English Landed Society in the Great War: Defending the Realm by Edward Bujak (review)

This book examines the role of the English landed elite in the Great War and the consequences of the war for this social group. There are chapters on their direct military contribution, rural labour mobilization, agriculture, and disputes over shooting and foxhunting.

Overall what was the impact of the Great War on English landed society? First, they experienced the personal agonies of the war disproportionately owing to their over-representation among the casualties, which some writers have argued also created a long-term demographic effect. Second, having profited from the increased use of their land for rearing livestock before the war, landowners had to allow the conversion of large acreages of pasture to tillage. Third, the tenant rights of farmers were strengthened at the expense of landowners; and a significant increase occurred in the power enjoyed in the local community by large farmers, with whom landowners were forced to share the administration of the wartime regulation of agriculture. Fourth, state efforts were made to improve agricultural wages, most of the cost of which was passed on to landowners. And fifth, there was a general expansion in state interference in English agriculture. These pressures contributed to a decline in the interest of landowners in agriculture, an increase in land sales, and a significant transfer of landownership to occupiers. At the same time, the resistance of some landowners to certain changes was heavily criticized as selfish and unpatriotic, resulting in a measure of damage to their public image.

Yet much of what the English aristocracy lost was a result of accelerating pre-war trends. The agricultural depression that began in the late nineteenth century had already weakened the English landed class economically. Legislation advancing the rights of farmers preceded the war. And the political and economic position of the English aristocracy was already being undermined before the war by the growing wealth of merchants and manufacturers, the broadening of the electoral suffrage, confiscatory taxation, and the Parliament Act of 1911, which significantly curtailed the power of the House of Lords. Not surprisingly, an increase in the sale of properties by landowners was already taking place before the war.

However, the Great War was far from a disaster for the English landed elite. As Bujak points out, the death of a young member of a family, even the eldest, did not mean that an estate was not inherited. For all but very small landowners, the sale of land meant simply a contraction in the size of their estates (frequently the disposal of property distant from the "heartland"), which made more funds available for alternative—generally more lucrative—investments, although this did mean that they became less "landed."

On balance, the Great War benefited their public image. Bujak argues that many members of the landed class contributed to the war effort in order to fulfill what they believed was their calling and to counteract criticism. They did, in fact, accept many changes to the agricultural use of their land. Many estate properties were also used as training grounds; and not a few great houses were turned into hospitals. Until 1916 landowners also played an important voluntary role in organizing local recruitment. Of even greater importance was the heroism that the landed aristocracy would claim from the voluntary enlistment of young aristocrats, their leadership and bravery as junior officers, and the high mortality rates they experienced. The tragedy of a "Lost Generation" was a theme in many accounts of the war but was most prevalent in the landed class; they portrayed their lost generation as especially tragic because it meant the loss of members of a superior breed of young men.

The Great War had very different consequences for landed elites of other European countries. The French landed elite did not have as much cultural and social solidarity as the English landed elite. It no longer had a state-recognized aristocratic status or structure of aristocratic...