To deal with the lack of food they introduced rationing in November 1917. Though the price’s were still to high and the poor people were going hungry but this was ok for the rich they had enough money but they did start to run out to. Compulsory rationing of meat, cheese and butter was introduced in February 1918.
People were surrounded with the propaganda to support the Propaganda were posters made to tempt people to go to war. This made some people patriotic. Due to censorship they received ‘good news only’ support for the war remained strong but people’s enthusiasm changed to grim determination.
People on the home front lived in fear of attack from the Germans because from 1917, German submarines attacked British merchants bringing food to the country. The woman’s army land was formed to grow more food in Britain they lived in fear because if they ran out of food they would end up dead new the country would lose the war.
The First World War also had a profound economic impact of life on the home front.
The stories were true but were exaggerated but the British people didn’t know that so they thought the story` were true and this made them wanted to kill the Germans. Women’s organisations were set up like the police volunteers. By July 1915 there was the munitions crisis. British factories were not making enough shells or bullets. Lloyd George was made minister for munitions and employed women for the first time in munitions factories.
By 1916 over 2 million men had left their jobs to join the army this left the home front very short of workers e.g. mining and farming some women took over them jobs but their were not enough women to go around so their were not a lot of women doing the mining and farming this was a huge economic change.
The political impact of the First World War on the home front was also significant. The government bought in a whole range of laws e.g. DORA and conscription following the battle of the Somme in November 1916 There was a lot of criticism because people didn’t like the way the Generals were running the war. That year the prime minister changed, Partly because of the war women over 30 were allowed to vote in 1917for the first time After that life became a lot more efficaint for women there was less sexism. In April 1917 the Germans sunk quiet a lot of merchant’s 1 in 4 to be exact whilst they were bringing food to Britain using DORA the government took over 2 ½ million acres more farming land to help feed Britain. DORA also controlled peoples day to day lives for instance the clocks went forward in the summer so they could have more working hours they didn’t get a very good wage because nearly all of the money went towards the money and their food and equipment. It was illegal to buy binoculars because they would only be used by spies and then you would be killed because the government would think you were a spy trying to help out Germany. That year they also had lots of strikes on low wages and high priced food because that meant they had to work extra time and had to work during the night to jus so they could get enough money. They used DORA to control the price of bread they bought in the ‘ninepenny loaf’. Therefore DORA had a huge politcal impact because the government used it to control many eareas of peoples lifes.
In conclusion the war hard a massive impacts on everybody not only the men that went to war. The effects of the world war on the home front are linked because they effected everyone in a similar way as well as they effected the political, social and economic environment.
In my opinion the political impact was the most significant impact on peoples lives because they bought I a whole bunch of new laws and they made it more difficult for people to live in fredom.
