Keeping the Occupiers Occupied: Leisure and Tourism in the British Rhine Army, 1918-1929

Abstract

After the ordeals of the First World War, the military occupation of the Rhineland offered members of the British Army unprecedented opportunities for travel and amusement. Posted to a region popular with British tourists before 1914, the British occupiers were encouraged, particularly by the English-language Cologne Post, to make the most of their time on the ‘Romantic Rhine’, even though the Army wished to limit their interactions with the German population. This article examines how travel and tourism, and particularly walking excursions, were promoted in the Rhine Army as healthy, educational alternatives to the perceived dangers of fraternisation and especially of city life in Cologne.