Returning soldiers, citizenship and the vote during the First World War

Dr Matthew Johnson discusses our changing understanding of political citizenship during the First World War.

During the First World War some 5,700,000 men passed through the ranks of the British armed forces. Although they were often described as ‘citizen soldiers’, many of these men had never been eligible to vote in a Parliamentary election.

This talk explores how the experience of war changed British understandings of political citizenship – for both men and women – and brought soldiers into parliamentary politics in new and important ways.