Society

Ersatz

German for "replacement" or "substitute". It was applied above all to the food and materials that replaced real coffee, meat, flour and metals under the British blockade, and it entered English as a word for an inferior imitation.

Mentioned in

• Chapter IX In the Trenches §4 The Other Enemies: Rats, Lice, Mud and Cold
• Chapter XII The Home Fronts §4 Food, Rationing and Hunger