswerder Island in Spandau, near Berlin, at the end of their shift, in around 1917. They are crossing the bridge over the river Havel
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Female workers of the Spandau factory getting their dinner during the midday break
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wet weather plagued the Third Battle of Ypres, which included the battles of Langemarck and Passchendaele. Perhaps 70,000 Allied soldiers died between 31 July and 10 November
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British stretcher party
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German prisoners on a duckboard track at Yser Canal, Belgium, on the opening day of the battle
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 3rd September 1917: Veterans of the American Civil War at the opening of the Eagle Hut
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War US Ambassador Page greeting veterans of the American Civil War at the opening of the Eagle Hut
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 22nd December 1917: Christmas preparations at the Eagle Hut
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Albin Köbis, who was shot as one of the ringleaders of the German naval mutiny in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Stokers of the SMS Prinzregent Luitpold in 1913
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops in what is now Zambia, in vain pursuit of the forces of the elusive German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Genius in the art of bush warfare: German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German women and children queue for food rations
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds at Petrograd’s Winter Palace during the October Revolution. (Russia still used the Julian calendar, in which the West’s 7 November equated to 25 October)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Mayor of Jerusalem (with walking-stick) had tried to surrender the city to them
Imperial War Museum
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allenby walks into Jerusalem: Sergeants James Sedgwick and Frederick Hurcomb of 2/19th Battalion, London Regiment, outside the city two days earlier
AP
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Artist John Nash not only painted the ordeals of Britain’s front line troops: he experienced them first-hand
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British housewife with her grocery items after the introduction of rationing. The government feared hunger might lead to revolution
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edmund Morel as an MP after his release
Topham Picturepoint
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A suffragist rally in Hyde Park
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A newly enfranchised woman votes for the first time in 1918
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Masked doctors and nurses treat flu patients lying on cots and in outdoor tents at a hospital camp during the influenza epidemic of 1918
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The immense long-range naval gun which was used to bombard Paris from behind the German lines in Picardy
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The immense naval gun was manned by 80 German sailors. It launched its shells from behind the German lines
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Walter Tull, left, Britain’s first black Army officer, in a photograph handed down to his great-nephew Edward Finlayson
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Tull was singled out for his "gallantry and coolness" following a daring raid across the frozen river Piave in January 1918
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The German air ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Baron Manfred von Richthofen's 'flying circus'
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Dogs at the British War Dog School in Essex
Mary Evans Picture Library
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Tweed, far left, with his handler Private Reid
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A dog courier runs through barbed wire and mines to deliver a message
Corbis
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Piete Kuhr, pictured in 1915
Memoria Hürth
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Vera Brittain became a nurse during the war
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The aftermath of the explosion at the munitions plant in Chilwell
Nottingham City Council
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Remains of a soldier on the Western Front, where millions were killed or wounded, or went missing
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War From left, Marshal Joffre, President Henri Poincaré, King George V, General Foch, and Field-Marshal Haig
Time life pictures/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captured German officers receiving orders from a French officer
Universal Images Group/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War American troops advance on a German position on the Saint Mihiel salient, north-eastern France, in 1918
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War American soldiers of the 18th Infantry Machine Gun Battalion advance through the ruins of St Baussant on their way to the St. Mihiel Front
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A group of captured Germans being marched through St Mihiel Salient
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wilfred Owen in uniform as a 2nd Lieutenant. The poet was teaching in France when the war began
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, circa 1920. The poet describes to his wife the rising tide of popular unrest in Munich
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The interior of the railway carriage in which the Armistice ending the First World War was signed
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Allied delegation was led by France’s Marshal Ferdinand Foch (front row, second right)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Royal Family appear on the balcony
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War People celebrate in the streets in 1918
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities on 11 November 1918
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities in 1918
Getty
The Liberal government was deeply averse to the idea of conscription. Therefore, men had to be induced or pressured into volunteering – and quickly.
On 6 August, Parliament gave Field Marshal Horatio Kitchener, the newly appointed Secretary of State for War, authority to enlist 500,000 volunteers aged between 18 and 38, with a minimum height of 5ft 3in. To encourage volunteers, the minimum length of service was reduced from seven years to “three years or the duration of the war, whichever the longer”.
At first, there was no great rush. In the week that war was declared, about 15,000 answered the call. One of the best known of the early recruits was Siegfried Sassoon, who would progress during the course of the conflict from war hero to pacifist and anti-war poet. He was so eager to serve that he signed up on 2 August.
In the second week, the numbers were higher. By the end of August, the total had reached 195,000. The army had swollen by more than two-fifths of its previous size in just four weeks, but that 500,000 target was still a long way off. Somebody needed to do some creative thinking to speed up the flow.
General Henry Rawlinson, whose name would later be indissolubly linked with the Battle of the Somme, made the sensible suggestion that men would be more willing to come forward if they could serve alongside those they knew. The idea was taken up by Lord Derby, who put out an appeal in Liverpool on 28 August for local men to serve in the first of what became known as the “Pals battalions”. He had 3,000 recruits within three days. After that success, other towns and cities, including Accrington, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, East Grinstead and London formed their own Pals battalions. On Tyneside, there was a Pals battalion made up entirely of Irishmen.
Showbusiness was also drafted in to boost recruitment. In the book Forgotten Voices of the Great War, compiled by Max Arthur, a mill worker named Kitty Eckersley described the evening that her husband enlisted, after a friend had given them tickets to a live show at the Palace Theatre, in Clayton. “We didn’t know what was on, of course, but it was a great treat for us. So we went. And when we got there, everything was lovely. Vesta Tilley was on stage. She was beautifully dressed in a lovely gown of either silver or gold. But what we didn’t know until we got there was that also on stage were army officers all set out for recruiting.”
Vesta Tilley, wife of the Tory MP Sir Abraham Walter de Frece, was a renowned and highly paid music star. The number she performed on this and similar occasions had been especially composed by a prolific songwriter named Paul Rubens.
The chorus went:
Oh, we don’t want to lose you but we think you ought to go.
For your King and your country both need you so.
We shall want you and miss you
But with all our might and main
We shall cheer you, thank you, bless you
When you come home again.
To reinforce the message, Tilley left the stage and walked among the audience, gathering starstruck young men in her wake, who enlisted on the spot. To Kitty Eckersley’s horror, her husband joined the queue. He set off for France soon afterwards and she did not see him for six months.
Eventually, at some of these recruiting events, in addition to the stars and the dancing girls, there would be children at the back, primed to hand white feathers to young men who hadn’t signed up.
But it appears that the biggest single spur to recruitment was news from the front. The BEF first saw action at Mons on 23 August and Le Cateau on 26 August. That men were dying in action set off the biggest rush to recruitment yet. In a single week, beginning Monday 31 August, 191,000 men signed up, almost as many as in the whole of August. However, by the end of September, they were back to where they were in the first week of the war.
The figures cast an unexpected light on the single most famous image from the great war – that poster of Kitchener, his finger pointing at the viewer, over the slogan: “Your Country Needs You”.
Superbly designed by a graphic artist named Alfred Leete and based on a more widely circulated poster with Kitchener’s image above a 30-word extract from one of his speeches, it has stayed in the public consciousness for a century when other propaganda images from that time have faded away. The myth is that Kitchener’s finger inspired or shamed vast numbers into joining up. In fact, the image first appeared on the cover of a magazine called London Opinion, on 5 September – just when recruitment started to fall away. The historian James Taylor, who wrote an entire book about this one poster, came to the surprising conclusion that very few of the men who set off to war even saw it.
Certainly, the huge effort put into recruitment failed to supply the numbers needed to feed the war machine. By Christmas 1914, 85,000 British servicemen had already died.
Eventually, in July 1915, the Liberal government, driven to the conclusion that it would never enlist sufficient volunteers, would reluctantly introduce conscription.
Tomorrow: The taxis of Marne
‘Moments’ that have already been published can be seen at: independent.co.uk/greatwar
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