Myth or Reality on the Western Front. How accurate are the soldiers’ views of the experiences of the Great War?

Pippa Cullingham

Myth or Reality on the Western Front. How accurate are the soldiers’ views of the experiences of the Great War?

Recruitment

World War One saw millions of men give up their jobs and leave their families to go to war between 1914 and 1918. In 1914 men volunteered on their own free will to go and fight, many with the illusion that it would be over by Christmas, but in 1916 conscription was introduced. This meant that all men that were over the age of eighteen and were fit to fight had to join one of the auxiliary forces to help the war effort.

Sources A1 and A2 are posters which were used during the First World War to try and encourage people to join the army. Source A1 shows Kitchener, a war hero, addressing the reader directly. The words ‘God save the King’ and ‘Join your Country’s Army’ are used to try and motivate people to join through patriotism. Source A2 shows a woman and her children looking out of a window and the troops in the distance. The caption says ‘Women of Britain say- Go!’ This implies that the women can cope at home while the men should go and fight for their country. These war posters were important because they encouraged men to fight when it was not compulsory to do so as there was no conscription. The King was used to try to achieve a sense of duty and patriotism. Some men felt they should join purely because the King supported it- they deferred to their betters. Women and families were also commonly used to create emotive feeling. It was implied that men should fight for their families and not feel guilt about leaving home. Posters were also important because they were simple and their meaning was always clear. It helped that they were visual as the literacy rate was not high.

Sources A1 and A2 are both posters. Source A3 is from the book ‘First Day of the Somme’ by M Middlebrook, and Source A4 is from a modern history book. All these sources show that men joined the army through patriotism and because of propaganda, which is what sources A1 and A2 are. This shows that these may have been the key reasons why men joined up. However, Sources A3 and A4 state that men may have joined up for other reasons too. Some of these were for the glamour- to wear a smart uniform and to seek new adventure. Men in industries such as mining may have joined up to escape poverty. The dislike of Germans may have spurred men on to join up as propaganda during the war showed horrific images of German men raping young women. However, many men who did not join up through any of these reasons, joined through shame as women handed out white feathers as a sign of cowardice to those not in uniform.

Sources A1 and A4 are evidence from modern history books. This makes them secondary evidence, which means that they are based on evidence from primary and other secondary sources, making them more detailed. However, these sources can give a view of perspective from the author and can be biased to give an opinion – although the facts may be correct. Sources A1 and A2 are contemporary posters. They are primary evidence, which means that we can see for ourselves what propaganda men actually received during the war. It also shows that posters were a good way of getting a simple message across to the public. However, the posters only show the one aspect of getting men to join up, and do not tell us how effective they were. Also, when it comes down to it, posters were just another form of propaganda that the Government used to recruit more men. Source A7 is a photograph, which is also primary evidence. It shows a group of recruits who have joined up so this may give us an indication of the amount of men who joined up and what class they were. The hats can indicate this. In general, working class people wore flat caps, while middle or upper class people wore bowler hats or straw boaters. The most commonly worn hat in this photograph is the flat cap, which supports Source A3 in saying that men may have joined up to escape poverty. However, the problem with Source A7 is that photographs can be posed or edited. This means that in reality, men may not have been as willing or excited to join up as the photograph suggests. A photograph can also show someone’s point of view.

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Source A6 is from a modern history book. It tells us about the volunteer army from August 1914. It clearly recognizes that propaganda was used to motivate men to join up and also says that the reason why so many men did was because of patriotism and false hopes such as ‘the war will be over by Christmas’. Source A6 is a detailed article and contains a lot of facts as well as details and a poem. It also has the advantage of being written with hindsight. Source A7 is a photograph of men joining up in 1914. It gives an insight into the atmosphere in 1914 which source A6 does not do. However, it does not tell us why men joined up it just shows them doing so. Therefore I think that Source A6 provides the most reliable evidence into why men joined up during the war.

There are many reasons why men joined up in World Way One and many of these are explained in Sources A1 to A7. Men felt patriotism and pride for their country, and a sense of duty often inspired men to join up. Sources A1, A3 and A4 support this. Many men felt shame and guilt if they did not join up. This was not helped by women handing out white feathers to those not joining up, as a sign of cowardice, and the treatment of contientious objectors. This is shown in sources A2 and A4. Sources A6 and A7 also shows that men may have ‘followed the crowd’ to join up and may have been influenced by peer pressure. Sources A1 and A6 show how men would have wanted to obey their betters such as Kitchener and the King- “Fight for King”. Sources A3, A4 and A5 say how men may have wanted to escape the slums and problems of life in Britain, and been inspired by marches, a smart uniform, adventure and glamour. Men may have felt that they should fight to protect women and children from being invaded by the Germans. Source A2 supports this. On the other hand, propaganda sources such as A6 told of the German men attacking women and children. This created hatred towards the Germans. Source A6 also shows that men may have joined through false hopes – that it would be over by Christmas. However, all of these illusions stemmed from propaganda. It is propaganda such as sources A1, A2 A5 and A6 that lured men into fighting. However, sources A1 to A7 do not mention some of the other reasons why men may have joined up. One reason may have been the ignorance of war. No one had got experience of a huge war and no one knew what would happen and to what extent. Recruitment at places such as football matches caught a lot of men at a time when their friends would have encouraged them, and other posters provoked feelings of guilt and remorse if a man had not joined up. A key reason why men may have joined up is because all their friends were. This was the foundation of the Pal’s Battalions. Each town that created a Pal’s Battalions wanted as many men to join up as possible so it became very competitive to see which town could recruit the most men. The town mayor organized it and each town would celebrate it as it brought a sense of pride and gave the town a good name. Examples of Pal’s Battalions are the Coalminers from Newcastle or the Shoemakers from Northampton. Industry Battalions such as these brought pride in the workplace. However, when all the men in the Battalion came from the same area, all of the town’s men could be destroyed at the same time. An example of this is the Sandringham Pals 1/5 Norfolk that was destroyed without trace and no bodies have officially been found.

Women’s Role During the First World War.

With more and more men leaving their jobs to go and fight in World War One, more people were needed in Britain to continue the jobs that they had done. Women were looked to to do this. It was a chance for women to show their equality to men and prove that they could also do the jobs that it was thought only men could do. The war began in 1914 and by 1915 the whole of Britain’s professional army had been destroyed. By 1916, more than 700,000 men from the volunteer army- Kitchener’s army had also been destroyed. 1916 was the year that conscription was introduced. This meant that all men that were fit to fight between the ages of 18 and 41 had to join up. In January 1916, only the unmarried men were called on, but by April of the same year, married men were called up too. This continual demand for men to fight meant more and more women were needed to replace the men in the workplace as the war continued. By 1917, men in the army were being ‘removed from the rear’. This meant that men working in the army already, but behind the lines were called to the front to fight. These men had to be replaced too, so soon women were doing the men’s jobs behind the lines in the army. These were jobs such as office work, transport and catering.

Sources B2 and B3 support B1 by stating that many women were now working in jobs previously only done by men, such as in industry. Up to 400,000 women left domestic service to take over men’s jobs during the war. Source B3 supports B1 to a certain extent. As more and more men were needed for active service, women were asked to take over the jobs that men had been doing in the army. Although many of the jobs may have been in Britain as Source B1 state, many went to service jobs in France and Belgium too. Source B3 also mentions that once women were in active service there was a lot of difference between statuses in each force. The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was considered to be lower class than the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) and the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens). Source B3 also mentions that joining one of these auxiliary organizations was voluntary unlike the men’s equivalent. Source B2 states that women were forced back into domestic work. This meant that women were now being paid lower wages than they were used to receiving for jobs they did during the war. This information is not mentioned in Source B1. However, source B1 also gives additional information about the demonstrations of women for the right to vote. During the war these demonstrations stopped, showing women’s patriotism in wartime, and some say that women were rewarded with the right to vote for their role in World War One.

Source B3 is an extract from a modern history book. It can be quite useful as it is a secondary source which means that it is based on primary and other secondary source, which gives it a broad range. It should be written to give a balanced view and detail so it does not just show one viewpoint. It also has the advantage of being written with hindsight so we know what happens in the long term. Source B4 is a set of statistics showing the average weekly wage of all women in industries. Statistics can be useful as they are hard evidence and a subject such as weekly wages is measurable. However Source B4 does not state where the figures came from and how accurate they are. It says that it is the average wage, but some girls may have received much less than the average wage, and others may have received much more. To find out how accurate they are the standard deviation would need to be found. This would show the range around the average. Also, women could be working more hours per week; therefore the hourly rate would be lower. A more useful way of showing the statistics of wages would be to show relativism – wages according to prices. These are real wages and will show what women can actually buy with their wages. Overall, statistics such as these are not useful as they are unreliable and give a very generalized view. Source B5 is a court case in 1915. It gives a very one sided and biased view from the magistrate, which is a legal view. It is also generalized for the particular, which should not be done. For Source B5 to be useful, more evidence would be needed along side it, such as factory books, interviews with workers and more court cases with women working in factories. Source B7 is from a women’s newspaper in 1915. It is very biased, as women want to portray how they are seen as inferior to men. Also during the war, newspapers were censored and many articles became useless propaganda. Newspapers usually give a particular viewpoint and political view. In general, wartime newspapers are not a useful source for information, unless it is taken into consideration that they are written with a particular viewpoint and a desired effect.

Source B6 is a painting called ‘For King and Country’, by E F Skinner who was an official war artist. The fact that he was an official war artist suggests that he is showing what the government wants him to. He has been employed to paint patriotic pictures to show the heroism of women during the war, and not what he wants to portray. This painting is a form of propaganda, which therefore makes it useless. Source B6 disagrees with B5 as it portrays factories as clean and safe with lots of space, and the women working at machines look neat, tidy and are concentrating and attentive. This is an unreal picture because it shows unreal things. Real life in the factories was nothing like it is portrayed in the painting. What Source B6 does tell us is that the painting could have been painted as recruitment propaganda, in order to recruit more women to the factories, or propaganda to show Britain how well Britain’s women are doing in times of crisis.

Throughout World War One there were many changes which changed the lives of Women I the long term and in the short term. Women moved from their regular jobs in domestic service, to doing the men’s jobs, such as working in industry and factories, when they went to war. Sources B1, B2 and B6 support this. Women could also join the auxiliary organizations as Source B3 states, which previously only men could do. This also meant that women could do jobs such as transport and catering. Source B1 tells us about women demonstrating so they could get the vote. Source B7 supports this by showing the determination of women to get the vote. In 1918 all women thirty one and over got the vote, and ten years later, in 1928, all women aged twenty one and over got the vote which was the same as men. Some changes may have been psychological. Source B8 supports the fact that women now had more independence. Attitudes to women changed and this meant that women gained self-confidence and self-image. Many other things changed that are not mentioned in Sources B1 to B8. During the war, the wealthy were heavily taxed so they could not afford servants once the war had ended. This made some women unable to go back into domestic service once the men had returned from the war. The Sex Disqualification Removal Act in 1919 meant that women could now go and work in the civil service or in the medical or legal profession too. In 1920, Oxford University decided that women could now go to university to receive degrees, whereas before they were able to study but not gain a qualification. In 1921, Marie Stopes set up the first birth control clinic in London and in 1925; Lady Astor became the first female MP. But the biggest change was probably in some women’s attitude. They went against the traditional appearance of femininity and wore short skirts, had short hair, smoked and drank in public and refused to be chaperoned. However all of these changes generally only affected middle to upper class women. However, some things did not change for women. Source B2 supports the fact that between 1918 and 1919 men returned from war and took over their old jobs and women were forced to leave. They did not want to be seen to be taking jobs from war heroes. Agriculture remained a mans job, that women could not do, and only 31% of women had a job in 1921, that is actually less than the 32% of women that had jobs in 1911. Women were still not seen as equal to men, but the quality of life had improved. A historian, Trevor Wilson said, “that it left them second class citizens, but had improved the quality of second class travel.”