Conscription arguably helped the suffragette campaign tremendously, conscription recruited millions more men into the army and drew many more men away from vital industries and the country. Women took up roles as police and fire officers as well as the standard factory jobs available to women. These expanded roles provided women with far more authority and offered them conclusive proof that women could work in authoritive positions.
Whilst the most decisive reasons for female suffrage occurred during the First World War, these would have not been as effective without the previous campaign. Prior to the war many MPs did not view female suffrage as an important issue but they were at least aware of the issue because of the suffragist and suffragette campaigning. Suffragist campaigning proved to many MPs that women wanted the vote and suffragette campaigning proved that they were prepared to fight for it.
By giving women the vote the liberal government were guaranteeing themselves a significant proportion of those women’s votes for the general election that was coming up. This was important to the liberals because after the war the labour party had been gaining a large amount of support and the government was beginning to receive criticism for its handling of the huge casualties of World War I and the depression which followed it.
The government did not in fact pass a direct bill granting women the vote but instead tacked it onto a different bill passed before the end of the war. The government had a problem because if the war was to continue to the next general election then men serving abroad did not have the right to vote. These men made up a massive amount of the voting population and so a bill was needed to give them the right to vote from abroad. When the suffragettes and suffragists heard of it they put huge amounts of pressure on the government to add female suffrage to it, this meant the government could satisfy the middle class home owning suffragists and suffragettes without giving the vote to a large amount of women through an essential bill, making a rejection practically impossible.
I think the most important reason was the aid offered by women to the war effort. Without this aid, and specially if the suffragettes had continued their campaign of violence, then thousands more men would have needed to stay at home and conscription would have been impossible. Also without this aid the government would have no real reason to give women the vote when restoring the country was the main priority. Also important was the fact that servicemen couldn’t vote, this was important because it provided a bill for female suffrage to be tacked on to. For most MPs this bill was essential and so the liberal government could easily pass female suffrage because parliament could not easily reject the bill. Similarly, the actual campaigning by suffragists was important because it actually made the government know that women wanted the vote. The most important cause was still the women’s aid to the war effort. Without it, considering Britain still actually won the war, there would be no argument for female suffrage to counteract the adverse affects of the suffragette campaign, and if Britain had not won the war without it, which they were less likely to do, then Britain would have far greater problems to cope with than female suffrage.
