A Guardian Best Book of the Year 2014
11pm, Tuesday 4 August 1914: with the declaration of war London becomes one of the greatest killing machines in human history. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers pass through the capital on their way to the front; wounded men are brought back to be treated in London's hospitals; and millions of shells are produced in its factories.
The war changes London life for ever. Women escape the drudgery of domestic service to work as munitionettes. Full employment puts money into the pockets of the London poor for the first time. Self-appointed moral guardians seize the chance to clamp down on drink, frivolous entertainment and licentious behaviour. As the war drags on, gloom often descends on the capital. And at night London is plunged into darkness for fear of German bombers and Zeppelins that continue to raid the city.
Yet despite daily casualty lists, food shortages and enemy bombing, Londoners are determined to get on with their lives and flock to cinemas and theatres, dance halls and shebeens, firmly resolved not to let Germans or puritans spoil their enjoyment.
Peopled with patriots and pacifists, clergymen and thieves, bluestockings and prostitutes, Jerry White's magnificent panorama reveals a struggling yet flourishing city.
11pm, Tuesday 4 August 1914: For the next four years Londoners would be at the eye of an ever-enlarging storm. As war raged across the globe, they were almost without exception caught up body and soul in its thrall.
And yet despite the carnage across the Channel, the war was almost wholly positive for London. Full employment and huge advances in living standards brought the grinding poverty of the pre-war era almost to an end. Public health was improved. Women's lives were transformed.
In the capital converged the many threads of Britain's war: munitions were manufactured; soldiers on their way to or from active service passed through in their hundreds of thousands; refugees sought new lives. Then there were the citizens - patriots and pacifists, clergymen and thieves, bluestockings and prostitutes - all dependent on war's shifting fortunes.
War meant blackout and puritanical laws but also nightclubs and a new sexual freedom. It brought the drama of aerial bombardment, anti-German riots, internment camps, American and colonial troops, more guns than ever in the hands of criminals. Jerry White's magnificent panorama reveals as never before a city struggling but also flourishing.
