‘How far did World War One effect the lives of people living in Britain between 1914 and 1918?’

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G.C.S.E Assignment 1B Felix Evans 10G

Introduction

'How far did World War One effect the lives of people living in Britain between 1914 and 1918?'

World War One had many short-term effects on the people living in Britain between 1914 and 1918, some small and others large. However, I do not think that it had any large long-term effects, on Britain or on the people living in Britain at that time apart from on women's social standing. First I will look at large, short-term effects.

D.O.R.A

Or the Defense Of the Realm Act had quite a large-scale effect on Britain. It was also the cause of many other issues to be discussed in this essay, such as rationing. It originally began by allowing the government to control many aspects of the country completely; they could take over industries, factories and even people private land and houses for use in the war. They could also control how much people found out about the war through censorship. One of the first things the government did under DORA was to take control of the coal industry, and turn it towards helping the war effort, rather than putting money in private peoples pockets. During the war more changes were made, a lot of them affecting many aspects of peoples daily lives, under DORA people could not:

Talk about military matters in public or spread rumors about military affairs anywhere

Trespass on railways, bridges or allotments

Fly kites or light bonfires or fireworks

Buy binoculars

Melt down gold or silver

Give bread to dogs, chickens or horses

Use invisible ink when writing abroad

Buy whiskey or brandy in a railway refreshment room or a similar place

Ring church bells

As you can see there is a long list of things people were not allowed to do, as well as the government having the new powers already mentioned, the government also ordered for beer to be watered down, pub opening hours to be shortened and to not let people buy rounds or drinks in a pub. They also introduced the idea of putting the clocks forward by 1 hour during the summer, so that people could work longer while it was still light.

These things altogether had quite a large short-term affect on the people of Britain, so much so that 'by the end of the war, people were used to the government controlling their lives completely', clearly this is something rather detrimental to Britain, it meant people could not always do what they wanted to do, restricting their right to free will.

They could not fly kites, ring church bells, buy binoculars etc, and all of these smaller things, coupled with the larger things would have made a big difference to the people of Britain. I say D.O.R.A was a large short-term effect because at the end of the war, most of the acts passed under DORA were removed, the state no longer controlled buildings, or aspects of daily lives, apart from the new pub opening hours, which remained in effect until 1989, 'even though they were meant only for the war'.
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DORA also had many other effects, which are in themselves issues to be discussed in this essay:

Rationing

Another example of Dora's power can be seen in the form of rationing, because the government was able to take over and control land, they could take over farm land and turn it's usage to producing what they wanted to be produced. They hired women to work the land (because men were away fighting), and did this in order to keep the country fed, but by 1917 the situation had become dire, German U-Boats were sinking one in ...

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