World War I changed the way wars were fought. For the first time, industrial nations and their citizens were mobilized to fight one another and for the first time the term “home front” was used as an unprecedented use of civilian labor and resources were needed to maintain the armies in the field. Raw materials and food became as vital for victory as soldiers and weapons. The war was witness to the first bombing of civilian populations, the first large-scale internment of enemy alien civilians and an unprecedented use of civilian labor and resources.

Unlike earlier conflicts, explains Tammy M. Proctor in “Civilians in a World at War: 1914-1918,” World War I armies were mostly civilians in uniform. Moreover, they were “selected, shaped, armed, fed, housed, nursed, rehabilitated, transported, entertained and buried by civilians,” (p. 38). The management of the war – providing personnel, feeding troops, producing munitions, and staffing the numerous necessary bureaucracies – was done by civilians. The lines between military and civilian management of the war were blurred more than ever before.

Labor had to be mobilized to provide the arms and munitions as well as the food, services and goods necessary to continue everyday life on the “home front.” To do this, governments turned to women, criminals, POWs and foreign labor. For example, the British government used not only Indians and Africans from their colonies, but also recruited almost 100,000 Chinese to work as stevedores moving supplies to the front in France. The French recruited almost 60,000 and the American army utilized large numbers of Chinese laborers as well.

In Africa and the Near East, native populations were recruited and in many cases forced to provide the labor for building railroads and pipelines and serve as porters in the African bush. In many cases, civilians working directly for the military were placed under martial law. Even before entering the war, the United States in 1916 amended to Code of Military Justice, placing civilian contractors under its jurisdiction.

At the same time, the “home front” was being organized. Increased surveillance and governmental control to prevent sabotage and spying, rationing, mobilization of the civilian work force to support the war effort and propaganda to support the war – and especially the troops – were instituted. In several countries, men were drafted to work in the factories and organizations like the YMCA, the Red Cross and the Society of Friends were enlisted to provide for the troops both at home and in the war zones.

For the first time enemy aliens were rounded up and put in camps, where there was often overcrowding, especially at the beginning of the war, disease and, in some countries like Germany and Australia, shortages of food. Some places, like Isle of Wight where the English housed many of their enemy aliens, were especially bad because of the harsh climate. Living conditions were far worse, however, for the civilians caught behind enemy lines like the Belgians, the French in northern France, and the Poles.

In some cases historic animosities resulted in mass murder or starvation like the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the Jews in Poland, Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

In the midst of the war, governments turned to civilians and nongovernmental organizations to provide much-needed assistance. From taking care of the soldiers who had been wounded and needed rehabilitation to providing entertainment and comfort for them in the war zone as well as feeding the hungry caught in the midst of the fighting. The magnitude of the problems were unprecedented. For example, the Committee for the Relief of Belgium headed by Herbert Hoover literally fed the Belgians and the French in northern France for most of the war. Millions would have died had it not been for their efforts. After the war, the committee expanded their efforts to Poland and parts of Russia conquered in a Civil War.

By the end of the war, violence had become so common and political and social upheaval so severe, protests and revolution broke out throughout much of the world. Four empires collapsed (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire) and few places avoided violence either in the form of protests or riots or full-scale revolution. The author concludes that “civilians, living in violent times, used violence to reform or change their systems of government at the end of the war” (p. 239).

World War I changed the role of the state in Europe and much of the rest of the world. At the end of the war, state control did not disappear. daylight saving time, income taxes, intelligence services, liquor regulations, massive government pensions for the soldiers and the disabled are just a few of the changes.

Carefully researched and well-organized, “Civilians in a World at War” is an excellent overview of the effects of World War I on civilians. Combining specific stories and life experiences with a detailed discussion of the changes, the author provides insight into one of the most important developments in the 20th century – what she terms the invention of the modern civilian. Everything changed after World War I. That is why Europeans still call it “The Great War.”

— Reviewed by J.W. Thacker, Department of History, Western Kentucky University.