Looking for home? New Zealand soldiers visiting London during the first world war

Abstract

For colonial troops from the British Empire, the military mobilizations of the First World War created the opportunity to visit the imperial metropolis –London – leaving the war behind. This article explores the experience and encounters of New Zealand’s soldiers in London during the First World War and the ambiguity of their identity and belonging in a city that could be positioned as ‘home’. Using diaries, letters, newspapers and oral testimonies, the article builds on the work of Felicity Barnes to question the extent to which these colonial troops could feel at ‘home’ in the ‘Big City’, inside and outside the familiar space, to explore colonialism’s tensions in a global war.