Soldiers’ songs have as their content soldierly life and experiences and are – in contrast to the officially prescribed battle songs – utterances which are sung ‘voluntarily and out of habit’. In them soldiers express ‘what moves them and they otherwise cannot and do not want to say themselves’, as the folklorist John Meier put it in 1916. Solders’ songs have a variety of content, which ranges from patriotic appeals and calls to battle to laments and protests. During the First World War large collections of them were compiled out of not only patriotic but also folkloristic interest.
