Timothy Bowman, William Butler, and Michael Wheatley. The Disparity of Sacrifice: Irish Recruitment to the British Armed Forces, 1914–1918. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020. Pp. 312. $120.00 (cloth).

Abstract

In The Disparity of Sacrifice, drawing on archives in England, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and on hitherto unsolicited daily newspapers, Timothy Bowman, William Butler, and Michael Whatley seek to determine whether the Great War united Ireland with Great Britain or if the century-long bitterness between the two islands and the question of Home Rule cemented ongoing divisions in Britain’s hour of need. They deserve praise for offering what is the first comprehensive book-length study of recruiting during the Great War and for their equal-handed debunking of both nationalist and unionist myths. Arguing against Catriona Pennell’s vision of a “kingdom united” outlined in A Kingdom United: Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War in Britain and Ireland (2012) and in disagreement with David Fitzpatrick’s idea of “collective sacrifice” (“The Logic of Collective Sacrifice: Ireland and the British Army, 1914–1918,” Historical Journal 38, no. 4 [1995]: 1017–30), they persuasively show that throughout the entire duration of the conflict, the United Kingdom was in actual fact a kingdom divided. Beginning with a (somewhat over-long) introductory chapter on volunteering in the British Armed Forces between 1903 and 1914, their argument is that, contrary to what is often stated, the First World War did not break prewar Irish recruiting patterns and that both nationalist and unionist communities answered the call to arms less wholeheartedly than is generally reported. Chapter 2 is by far the most valuable. Contending that critics of the poor recruiting figures were largely unfair given the contribution of nationalist Ireland as a whole, Bowman, Butler, and Wheatley demonstrate that recruitment into the Armed Forces was compounded by socioeconomic and political factors. Patrick Callan and Terence Denman have already argued that multiple factors (such as inefficient campaigns, and a lack of personal investment from Irish MPs) explained why the number of volunteers was regarded as poor. Additional factors are taken into account here. Army recruiting Journal of British Studies 60 (April 2021): 478–510. © The North American Conference on British Studies, 2021