More than Victims of Horace: Public Schools 1914-1918

Description by Timothy HalsteadPaperback The involvement of public school boys in the Great War has often been seen in terms of ‘a race of innocents dedicated to romantic ideals’. It has been argued that an education based on the teaching of the classics (focused on the deeds of past military heroes) and the playing of games underpinned this.In A School in Arms: Uppingham and the Great War (2017) Timothy Halstead demonstrated that in the case of Uppingham this involvement was more nuanced than previously suggested. His More Than Victims of Horace: Public Schools 1914–1918 argues that this was the case for all public schools and looks at the role of those who survived as well as those who died.More Than Victims of Horace examines the professionalisation of the British Army in the years leading up to 1914 and how the its relationship with the public schools developed. The rapid expansion of the army after the outbreak of the war meant that a range of skills were needed to enable it to op