ALED EIRUG has dug long and deep into a treasure trove of archives and surveyed the already published work of historians and propagandists to convincingly challenge the orthodoxy championed by Professor KO Morgan and others that, from the beginning, the Welsh people danced more enthusiastically than any other to the drums of war.

[[{"fid":"12037","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]While Eirug’s statistical case, in terms of recruitment figures for England, Scotland and Wales is neither clear nor conclusive, his panoramic and in-depth account of anti-war activity and sentiment — religious, pacifist, socialist and internationalist — certainly is.

What stands out from this authoritative account is the servile treachery of the Welsh petty-bourgeois intelligentsia who, until 1914, dominated Welsh religious, cultural and political life. Led by David Lloyd George, their hegemony over large sections of the working class crashed on the rocks of British imperial jingoism as they sought to demonstrate both their Welsh “patriotism” and their loyalty to the British state and empire.