When war broke out in 1914, conscription seemed unnecessary: there was no shortage of volunteers ready to lay down their lives for England. Caroline Dakers explores exactly what England meant to the men and women who fought, died, survived. She suggests that, with a little subliminal help from literature, art and propaganda, the British volunteer, whether factory worker, farm hand or public school boy, felt that he was fighting for a bucolic vision of old England village, church, meadow and carthorse, rather than city, factory, commerce and motor car. Drawing on a wide range of unpublished...