The scale of destruction and loss of life arising from the Great War was unprecedented and even the victors questioned the value of the carnage. In total, 20 million were severely wounded and 8 million permanently disabled, all seeking reintegration into much-changed societies. In the United Kingdom 6.1 million were mobilised; 722,785 lost their lives, 1.7 million were wounded, 755,000 permanently disabled. With the collapse of empires, many of the countries for which they had fought had ceased to exist. All the countries involved were impoverished by the cost of an industrial scale war but, to varying degrees, there was recognition of the obligation of both state and society to the returning soldiers, particularly to those who were disabled. In Britain following previous wars, after-care of disabled ex-servicemen and disability pensions was managed by the War Office and the army, specifically through The Royal Hospital Chelsea. Conscription and the scale of enlistment established the precedent that the state was directly responsible for pension gratuities, disabled rehabilitation and all facets of recovery and maintenance, and the establishment of the necessary agencies to provide such support. The Ministry of Pensions was formed in 1916 and took over pension administration from Chelsea Hospital the following year.

Cohen contrasts the experiences of ex-servicemen in two of the major combatants, Britain and Germany, arguing that although the German state provided Europe's most comprehensive support for disabled veterans with far more generous benefits than those available within Great Britain, German ex-serviceman became alienated from it, contributing to the collapse of the Weimar Republic. The British state assumed only the bare minimum of responsibility for its disabled veterans. Between 1925 and 1933, Germany spent around 20% of its national budget on war pensions, some three times that of Britain, although it had only double the number of disabled. British ministries sought to limit the state's liability for wounded soldiers by pleading fiscal stringency. According to Cohen there was little difference between the political parties in their attitude to ex-servicemen: ‘in its first-ever government, Labour had, like the Conservative government that followed, done little to assist these men’.