The First World War marks an inevitable transformation in the traditional gender roles of women from being passive domestic sustainers family into active contributors social life as voluntary nurses, ambulance drivers, and factory workers. Nevertheless, women’s poetic contribution to literary representations war continue be precariously neglected till publication Catherine Reilly’s Scars Upon m...

By examining the origins, pathways, demographic impact and consequences for the public, the medical profession and governments, of the so-called “Spanish” influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, this article establishes the main contours of the worst pandemic in modern history, which killed some 50 million people worldwide in eighteen months. In doing so, it also recognizes how closely this pandemic w...

The emergence of tetanus in wounded soldiers during the first months of the First World War (WWI) resulted from combat on richly manured fields in Belgium and Northern France, the use of modern explosives that produced deep tissue wounds and the intimate contact between the soldier and the soil upon which he fought. In response, routine prophylactic injections with anti-tetanus serum were given...

This article examines Spain’s neutrality during the Great War, highlighting factors such as the lack of military resources; the division of public opinion and internal conflicts; and actors such as King Alfonso XIII (whose mediating role helped to determine Spain’s neutral position). It also analyses the impact of the war in Spain until the immediate post-war period – unequal economic growth, s...

The current centenary of the First World War provides an unrivalled opportunity to uncover some of the social legacies of the war. The four articles which make up this special issue each examine a different facet of the war's impact on British society to explore an as yet untold story. The subjects investigated include logistics, the history of science, the social history of medicine and resist...