Home away from the home front: the British in the Balkans during the Great War

Abstract

This thesis is a social history of the British in Serbia, Greece, and what is today Macedonia during the Great War. It explores British wartime experiences by examining their perception of national identity and their attitude towards other nationalities, their relationships and standards of propriety and appearance, aspects of everyday life including recreation, food and drink, the role that events played in forming a communal identity, reactions to and interactions with space and place in Salonika, and their motivations and perceptions of the worth of their work. British people on the Balkan front adapted to their wartime experiences and circumstances with the aid of their cultural background and priorities, existing connections and relationships, their interpretation of their environments, and their sense of duty and accomplishments. Rather than considering or acting as though their wartime experiences were a deviation from their prewar lives, Britons actively integrated these experiences into their everyday lives, and furthermore relied upon their prewar perceptions, connections, and understanding in order to make sense of their wartime lives