ON AUGUST 4, 1914, the world changed forever when Great Britain declared war on Germany.

Nations fell headlong into an abyss from which they would not emerge for another four years, and a generation of young men died in no-man’s-land.

On the day, Southampton readers of the Hampshire Independent were greeted by the stark headline: “War! The Continent Ablaze.”

They were also urged by the newspaper to: “Keep your heads.

Be calm. Go about your ordinary business quietly and soberly. Do not indulge in excitement or foolish demonstrations.

“Try to contribute your share by doing your duty in your own place and your own sphere.

Be abstemious and economical, avoid waste.”

There had been rumblings of threatened conflict for a long time, but the fateful year started in the usual manner in Southampton with several thousand people gathered in freezing temperatures to see in 1914.

Southampton Women’s Total Abstinence Union were also out and about in the local community as the year progressed.

“What a glorious picture it is to see the healthy, cheerful little children, the happy housewife, the contented husband in those homes where temperance is the ruling spirit, and what a sad contrast the reverse of that picture presents; misery stamped on the faces of all in the household, and all due to unworthy abandonment to the unholy craving for drink,” a local leader of the union told one Southampton meeting.

Towards the end of the year wounded soldiers returned from the front to Southampton and were met by a group of volunteers giving away cigarettes.

“About 3,000 cigarettes were put in the reach of the wounded in just one day alone in Southampton docks,” noted one report.