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This book is split into two sections. The first looks at soldier's slang and phrases and military terminology of the First World War, with the emphasis on terms used in the British and Empire forces. The second lucks at popular songs and chants of the war.
Many of the phrases are very familiar, having entered the language ('fag' for cigarette for instance), but discovering their source is interesting. Overall the slang terms tell us a long about the day-to-day concerns of the soldiers.
The first attempt to bring together soldier's slang came in 1931, with Brophy and Partridge's Songs and Slang of the British Soldier. This book owes a great deal to that earlier work (by the author's own admission), but includes many phrases that were considered to be too rude for publication in 1931. The focus is on slang rather than swearing, so we don't get much of the cursing that many shocked middle class officers discovered.
The sources of the slang are varied. Many phrases came from cockney rhyming slang, from India or from French (sort of). Smaller contributions came from other parts of the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States (although many phrases now believed to be American actually turn out to have British roots).
The songs are a mix of specific wartime music and popular pre-war hits. The changing nature of the songs reflects the changing mood as the war dragged on, with the patriotic recruiting songs of 1914 soon fading away to be replaced by more sentimental songs. Pegler also includes a selection of solder's chants, often fairly nonsensical fragments used on the march or to relieve tension.
This book provides a window into the now lost world of the trenches not always provided by the somewhat sanitised post-war memoirs.
Parts
1 - Soldier's Slang
2 - Soldier's Songs
Author: Martin Pegler
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 296
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2014