The government tried to play down the news of the war for a few reasons. One of these being the fact that if everyone saw the danger of the war, and how it even affected the people at home, they might think that going to war was a very bad idea, and they might change their minds seeing the death and trouble of it. The young and old men that would have recruited straight away being filled with the lies of propaganda, thinking that war was safe and easy and also seeing as they would have never seen much killing or death, would maybe now change their minds, finally seeing the onslaught of war, the death, the pain! Secondly the government would have tried to play this down as this would bring down the morale of everyone, the soldiers, the supporters, the civilians, EVERYONE! And going back especially, to both the soldiers already at war and the future soldiers, as this would add to the sadness and atrociousness of the war! Making them think twice about the war, and its good idea.
Even though the bombing maybe should have been publicized more as it did in fact bring the British together, and made everyone hate the Germans even more, making them want to triumph over them even more!
- I think that the prices of the fish and sugar went up especially in World War 1 for two reasons. This first is that now that so many of the men had gone to war farming and fishing would have decreased a huge amount, as there would be no men to labour for these foods, and women do not usually fish, or farm, so a lot of the amounts of these went down making the prices augment quite a bit! But I think the main reason was because it would be VERY hard to import food into Britain, especially sugar, as meat, bread and flour are easily got, or made. But there was not a lot of sugar in Britain, and most of the ships that carried the masses of sugar, and maybe fish, would scarcely actually reach Britain, as the Germans would usually stop them, and would cut off the lines of import and export from Britain and to Britain! So this would mean that there would be hardly any sugar and therefore the prices would rise!
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Pictures H and J differ in the ways as H, mainly looks at fathers, and family men going to their was, as it even says “Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?” and as it shows his two children around him, it means that all fathers should go and fight for their country and their families, to make their family and children proud and to prove themselves!
But J however says “WOMEN of BRITAN SAY – GO!” So I think that this poster would aim more towards boyfriends, lovers or husbands, as you always, stereotypically, see the brave soldier going to fight for his lover, to keep her safe from the enemy, and to come back and ‘rescue’ her, or that the men might think that the women like men that go to war, so this poster would encourage that though, and would maybe make them think something like “Oh yeah! If I go to war I’ll be a hero! All the girls‘ll fall fer me! I’ll just go to war, shouldn’t last long, come back and be able to get any of the girls I want! I’m sure they like men in uniform and it makes me look more mainly to be in the army, fighting for my country!” Well maybe it did, but theses were lucky cases, most were tragic, and most of these men just ended dead or traumatized except for the few lucky ones, and if they did escape they probably would not get their girl anyway... SO I think that both of these posters are very effective, in two different ways, reaching to all types of men, whether married or not, in love or not, or ready for war or not, these two posters would definitely encourage them to go to war…
- I think that the government HAD to and in fact were FORCED to introduce conscription in 1916. Although this might have been the case a bit, I do not think that it was to save boys underage from joining the army as have some people said, but I think it was just to do with the fact that not enough people were signing up. At first the government didn’t need a lot to encourage the men to enlist as soldiers, as most of these men had never even glimpsed anything of war, and probably just had the idea that it was just an easy job of wiping up some Germans, and the government did indeed give this impression, but as I said it was not needed at first as men and boys flocked in their thousands to enlist, and there was no problem. The next stage was when the government found that most of the men and boys that HAD gone to war were dead, and that they needed reinforcements immediately! There were men and boys left, but most of these that were left were wary and not wanting to go to war just yet, so the government tried to push them forward in the ways of propaganda! “Oh come to war, it’s the best, serve your country, win meddles, blah blah blah!” And these false ideas did actually work, and many unsure minds were changed and they also went to war, also this was helped after the bombing of London and British towns, as the people would have more of a reason to hate and destroy the Germans! (Also there was the plan of dishonouring people through a white feather being placed on the men that did not fight!) So the government was safe… for a short while! But the final stage was the worst, now two things had happened, worse was that most of the men that had gone to war were already dead or injured and there was a shortage of them. And secondly now men at home realised HOW bad war was, and they were not so ignorant of what was happening most men said no to war! So now the government laid down their worst card yet… CONSCRIPTION! Men of age between 18 and 45 were FORCED to go to war, except for the very seldom few, that were conscientious objectors, that got away with it! But no men had to, whether they liked it or not, go to war! But the government, although it was very bad and horrific, maybe had to play this final trump card, a double edged sword is a good phrase for it as it is just that… But yes, they did need to introduce conscription or we may have lost the war without the manpower and in fact probably would have…
Abbas Lightwalla