The Germans had received training in the Spanish Civil war, receiving the ability to test new weaponry, perfect and hone in new skills and techniques on the side of General Franco. This, coupled with the sheer size of the arsenal, gave the Germans, or indeed anyone else, the ability to literally raze cities to the ground, like Guernica. Guernica was a market town, of little strategic importance apart from a river bridge. The images that were seen by the world were put into perspective by the British government. It was quickly realised that if the Germans were able to ‘wipe out’ a Spanish market town then they were just as able to do it to a major British city. Poisoned gas was dropped from planes for the first time during the Spanish Civil War, and it was a real possibility that it could be used during this war too. It was necessary, then, that children were moved out of major targets. Gas Masks were also issued to all, showing just how real the British government thought gas raids actually were.
The British government quickly got hold of statistics based from World War One facts, amplified by the technological advancements of 1939. The figures produced by the mathematicians that were called upon were depressive to say the least, “600 tons of bombs per day could be dropped on Britain, following a huge opening assault dropping 3,500 tons in the first 24 hours causing 60,000 dead and 120,000 wounded on the first day, followed by 66,000 dead and 130,000 wounded per week thereafter.”
Another reason for such promptness on the government’s part is propaganda. If the government was seen, it was thought, that it was assertively trying to do something to prevent Britain from being defeated, something to help the national community, then people would take it on, and feel secure that their government was actively trying to prevent the disasters of World War One from reoccurring.
In conclusion, the culminate threat of advanced bombing techniques and machinery, an experienced military force, disastrous activities like Guernica and World War One, crippling statistics and propaganda forced the British Government into thinking of an imminent war and the possibility of evacuation.
- Explain the differing reactions of people in Britain to the policy of evacuating children during the Second World War.
There were many differing views and reactions to the evacuation policy. The government was keen to promote positive feelings towards the scheme, and many shared them, but many more felt differing emotions regarding the system imposed upon them. During the ‘phoney war’ no bombs fell on British land, and so its citizens began to doubt the system. The phoney war guided the country into a false sense of security, which many fell into, but the most affected by this were the parents, who even brought their children back to London, thinking them safe, but the Blitz saw them re-located again.
‘Foster Parents’ were soon found for the evacuated children, and some were shocked, as would be their evacuees. It is easy to find differences between the London city children and their countryside foster parents. There would almost certainly be a difference in manners, background and class between the country dwellers and city livers, but which was often different. There was an equal chance that a poor Londoner would be taken in by a high class, respected family and that a well-off child, would be billeted with a country miner’s family, with no running water or electricity. Some foster parents quickly mistook their evacuee’s ignorance and behaviour as check and rudeness and punished, which would have affected both the parent’s and the evacuee’s view on the war.
People that weren’t affected by the scheme, that didn’t have children to take in any evacuees, generally thought the scheme was a good idea. It was widely thought that any program made to help the nation’s war effort was good, even if that saw all schools in every major city relocate to secluded towns.
The children held two different channels of emotions, with many changing their mind during the war. In the scheme a quarter of the population of Britain were given new addresses and relocated to a foreign environment, a huge statistic that the children just didn’t apprehend. Many children thought that the war would be nothing more than a short campaign, seeing them back home before long, and so many saw the scheme as an ‘adventure’, or a ‘boy’s and girl’s outing’, without the parents. The war would see them having fun and indulging in many activities not possible at home, a holiday. Many arrived in their new homes, still with this frame of mind. It took several weeks for all to realise that they were in it ‘for the long haul’ and that their relocation was far from a holiday.
The biological parents of the evacuees were also evacuated with children under five, which gave the country community someone to blame. The children, with their lack of politeness and cleanliness could easily have been forgiven, but those who had allowed them to ‘get in to such a state’ could not. This constant attack from their new community would have influenced the parent’s view of the scheme that fall into this category greatly.
Other parents, with children over five, who were separated from their children through the scheme held differing opinions; some felt secure and able to give their all to their country in it’s time of need, able to fight for their country on the frontline, or producing munitions in the factories, safe in the knowledge that the people they cared about in their life were not in danger. The scheme was important for the war effort, as many of the nation’s fighters were parents, and so had to be reassured that their children were safe.
Others would have thought that there should have been more freedom in this huge scheme, as they felt that their children would be as safe at home as they would deep inside the British countryside, cut off from communications with their cherished offspring. It was this sub-group that usually brought their children back, for the full horrors of everyday wartime life to be inflicted upon them, and it was to this group that excessive amounts of propaganda, produced by their government, were targeted at in an attempt to stop them from doing this.
Another sub-group is made up of those parents who did not evacuate their children at all, and who left them in the city, for better or for worse. Equal amounts of propaganda were thrown at this stereotype, the government trying to persuade them into following the evacuation scheme. Although these people would have feared for their child’s safety at the hands of the Germans more, having the company of their children in a time when everyone needed to ‘pull together’ would have been a comfort.
The teachers that were evacuated with the children would no doubt have felt like they had ‘picked the short straw’. They often had no relatives in the area, and had to be billeted with a family, like the children they taught, with only those for company. This may have stretched their professional courtesy to their limit, or it may have forged true friendships in the stressful time. Either way, the teachers affected by the scheme were indeed affected heavily.
However, as with all human emotions, people’s attitudes may have changed as the war went on. Parents would have undoubtedly felt more at ease with the scheme when the Blitz began, feeling it a horrific section of the war that no-one should have to have been subjected to but may also miss their children during light bombing. Children may start to enjoy their war once more as they grew friendly with their ‘foster-parents’, and visa versa. Teachers might have grown accustomed to their new home and way of life. Everyone could have, and most did, change their mind of the scheme as the war went on.
