Visitors to the battlefields of France and Belgium expressed pain and anguish, pride and nostalgia, and wonder and surprise at what they saw. Postcards from the Western Front chronicles the many ways in which these sites were perceived and commemorated by British people, both during the First World War and in the twenty years following the Armistice.
Mark Connelly’s definitive and engaging study of the former Western Front examines how different and distinctive sub-communities – regional, ethnic and religious, civilian and armed forces – influenced the depth and strength of the visiting public’s relationship with the battlefields, all the while comparing and contrasting this relationship with the viewpoint of the French and Belgian inhabitants of the devastated regions. Connelly draws from a vast archive a number of interlocking themes, including the lingering presence of the battlefields in the British domestic imagination, the often fraught experience of visiting the battlefields, memorials and cemeteries functioning as part of a historical testimony to wartime realities, and the interactions between visitors and the people living in these former fighting zones.
Focusing on French and Belgian sites, Connelly nevertheless provides insight into other major battlefields fought over by troops from the British Empire. Extensively illustrated with black and white photographs, Postcards from the Western Front offers a groundbreaking perspective on landscapes that rarely left anyone – whether tourist, inhabitant, veteran, or pilgrim – unmoved.

Mark Connelly is professor of modern British history at the University of Kent.

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"A meticulously researched and vividly detailed analysis of the impact of war on the landscape and society of the battlefields of the Western Front in France and Belgium. Connelly’s study provides valuable insights into the motivations and significance of visiting battlefields and the first mass tourism to former sites of war and violence, as well as the emergence of a whole new industry." Francia-Recensio

‘Deeply researched and wonderfully written. Mark Connelly has something interesting to say on every page of this book.’ Jay Winter, Yale University and co-author of The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century

“This book is thought-provoking and impressive in its scope and its attention to detail and is a must read for anyone curious about the experiences of those early visitors to the sites so familiar to us today.” The Western Front Association

‘This highly engaging and timely study gives historical precedents to understand contemporary examples of remembrance and mourning. There is no other work that examines the travel literature and ephemera of the Western Front in the way that Connelly does here.’ Ross Wilson, University of Nottingham and author of Cultural Heritage of the Great War in Britain