"It has become known as the war of nerves. An apt name for a jittery, jangling time in British history, consumed with fear of what may be coming, in which the sheer unpredictability of life became as the historian Prof Julie Gottlieb writes a form of psychological warfare. Contemporary reports describe threats of mysterious weapons, gigantic bluff, and a cat-and-mouse game intended to stampede the civilian population of this island into terror."
"Her fascinating study of letters, diaries and newspapers from the period focuses not on the big geopolitical picture but on small domestic details, and what they reveal about the emotional impact of living suspended between peace and war: companies advertising nerve tonics for the anxious, reports of women buying hats to lift their spirits and darker accounts of nervous breakdowns. We did not, contrary to popular myth, all Keep Calm and Carry On. Suicide rates, she notes, rose slightly."
The period between the Munich crisis of 1938 and the Blitz in 1940 became a 'war of nerves' marked by pervasive fear and unpredictability that functioned as psychological warfare. Domestic records show how daily life shifted: companies marketed nerve tonics, women purchased hats to lift spirits, and accounts of nervous breakdowns and a slight rise in suicides increased. Popular stoicism did not universally prevail. Contemporary parallels appear in modern political unpredictability, including threats and retractions of force or trade penalties, leaving governments scrambling to adapt and ordinary citizens uncertain how to respond to calls for resilience or a wartime posture.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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