Politics and the War Effort during World War One
Effect on the Home Front during the War did change people’s lives at home, but jobs, industry and politics were also reshaped. During the War, the Government’s power increased dramatically. By the end of the War they managed all mines and transport in Britain.
Politics affected jobs and businesses because they had the power to be in control. They had control over the profits made from industry; they controlled the wages for employees; hours of labour for every person working and they were able to control the conduct for industrial disputes.
Because of this newfound power, the Government were beginning to shape up. They started the Ministry of Food, Ministry of Pensions, Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Blockade. This increased the Government’s power and money to spend on the War.
Looking at how the War affected politics, we can see that it generally favoured the Labour party more. Labour had not been a large or powerful party before the war, with only 29 MP’s in 1909. By 1918 their support had risen and the number of Labour MP’s had risen to 59. The Liberal party on the other hand, did not do so well and lost some support. It was in fact the Liberal party (who were in power in 1916) started the Military Service Act, which forced conscription.
When Labour came to power in 1919, they had to “pick up the pieces” left by the Liberal party. Labour had no responsibility for the pre-war diplomacy talks which led to the War. I believe they made this statement clear was because they didn’t want to lose face, or lose their support.
“At the time, the Liberal’s party image was damaged by the split between the followers of Lloyd George and followers of Asquith, which resulted in Lloyd George’s appointment as Prime Minister.” This quote was from A History of Wales by John Davies. This source is most likely to be reliable because John Davies was a historian and probably did a lot of research into it before writing his book.
There is proof that David Lloyd George was popular during those times because there were several cartoons, reports and articles about his great support from people in favour of his ideals and, of course, mainly Welsh people. Such a source (cartoon) shows Lloyd George on horseback, galloping with a carriage full of artillery shells with a caption at the bottom “Delivering the Goods”. We can quite safely assure this source is reliable because this cartoon was published by Punch, a reliable cartoon company who were renowned for speaking people minds
Voting was revolutionised for the first time. There was a proposal put forward that women should have the vote. In a majority vote in the Commons gave the vote to 6,000,000 women over the age of 30. Because of this women could now decide the balance of power of this country rather than just men.
The Role of Women on the Home Front during World War One
The first main factor that affected the role of women during WW1 would be in 1918, just after the War when Parliament had given the vote to women of a certain age and then in 1928 when the vote was given to all women. Thus was a first victory of the woman's movement to abolish inequality from men to women. However, women still felt discrimination and so the continual of women's movement today still exists, trying to dismember the men who still feel that women are below them, this being true or just imagined even though women are still significantly under-represented in many areas of life (such as Parliament).
Emancipation is very difficult to define when discussing the role of women during the war, I will narrow it down to women getting the vote in 1918 and the state of women being employees in the post-war period.
Firstly, we have to understand the role of women before WW1, before they were called upon to replace men in doing jobs. Arthur Marwick, writer of "The Deluge-British Society and the First World War (5th Edition)" written in 1979 argues that before the War, women were perceived as "industrial drudges of society". I do not believe that such a comment could be made to any relevance of the role of women at the time because, even though Marwick was a historian, he could not be completely accurate with this. Even though, through own knowledge, they were earning a third of the wage of men.
However, when War broke out this struck a devastating blow to the women's campaign. It brought an abrupt end to the suffragette campaign but also took their campaign off the Political Agenda. The Government called upon the suffragette movement to support the War effort and "show their patriotism". The women's movement did exactly that. They promoted anti-German behaviour within their community and handed white feathers to men who would not don an uniform. Not only did they help on their fronts of home, but women started to undertake men's jobs in an effort to keep the War effort going. Neville Chamberlain quoted, "among the changes in our social fabric which have been brought about by the war...none is more remarkable than the development of women's activities". I can support this source because it was quoted by Neville Chamberlain, who was a significant figure in Parliament at the time and so was able to get a good perspective of the new role of women. This shocked the British male society because previously women were self-restricted to feminine activities.
Although women's activities were starting to surprise the male community in Britain, the newspapers started to use the idea for criticism. However, the newspapers failed to say how monotonous the jobs were, the long hours involved and how dangerous such jobs were (such as Munitions Manufacture). One example of this was the "Weekly Welcome" newspaper which assured women that the yellow stain on their hands was completely harmless, when in fact, it was severely hazardous because women had been handling raw TNT.
When the War was over, the newspapers had stopped their "Praise to the Women for helping in the War" campaign to "Bread-snatchers". When the soldiers returned home from the battlefield, they were assumed to have taken over their previous jobs, but women would not relinquish them and managers were not keen on doing so either. Women could do the jobs to the same standard as men but were only paid half of their male counterparts. Thus companies were starting to make a profit. This newspaper campaign was another example of the unfairness women had to endure because the newspapers were quoting that women should return to their "proper place". After the horrors of the War, men were very annoyed by the fact that they could not return to their normal lives, as they sought after stability and familiarity during the conflict.
Changing Standards, Beliefs and Attitudes during World War One
The effect of War on the newspapers was phenomenal. The amount of newspapers sold increased dramatically for many reasons: people wanting to see propaganda articles, wanting to read to get more hope, people reading to see if someone they knew had died. The number of newspapers bought during the war contained a certain pattern which could correlate with dates. From the beginning of 1914 to 1916 newspaper sales went through the roof because people did not expect the casualties or the bed news. However, in 1916, tragedies like the Somme started to enter the newspapers. Word of the hundreds of thousands dead was too much for most people. Newspaper sales remained steady or dropped. However, during 1917, the horror of trench-warfare was beginning to stop and the Allies were starting to hit major targets in Germany. Town after town came into Allied control until finally there was just Berlin and a number of tactical strongholds left. This started the increase of newspaper sales from an all-time low to (in some newspapers) highest numbers sold ever.
The balance of power after during and after the War was thrown off-balance as we can see in the section on "Politics during World War One". Such Government parties were gaining power and so were expanding to different areas, and different countries. "The Labour movement used to be more Welsh than English". This was spoken by The Labour Voice, a newspaper published in the Swansea Valley in January 16th 1915 informing the Welsh population of Labours semi-expansion into England. Using evidence in "Politics during World War One" we know that Labour was an ever-increasing power that started to gain control. The party decided to turn their newspaper Llais Llafur into an English newspaper because of their expansion and the Welsh spoken language in the Labour party becoming "inadaptable to the needs of a newspaper".
A source which is worth mentioning in this level, by A. J. P. Taylor, England 1914-45 (1965) quotes that "There was a general change in economic outlook. The rich for example, were proud of being idle. However after the War, the rich were ashamed of being idle and found it was becoming more difficult. Their slaves were being reduced to either fight in the War or help with the War effort on the Home Front. After the War, the slaves found themselves permanent jobs where dead soldiers had left behind." This source is quite accurate because we know that slaves were occupied with full-time jobs because of dead soldiers and that the rich behaved in a much different way to before the war. Parts of their life such as entertainment, daily lives and jobs were affected drastically.
In the way of belief after the War, things started to get worse for the chapel. Before the War, the chapel suffered from debt, over-expansion in rural areas and lack of support from non-Welsh speakers and industrial workers in the south. After the War, these reasons became stronger and the chapel was on the verge of collapse. The new post-War world brought new challenges, and the chapel was finding it difficult to respond. Kenneth O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880-1980 (1981) quoted "Fundamentalist religious belief, barely changed since the chapels were founded, meant less and less to twentieth century society." This is true in a way because the chapel had always believed that its original teaching and preaching's would keep the faith going in people who had suffered from the nightmares of the War and people who had lost loved ones. Kenneth Morgan was a historian, so obviously he had much evidence to put into his works, and they were written a year after his study period, making him a very reliable source.
Despite the terror of the War, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths home and away, thousands of disabled from Western Front fighting and Home Front bombing, there was a small upside because of the War. There was an improvement in people's diet and a staggering decrease in deaths, especially infant. Because of the deaths of soldiers at War, it left many positions open at home. Poor people, homeless and servants were offered better paid jobs which would provide a huge increase of money to the household. With two parents working in well-paid jobs (compared to before the War) a child could get vaccinations needed to defend against disease, could get better food and clothing, thus reducing the chance of young deaths. Also, wages kept up with wartime inflation, so that basic foodstuffs were not too expensive to buy, because wages increased to keep up with prices. Lone wives who had lost husbands in the War could make her wage stretch longer because she only had herself to look after. The restrictions on drinking hours were another reason why men and women (mostly men) could save money for food and fuel.
Conclusion
My conclusion is that War affected the Home Front in many different ways, some of them which I have mentioned in this essay. I will sum up the areas mentioned with a brief description: