CALL TO ARMS - Over by Christmas

This is a stand-out volume among the many photographic histories of World War I, with the effects of the conflict vividly demonstrated in archive photos showing day to day life on the home fronts of the warring nations. Young Germans living in Britain are seen crowding round the German consulate as war breaks out, almost all wearing Panama hats, while over in Germany similarly hatted young men read the mobilisation orders posted on the Rathaus (Town Hall). The Grenadier Guards, including the Prince of Wales, are seen leaving for France, where the headgear of choice is a flat cap. Further afield, the Commander-in-Chief is seen marching his Turkish troops through Jerusalem, and the first Tasmanian contingent to leave Hobart throngs the decks of a departing ship. Spy fever was running riot and Britain's east coast and railway bridges are heavily guarded by Territorials, while the Dutch frontier has a barrier of revolving spikes. High school students are now working in the fields, and a German monk is seen tending horses. Propaganda posters announce that England Expects Every Man To Do His Duty. A Brussels school is used as a hospital, and even more extraordinarily the Orangery Palace in Potsdam houses hospital beds among the grandiose pillars, while the Royal Palace in St Petersburg is also requisitioned. In Britain, there are makeshift wards in the Great Hall of Birmingham University and the cloisters of Trinity College Cambridge. Refugees on the eastern front struggle to safety without shoes, and meanwhile women work in munitions factories, sew balloons and make bandages in this fascinating cross section of wartime life. 192pp, chronology, archive photos on every page.