Wales paid a heavy price for a place on the international stage between
August 1914 and November 1918.
Over 30,000 Welshmen sacrificed their lives on the battlefields of the First World War, a war which continues to create, even as it is commemorated, great controversy. For some it was a futile and wasteful war; for others it was an unavoidable necessity.
With more than 80 photographs, Wales and World War One by Robin Barlow aims to describe and explain what happened on the home front in Wales during the war and what happened to Welshmen (and women) abroad. What was the contribution of Wales to the war and was this a distinct contribution?
Thousands of books have been published on the First World War with 'Britain' in the title, yet one will search in vain through the index of nearly all of them for references to 'Wales', or indeed 'Scotland' and 'Ireland'. The old cliché still applies: 'For Wales, see England'.
When war broke out, Wales felt bound to play her part, not only as part of the Empire, but in her own right. In 1914, the cost of doing so could not have been imagined.
