It was known as the Great War, and the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the first world war is to be marked next year on an appropriately grand scale. Cultural plans to reflect the impact of the conflict are now advanced enough to see it is going to be the biggest national commemoration observed in the UK. In the absence of any surviving combatants, the publishing industry will be at the forefront of this military campaign – with a huge number of titles queueing up for publication.
On Monday morning, the government will announce details of its centenary projects. Culture secretary Maria Miller, communities secretary Eric Pickles and the prime minister's special representative for the centenary, Andrew Murrison, will unveil plans to spend more than £50m, including a substantial grant towards refurbishing the first world war galleries at the Imperial War Museum and a grant to make HMS Caroline, the last surviving warship from the battle of Jutland, into a floating museum.
More than £5m has also been put aside to allow two pupils and a teacher from every English state secondary school to visit the battlefields, while £6m will go to a Heritage Lottery Fund scheme for local research projects.
National broadcasters have commissioned documentaries and BBC1 will be screening a new drama series by former EastEnders writer Tony Jordan. Called The Great War, it will focus on the lives of two young men on the frontline. But it is British publishers who have really seized the opportunity. A flood of books is due, with a special emphasis on niche angles and revelatory research.
Former BBC war correspondent Kate Adie will focus on the part played by those who were not allowed to fight. She has written a "book about the role women played during the first world war on the home front, sometimes doing dangerous or unusual jobs".
The story of a remarkable contemporary war reporter will be tackled by Richard Evans, whose book about Sir Basil Clarke, to be published on Friday by Spellmount, will cover his rejection of the censorship imposed by the British military at the beginning of the war and his eventual work as a national PR officer in London. "He defied the restrictive reporting rules by subterfuge and went on to have an extraordinary career, actually coining the term 'no man's land'," said Evans this weekend.
Key battle scenes will be given fresh scrutiny in many titles produced after years of research. Military historian Jerry Murland has been asked to complete two books about the Somme and Mons. "My interest in the war was fuelled by the diaries of my grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Howard Murland, in which he described the daily life of an officer on the Mesopotamian front in 1916-17," said the author. Soon the personal accounts of the officers and men who fought had gripped him.
Murland's 2011 book, Retreat and Rearguard 1914, featured the British retreat from Mons in Belgium during the opening weeks of the war. Its sequel, Battle on the Aisne 1914: The British Expeditionary Force and the Birth of the Western Front, was published in 2012. His two new books are Retreat and Rearguard – Somme 1918, covering the Commonwealth forces' retreat in March 1918, and a guidebook in the Battle Lines series he has written with Jon Cooksey, also about the retreat from Mons.
To writers such as Murland, the centenary is an unprecedented chance to communicate a passion. "It is important we recognise the leadership and generalship of Sir Douglas Haig in commanding what was the largest land force ever to leave these shores," he said. "I hope any new books will focus on the personal contributions written by the myriad of individuals on the battle fronts. After all, it was a human conflict and the emotions of war, described by those who were there, are often neglected in the quest to describe the strategic and political direction."
Adrian Gilbert is gripped by a similar sense of mission. His book, Challenge of Battle: The Real Story of the British Army in 1914, to be published by Osprey in February, is an analysis of the BEF in 1914. His target, he said, was the "easy platitudes, evasions and, on occasion, downright untruths of the official history".
Gilbert promises an uncomfortable read for those "used to the complacent, self-congratulatory tone set by standard accounts" and an unflinching look at the army's many failings.
Gilbert, like Murland, wants a timely reconsideration of the facts: "In the war's immediate aftermath, it was completely understandable it should be treated as something of the greatest reverence, but 100 years on this continuing reverence has lost its original grief-laden meaning in favour of an increasingly cloying sentimentality," he said, adding: "The first world war should be considered within a chronological continuum, and not as an event outside history itself."
However, tThe Great War undeniably has a hold on British imaginations. William Boyd, author of first world war novel Waiting for Sunrise, has attempted to explain its enduring influence. Part of the reason is its literature, he argues. "In Britain, where almost a million servicemen died, it's images of the trenches that resonate on Remembrance Day. One reason for this is the resonance of the poetry. I can remember Wilfred Owen's terrifying Dulce et Decorum Est, about a mustard-gas attack, being read aloud in the classroom when I was 10 or 11. One boy actually ran outside, he was so upset."
To bring the events of 1914 back to life, the Heritage Lottery Fund has launched a £6m small grants programme, First World War: Then and Now. Supported projects include one in Huddersfield about the history of a rugby league club. Black families in Liverpool will also be uncovering stories about their ancestors' involvement in the war.
Stately homes such as Castle Howard in North Yorkshire will also mark the centenary with exhibitions about the losses suffered by the aristocracy. Duty Calls: Castle Howard in Time of War will run until the end of 2014.
