Urban historians do not go to war, that is to say we do not follow our historical subjects when citizens enlist and depart the urban stage, nor do we give much consideration when war is brought to our towns and cities. All too often the periods of World Wars I and II appear in our urban histories as hiatuses or even chapter breaks. Studies such as Anthony Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall 1945 or Stalingrad are not thought of as urban history. Helen McCartney's new study of Liverpudlians in the trenches of World War I gives us cause to reconsider the relationship between the town and the battlefield. Citizen Soldiers: The Liverpool Territorials in the First World War follows two battalions known as the Liverpool Rifles and the Liverpool Scottish respectively, from the suburbs of the city to front-line service in the Somme. These soldiers are regarded primarily as citizens and products of their urban environment and McCartney uses this approach to explore the behaviour and experience of the British soldier in the trenches and to challenge some of the potent myths and images of the Great War.

The Liverpool Rifles and the Liverpool Scottish were volunteer battalions comprised of middle-class men from the ‘better’ suburbs of Liverpool: their officers ‘were the sons of religious, civic and business leaders’ of the city, their ranks were made up of clerks, white-collar workers and lower-middle-class shopkeepers. Many had joined before 1914 but their numbers were swelled by their friends and colleagues enlisting in the first rush of wartime patriotism. In peacetime, the battalion meetings offered a social life based upon localism, social status and manliness that held a broad appeal to the Liverpool middle class and, in the case of the Liverpool Scottish at least, one enhanced by the supposed attractiveness of the kilt to Liverpool women! (In addition to having a non-manual occupation and paying a ten-shilling admission fee, the men of the Liverpool Scottish were required to claim Scottish ancestry.) In wartime, the bonds formed by the common class and social experience of the men shaped the operation of the corps in the field and their experience of the war. Until the full impact of conscription fed into the frontline in 1917, changing the nature of the Liverpool battalions, the civilian roles of the men determined the culture and operation of their units. McCartney argues that the volunteers understood their wartime role in terms of a civic social contract; they were distinct from the regular troops ‘in social status, educational standard and aspirations’ and were far more confident in negotiating their roles and position while maintaining a ‘relatively relaxed discipline system’ within the units. However the move from peacetime leisure pursuit to wartime military role was a huge transition, and as McCartney points out, dryly, ‘the Battalion was now their workplace, and the middle class soldier was not used to a socially homogenous working environment which offered few promotional opportunities’.

In addition to upholding their class position and culture during active service, these Liverpool battalions maintained strong links with their city and local neighbourhood communities. McCartney is keen to undermine the stereotype of the British Tommy in the trenches as a passive, alienated, victim and her research emphasizes the detailed and constant communication between the men and their loved ones at home in Liverpool. In the early part of the war such contact was not too difficult; men sent home toys and lace from Belgium while parcels supplying the men's needs were despatched from Liverpool on a regular basis. In 1915 one soldier wrote to his brother ‘A very modern war isn't it? When one can send one's dirty washing home to be washed?’ Later, censorship tightened as conditions worsened but McCartney argues that local newspapers and correspondents were important sources of information as well as soldiers' leave and letters, and that Liverpool inhabitants were much better informed and more realistic about the progress and the realities of war than is generally understood. Back in the trenches local identity was strong and formed an integral part of maintaining morale among the units and forging bonds with other regional regiments. Trenches, tracks and buildings were signed with Liverpool street names and city landmarks, the imagery of the Lancashire rose united city corps with troops from the Liverpool hinterland, and local jokes, banter and shared references created a feeling of belonging within the units. Outside events could also unite the servicemen with their civilian families at home: McCartney argues that the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 affected both the home and Western fronts as ‘the people of Liverpool felt the attack personally’.

In this study of two Liverpool battalions McCartney portrays a soldiery that was at once urban, middle-class and concerned with all the attributes of suburban life: worrying about business and finance (particularly their life insurance) while attempting to adhere to concepts such as ‘having standards’ and seeing ‘fair play’, yet also embroiled in the regulations and operations of an enormous military machine and facing the unprecedented carnage. Owing to the sources available, the study necessarily focuses on the first years of the war and the volunteers rather than on the conscripted soldiers of 1917 and 1918, when the social homogeneity and exclusivity of the Liverpool units were breaking down. We have the voice of middle-class Liverpool volunteers but nothing from their replacement working-class compatriots. According to army records the Liverpool Irish were considered as much trouble in the trenches as they were in the city.

McCartney paints a convincing picture of Liverpool on the brink of the war, wealthy, bustling and energetic but beginning to stagnate economically and riven by class and religious divides. At the Armistice she concludes that ‘the war had not healed the rifts in Liverpool society and there was no new civic community forged by the conflict’. In the short term, the city and its social structure were not altered by the experiences of the trenches, but McCartney shows how the returning men poured their energy and organization into social projects, although commemoration and social organization remained essentially local and even neighbourhood focused.

For the urban historian this study is both fascinating and frustrating. The urban middle class at war is shown to be remarkably resilient; the values, ideals and practises inculcated in the schools, churches, clubs and homes of the suburbs seemed to hold up incredibly well under fire, as did the prejudices, snobbery and deference of those communities. McCartney's assertion that the territorials ‘remained an integral part of their families and pre-war social circle’ whilst serving is convincing and enlightening, and should remind us that a city's absent inhabitants can play a part in urban life even in such circumstances, but the marginalized and the conscripted soldiers, whom we glimpse only through the disciplinary proceedings, represent a whole other aspect of Liverpool which was also present and also sacrificed. On a practical note, stronger editing would have made this book more accessible for those who are not military historians; while the names of battles such as Ypres still resonate, a good map, not just of manoeuvres, would have been valuable and, as the book is thematic in structure, a timeline or simple chronology listing the mobilization and movements of the division would have been helpful. However, this is a subject which deserves a wider readership and Citizen Soldiers is an excellent start; may it inspire urban and local historians to re-examine the relationship between the city and its citizens wherever they may find themselves.