Britain's 'Lost generation' of the First World War

Bibliographic Data

ID4267233
AuthorsJ M Winter (0000-0003-1261-4774), Jay Winter (0000-0002-9369-3226, corresponding author)
Year1977
Volume31
Issue3
Pages449-466
Publication date1977-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopulation Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-4728 • E-ISSN: 1477-4747
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00324728.1977.10412760
PMID11630506
OpenAlexW2093218121
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited8

The demographic consequences of British war losses in the Great War varied by class. Since casualty rates among officers were higher than those among men in the ranks, the social elites from which officers were largely recruited suffered disproportionately heavy losses. Working-class casualties were more numerous, but they were lighter proportionately, because many workers were excluded from the army and navy to work in war industries. In addition, once in uniform, workers were less likely than their social superiors to be passed fit for combat duty, and until late in the war were excluded from the officer corps. As a result, the most severely depleted social groups in the 1914–18 war were the most privileged, whose marriage patterns in the immediate post-war period were distorted by the absence of marriageable men. The concept of a ‘lost generation’ of social elites who fell in the war is, therefore, not a myth, but rather a legend which had a basis in fact, but which took on a life of its own in the inter-war years as a justification of class privilege

Duty · Economic history · Fell · Geography · Legend · Mythology · Navy · Officer · Political science · Privilege (computing) · Social class · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · World War II · Australian History and Society · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact

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