Social London During the
First World War

Several months into the “general unpleasantness” going on across the Channel, one Vanity Fair writer recognized that the First World War had transformed London into a very different city, and sadly, it was the leisured classes that had to shoulder most of the burden:

“London is well worth living in these troubled days if only for its contrasts…The gloom of the streets, the sinister play of the searchlights, the abnormal hour at which the theatres open and and the public houses close, the fact that half the male population is in khaki and the other half would like to be, that Society is wearing Noah’s Ark clothes and that to buy a new hat is a crime, that there are no dances, no dinners, no suppers, no premieres, no shooting, no no posing, no frivolity, nor idling, it’s rather quickening, you know. But the searchlights have absolutely killed all practical romance.”