ABSTRACT
The First World War once again saw the role of sport in British military and civil society closely dissected and widely discussed by the nation’s journalists and authors. This chapter explores how a public, shocked at the horrors of trench warfare, challenged the belief that the cult of athleticism was an ideal, or even adequate, preparation for the vicissitudes of combat. Yet, although the idea that playing games was directly correlated with military prowess may have been diminished by the British Army’s experiences on the Western Front, the chapter also highlights how sport retained in the popular consciousness its importance as a cultural signifier. As the chapter shows, sporting imagery and language was used by war correspondents, memoirists, novelists and even the soldiers themselves to impose a nobility and sense of moral purpose on the barbarities of attritional fighting and the horrors of mass killing. The chapter concludes with an examination of how sport was utilised in post-war memorialisation to sanitise and legitimise the war experience.
