The War for Civilization

This final chapter examines the reading habits of troops on the Western Front during the First World War. Literary levels among soldiers were a major preoccupation among many commentators in the period. At the beginning of the war a scarcity of reading matter was often remarked on at the front. Eventually, many means, official and unofficial, were used to acquire books by those on active service: borrowing, sharing, theft were common practices in reading culture. Among the official means for print distribution, several effective schemes were promoted. The Camps Library Scheme of the YMCA enabled book provision all along the Western Front. While the British government invested in propagandizing mentalities among the ranks, soldiers themselves used books, newspapers, and trench journals for their own ends. The varieties of literacy among troops in this period were as diverse as the reading materials themselves.