As ‘Dead as Queen Anne’? Recruitment, Compulsion and the Crisis of British National Identity, April–May 1918

In spring 1918, a surge in volunteering occurred in Britain in response to the German Spring Offensive. Those who ‘volunteered’ were portrayed by the press as embodying the language of enthusiasm and the idea of national defence. Yet, when examined more closely, this characterisation does not hold. This article argues that this ‘rush to the colours’ owed less to a spontaneous resurgence of voluntary spirit than to coercive institutional practices, reframed as voluntarism to preserve the legitimacy of national identity. There is a need to reconceptualise wartime propaganda by paying closer attention to the narrative purposes served by newspaper language.