Recruitment
One of them was the idea that you could fight alongside your friends and relatives. This was called the Pals Battalions. This succeeded in many ways. For instance, you would be able to help one-another and care for eachother aswell as talking about home and families whereas if you was to talk about this to a complete stranger he probably wouldn’t have the slightest interest. Also another reason was that there was community spirit and the main idea of fighting together!
However, there were also some bad points to this solution. One was that you would have to watch your friend or relative die in war which also meant you could be distracted either by losing your close ones or just simply not focusing on the task ahead by chattering away. It was also demoralising to see your friends/relatives suffer as villages and towns would be losing their whole generation keeping in mind approximately over two thirds of soldiers did not return home. Another way of recruitment was that posters would have been hung up for men to see and some were very effective so the men would feel guilt upon them and join the army.
Pals Battalions
The whole idea of the Pals Battalions was suggested by a man called Sir Henry Rawlinson at a meeting on the 19th August. He said that men would be more willing to enlist if they knew they would serve with people they knew. Rawlinson asked his friend, Robert White, to raise a battalion composed of men who worked in the City. White opened a recruiting office in Throgmorton Street and in the first two hours, 210 City workers joined the army. Six days later, the Stockbrokers' Battalion, as it became known, had 1,600 men.
When Lord Edward Derby heard about Robert White's success he decided to form a battalion in Liverpool. Derby opened the recruitment office on 28th August 1914 and by the end of the day had signed up 1,500 men. It was Derby who first used the term a "battalion of pals" to describe men who had been recruited locally.
When Lord Kitchener heard about Derby's success in Liverpool he decided to encourage towns and villages all over Britain to organise recruitment campaigns based on the promise that the men could serve with friends, neighbours and workmates. These units were raised by local authorities, industrialists or committees of private citizens. By the end of September over fifty towns in Britain had formed pals battalions. The larger towns and cities were able to form more than one battalion. Manchester and Hull had four, Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow had three and many more were able to raise at least two battalions.
The White Feathers
The second key solution was the idea of women handing out white feathers. This was so simple yet so effective. It would be given to a man who had not gone to war and he was meant to feel guilt and disgrace. This humiliated the man and he would have most likely gone to war the very next day. The single White feather as a symbol of cowardice comes from cockfighting and the belief that a cockerel sporting a white feather in its tail is likely to be a poor fighter. Pure-breed gamecocks don't show white feathers, so its presence indicates that the cockerel is an inferior cross-breed.
The symbol is particularly recognised within the British Army and in countries associated with the British Empire since the 18th century.
Conscription
Although the army recruited many soldiers, as time wore they began to run out of troops. As a result to this, they introduced a new law. Conscription. Conscription is a general term for involuntary labour demanded by an established authority. It is most often used in the specific sense of government policies that require citizens to serve in the armed forces. This meant that un-married men between the ages of 18 to 41 were forced to go to war. However, there were people who did not believe in the violence of the war and were chucked in prison or executed instead.
I think that the conscription was a good way to force people to join the army but was very harsh. But once you are sent to war, if you are not fighting for you country or your King, or maybe even your rights, you are fighting for your life!
Suffragist and Suffragette Tactics
The most important benefit the Suffragist tactics is that everyone is guaranteed they will not be hurt or injured. They will persuade people to vote for them in a sensible and mature manner so that people would feel free to decide.
On the other hand, the downside to the Suffragist tactics is that people may not listen to such calm methods and might feel there is no major reason why they should vote for them. There is also another theory that it might take quite a long time to persuade people or these method techniques would make you look weak which would be extremely bad and may even be humiliating for the Suffragists.
The benefits of the Suffragette tactics is it will attract the public’s attention and would bring publicity to this cause.
In contrast, the drawback to such tactics may lead to people’s properties being damaged or it might create a negative attitude towards their ideas and may cause people to think that people who act like this clearly do not deserve the vote.
In conclusion, I think the Suffragist ways are evidently better for the general public as they are fully assured that no-one will get hurt. Also the people have a right to protest by hunger-strikes or even posters for instance so I’d undoubtedly support the peaceful Suffragist tactics.
Trench Warfare
Trench warfare was a deadly combat tactic that was used during World War I. It created a deadlock throughout the whole war. When World War I started, there was much confusion.
Within one week of the first declaration of war, the whole world was scrambling to mobilize their military. No one knew how to prepare for the new war.
Trenches were ditches dug from the ground that were usually six to eight feet deep and broad enough to allow two soldiers to pass at the same time. The trench line of the Western Front, that is the Western Front of Germany, which it was called by all countries, was roughly 460 miles long, from the North south of Europe.
Trench warfare was invented by an exhausted German army during World War I. They had been retreating from allied forces for days. Finally they were too tired to go on, and made a defence line to protect themselves from allied troops. The defence was inadequate. When the allies did not come, the Germans were delighted and used the time to entrench themselves on September 14, 1914 in the ground, but the trenches that they made could still be "turned," because it was still possible to reach the end of the trench line, allowing allied forces to enter the trench through an unprotectable spot This ultimately led to a trench race across Europe from sea to sea to turn the enemy flanks. This created the Western Front.
There were three main lines of trenches on each side, along with smaller trenches to connect the three, called communication trenches. The first trench was called the front line, the second, the support trench, and the third, the reserve trench. Men from the front line that are off-duty go to the support trenches.
The main reason that trenches created a deadlock was because of the space between opposing forces' trenches, no-man's land. This area was usually between 30 meters and 1.7 kilometres, and was riddled with barbed wire so that soldiers could not cross easily, and could easily carry out surprise attacks. The procedure for attacking would be to bombard enemy trenches with artillery fire, and then yell "over the top," and charge to the opposite side of no-man's land with other soldiers under the same command
Life in the Trenches
Words cannot express how terrible life in the trenches was. Young men had just been taken from home and forced to fight. It is impossible to imagine how homesick and frightened they would've been. During their lives in the trenches many probably believed they were going to die. Many bodies could not be buried and were just lying around in the trenches or in `No Mans Land' which would’ve been upsetting for the rest of the men. Many men could not cope and developed `trench fever' which meant they could not stop themselves shaking. Nowadays we would call this `shell shock'. If the men try to run away their punishment was execution by a firing squad. There was no escape for these men.
You'd think that was bad enough but no - things just got worse. The smell in the trenches was absolutely disgusting. It was horrible! It was a mixture of mud, latrine, buried corpses, stale human sweat and rotting sandbags.
Rats, lice, frogs and worse carry disease throughout. Rats are infested by the millions in the trenches. Both the black and brown are feared, but the brown is more feared. The rats will feast on rotting corpses, eating eyes and livers. This makes the brown rats grow to about the size of a cat. Despite the soldiers hunting these rats with whatever they have, the rats keep reproducing by the hundreds, which cause more contamination in food and the spread of infection.
Rats are not the only nuisances in the trenches. Lice and frog have their toll on the soldiers as well. Lice are a non-stop annoyance. They live in the seams of the soldiers' clothing, and more eggs hatch because of the body heat produced by the soldiers. Which cause more itching for the soldiers at war. Frogs, along with slugs and horn beetles are constantly found in the trenches and buried in places near water.
In front of the trenches was stretched a barrier of barbed wire, up to 15 metres thick. In between was No Man's Land - the area which was being fought over. The two trench lines could be as much as 800 metres apart; in a few places, the enemy was just 20 metres away. Every night, patrols were sent out into the area to find out what the enemy was doing.
Death is a constant comrade in war whether in the trenches or not. Constant shellfire brings random deaths to those not even on guard. Many of the soldiers are buried due to large bombardments in the trenches. Death is shown all around not just from bombardments, but also disease and injuries.
Weapons
Imagine a war so great and powerful that new weapons and ideas were created in order to fight it. This is exactly what took place during World War 1. Both sides of the war invented different types of weaponry and artillery. These weapons that were invented were never introduced to society before the war. The men going to war had no idea what the other side was going to use or not to use. The new weapons were machine guns, mortars, poison gases, tanks, airplanes, and u-boats. During the Great War there were several consequences of these new weapons. These consequences were increases in casualties, trench warfare, and massive land destructions.
The most important new weapon of the war was the machine gun. The machine guns were the main reasons why trenches were built. The machine guns fired hundreds of times in one minute. Machine guns alone could wipe a thousand men. Another new weapon was the trench mortars. Trench mortars were simple weapons that fired heavy bombs at high angles, coming down on the enemy trenches. Another, more torturing new weapon was the poison gas. It was first used by Germany 1915. These poison gases were either released from canisters that the wind penetrated into the trenches of the enemy.
Poems
World War One
By Chris Neal
Mud stricken soldiers, wrestle on the front line;
Blood sodden victims, nestle in pungent slime;
Blistering heads, face down sinking in the mud;
The clinking of the shovels as fresh trenches are dug;
Command rifts as haze lifts, men squint at rising sun;
Dawn awakes to the results of the Lewis gun.
Deafened minds “shell-shocked” by the shelling;
Silence breaks by the moans, shrieks and yelling;
Bullets spray, bodies lay with unholstered weapons;
Haste with rage as war wages on the western; (front)
British reveal the initial stages of Depression;
And lay hungry and sick as ration supplies lessen.
Politicians of opposing sides, prolong genocide;
No place to hide, stiffened wounds test men’s pride;
Risking lives, soldiers fall victim to the mortar;
Mortals dead still, dismembered by the slaughter;
Provoked hatred causes a death ridden turf;
World war one gave birth, to a vengeful earth.
Paintings
