Bettany Hughes
Believe it or not 400 years ago Elizabeth I travelled down this lane, to this field in west Tilbury close to the Thames estuary. Here she gave her rousing speech to her troops before the Spanish Armada. "I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman", she said, "but I have the heart and stomach of a king". The year was 1588. Philip II's Spanish fleet was approaching. Elizabeth resolved to "live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, my Kingdom and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust". The remarkable thing about records like these is that they reveal the relationship. Elizabeth I knew her people and her words, even now, can help us to understand how men and women have been persuaded to fight and to die for their country.

There are so many military records and so many different kinds that all I can hope to do is look at a small selection. I thought I'd start with an event we all know about. If you visit any English town or village you will always be reminded of the first world war. There isn't a corner of the country that doesn't have a memorial to the men who went away to fight - and never came back. And its not just a handful of names either. There are often scores and scores of them.

This was a war fought on a scale unimaginable before and the effect it had on these small communities must have been devastating. So how did the State manage to recruit the largest army it had ever fielded, and why did so many men join up voluntarily?

Sir Michael Howard
Initially the most popular war that Britain's ever been involved in, there was wild enthusiasm, which historians now find a little difficult to understand, but its important to realise that the image of what the war was going to be like was very different from what it actually turned out to be.

People thought it was going to be pretty quick. Also a genuine patriotic enthusiasm, the feeling this was a just war. The possibility of getting out from one's rather boring life and having a brief, glorious adventure did bring people to the colours in very large numbers, again on the assumptions they would probably be home, if not by Christmas, certainly within a year. And as a result of that it was possible to raise, entirely by voluntary means, over a million men.

Bettany
In Glasgow, they raised a battalion of volunteers in 16 hours. So I thought I'd start my journey around the military archives in Scotland. The volunteer battalions were the backbone of the 1914 British Expeditionary Force. And they were raised locally, by local organisations who then supplied them with everything from uniforms to bacon and eggs.

At Glasgow's old drill hall I caught up with military historian Ken Gibb. Ken showed me round the hall, still looking as it did when soldiers slept here during their first weeks of training, and he explained to me how volunteers were recruited.

Posters are what everybody associates with the recruitment drive.Ken
This here poster was for the 16th HLI, the 3 battalions that were raised were designated 15th, 16th, 17th HLI.

Bettany
Which is Highland Light Infantry.

Ken
Highland Light Infantry, yes. It was Glasgow's own regiment. Now the 15th was recruited from members of the tramways departments. The 16th was from ex-members of the Boys' Brigade and the 17th was raised by the Chamber of Commerce.

Bettany
And that photo is extraordinary, I mean this is a group of people who are not hiding their light under a bushel are they?

Ken
No, that's an incredible photograph. That I would say was taken in Bath Street, it's in the Headquarters of Glasgow Tramways Department, and their Chairman, James Dalrimpole, was the great recruiter in Glasgow. And he went as far as trying to raise 3000 Bantams, as you can see down here.

Bettany
What's a Bantam?

Ken
Well a Bantam is an interesting case, this poster up here gives an idea of what they are but I have the most incredible photo to show you.

Bettany
They're tiny!

Ken
They are tiny. These were Bantams in September/October 1914. When the losses started to mount up the War Office decided to drop the height regulations, and this was the result.

Bettany
And there were enough people to fill it?

Ken
There were. You must remember in those days, in big industrial cities like Glasgow, Liverpool, London, because of poor diets and because of the poor air conditions, people's growth was stunted. And there were a lot of people short in stature. They were joining because they wanted to be part of it, before the famous war finished at Christmas. Trench warfare hadn't taken place, the poison gas hadn't been invented, all the horrors were still to come.

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Content last updated: 03/04/2006

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