The party of patriotism: the Conservative Party and the First World War

The First World War was a period of turbulent and unprecedented political upheaval that witnessed contrasting fortunes for Britain's major political parties.

This book demonstrates how the Conservative Party was able to respond effectively in these years by refining a wartime patriotism that ensured its unity as a party, helped define its electoral fortunes and shaped ideological cohesion.

Concepts of patriotism determined not only attitudes to the prosecution of the war, to voluntary and forced military enlistment, but also to class politics, Irish Unionism, democratic reform and the relationship between citizen and state.