great divide

Preceded by the definite article

• The First World War was "the great divide", not only because it accelerated changes already evident in the countryside, but because it introduced Government controls on a scale never known before.1973, Victor Bonham-Carter, Land and Environment: The Survival of the English Countryside, Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, page 72:
• There was nothing more I wanted than to be hanging out with Fin as if nothing had changed, but that wasn't reality. It was now the great divide.2005, J. C. Burke, The Story of Tom Brennan, Sydney: Random House Australia, page 195: