The breakout of war had other peculiarly positive influences on many of early 20th century Britain’s problems. Within days of the war starting, strikes were halted and the problems in Ireland were quickly ended. Martin Pugh surmised in a recent work, “John Redmond gave a remarkable pledge of loyalty to the British cause and the warring parties in Ireland withdrew from confrontation.” (Pugh 1999: 164)
Another anti-government campaign was swiftly frozen when the leadership of the s Social and Political Union began negotiating with the British government. On the 10th August the government announced it was releasing all suffragettes from prison. In return, the WSPU agreed to end their militant activities and help the .
In her book ‘Unshackled’, , the freed WSPU member and suffragette, explained how she responded to the news in 1914 that Britain and Germany were at war. She encapsulates the feeling of coming together that had broken out country-wide following the start of the war. “War was the only course for our country to take. This was national militancy. As Suffragettes we could not be pacifists at any price. Mother (Emmeline Pankhurst) and I declared support of our country. We declared an armistice with the Government and suspended militancy for the duration of the war. We offered our service to the country and called upon all members to do likewise… As Mother said, 'What would be the good of a vote without a country to vote in!’” (Pankhurst 1987: 166)
Even though women had taken on the jobs left vacant by the mass enlisting of the armed forces, there was still a huge divide in political wealth between men and women. In A History of the Modern British Isles 1914-1999, Arthur Marwick comments, “Expansion of job opportunity was the central phenomenon of women’s war experience, with many repercussions, including political ones.” (Marwick 2000: 43)
With the Representation of the People Act in 1918, the whole voting system was changed. Women aged 30 or over and men aged 21 or over were given the vote. A new legislation allowing women to stand as MPs was also introduced.
Women were not granted the same voting rights as men for two main reasons. Firstly, if women had the vote at 21, in 1918 they would have outnumbered men. Secondly, women under 30 were felt to be too silly and irresponsible to be trusted to vote correctly.
While this aspect of British society was changing for the better throughout the war, the scarcity of food became a real problem.
Concern over food supplies was increased in early 1917 with the report of the Commission of Enquiry into Industrial Unrest, which found that rising prices were a major cause of strikes. Government plans such as ‘Dig for Victory’ helped but were not enough.
The relentless German U-Boat bombing of food imports resulted in rationing being introduced nationwide at the end of 1917. State control was put into place on such essentials as meat, butter and margarine. This ensured an equal distribution of food throughout the population, although it was possible to purchase items for extortionate prices on the black market.
Rationing continued into the immediate post-war years as a means of dealing with the continuing shortages of essential items and the threat of labour unrest. The Ministry of Food, which was set up to help the war effort, de-controlled meat, butter and sugar as late as October 1919. Only in March 1921 was the Ministry of Food finally wound up.
Whilst the general public didn’t like rationing, they mostly knew it was a necessity and accepted it. Other Government actions were less well received. As news of the war filtered out, the people, who were largely uninformed, knew the government had tight control over information. The result was that much of the population no longer trusted politicians and officials. The same sense of apathy could not be levied at the emergency services however.
Massive numbers of medical personnel were urgently required on the front line to deal with the heavy casualties during the war. The number of doctors serving was constantly insufficient as the war dragged on meaning more were called up leaving a huge gap on the home front. This resulted in a huge rise in the numbers of women involved in nursing work. Organisations such as the and the formed before the War saw a rise in the number of volunteers so that by mid-1917 around 45,000 women were in nursing occupations.
Strangely, this mass exodus of over 13,000 doctors away on military service had no adverse affect on the standard of health care in Britain. During the war there was even an increase in the standards of care given to pregnant women and infants. This fact is compounded in ‘British Social Trends Since 1900’, “The improvement in mortality from most conditions in infancy and at most other ages of life among the civilian population during the Great War is one of the more remarkable achievements of the century.” (McPherson and Coleman 1988: 408)
The War officially ended at precisely 11:00 am on 11th November 1918, but for the survivors life went on. ’s success in wartime was now tested to its full limits, without the support of a pre-war patriotic general public. Soldiers returning from the trenches would find a different Britain to the one of 1914, with high unemployment, a rising cost of living, strikes by new organised unions and a severe shortage of houses.
A returning soldier was given a month’s paid leave, still in the service of the military, after which he was officially demobilised. If he still had not found a job he was given a small unemployment benefit for about six months. Beyond the first six months after , if an ex-soldier could still not find a job they would have to join the dole queue.
The government needed to act quickly as more men were sent home who could not find jobs. The Unemployment Insurance Act of 1920 changed the laws of 1911, raising the amount of dole money given and the number of workers who could claim.
Those that were able to return to their pre-war jobs were unhappy as well. Now that the War was over, the unions were eager to keep their war-time gains and wanted to progress further. The number of days lost in strikes in 1919 was almost seven times that of 1918. On 31st January 1919, the Clyde Workers Committee began a strike in Glasgow in which troops and tanks were called in to break up the rioting workers. In August of that year, the Liverpool police went on strike, resulting in the most serious industrial-related violence as people looted hundreds of shops.
Another reconstruction issue was housing. During the War very few houses had been built, and more were needed to replace unsafe slums. Dr. Christopher Addison, Minister for Health, estimated that 800,000 new council houses were needed. The Addison Act was passed to begin the building, but was also abandoned in 1922 after only 213,800 were built. Building good housing was too expensive.
Britain had become a nation in debt. Small rises in taxes, and big spending on the war effort left the country in debt by £9,300 million. Spending on housing and benefits would have to be cut until Britain could find a new way of making money.
While the public was dealing with these social problems and accepting new laws like the school leaving age being raised to 14, the country as a whole had lost her leading position as a world economic power. “Britain was to emerge from the war a debtor nation, where before the war it had been a creditor.” (Stevenson 1984: 106)
The human cost that the country was mourning was far greater than any financial one though. Every community in Britain was brutally and tragically hit. The potential of all these men was lost to the world. Some felt that the ‘lost generation’ was mostly made up of the educated young officers who might have one day led the country. For example, one in five students from Oxbridge, largely serving as junior officers, were killed. Young artists and poets like Isaac Rosenberg, Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen were killed, causing people to reflect on the waste of their talent. Many felt at the time that the ‘flower of youth’ and the best of the nation had been destroyed.
This loss was devastating to the people of Britain but perhaps the real lasting impact was left on those who survived to live through future decades. World War One did not completely end with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, for its political, economic and psychological effects influenced the lives of people long after the last shot was fired. Despite the advantages brought forth by developing technologies, the war mainly had a damaging effect on the economy in Britain. People's hopes and spirits also floundered, as they grew distrustful of the government and tried to cope with the enormous death toll of the war. The turbulent period after World War One called for a major readjustment of politics, economic policies, and views on the world.
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