Student Essay on What Were the Consequences of the First World War for the British People 1914 - 1924?

What Were the Consequences of the First World War for the British People 1914 - 1924?

Summary:   The war provided many changes yo Britain, both socially, economically and politically. One such social change was the population of men declining drastically, this was of course because of the death toll as a result of the war.

There were many consequences and changes to British society because of the war, both positive and negative, however if you look closely some of the changes such as women obtaining the right to vote could have happened naturally - war or no war.

The war provided many changes both socially, economically and politically. One such social change was the population of men declining drastically, this was of course because of the death toll as a result of the war. As a result of this the population of women went up from 595 per thousand to 638 per thousand and the proportion of widows went from 38% - 43% and there were also now 3.5 million orphans. (1) So since women now outnumbered men it would be harder to ignore them, which meant since they outnumbered men more than they used to, they would have to be treated better, since women were the ones who had to bring up all the kids to make up for the loss. The other consequence of the great loss of men is that children lost their fathers and people had lost friends and relatives. 'It was virtually impossible to avoid losing a relative or close acquaintance' (2). The severe loss was the most important change in society. The sadness of losing loved ones would have been unbearable. It also had a knock on effect towards industry and unemployment, because some of the people who ran businesses or factories died, it meant they had to shut them down hence the people who had jobs there before were now unemployed. By 1921 unemployment had risen to 2 million. (1) Some businesses were losing trade as well, for instance the staple industries were slowly eroding away because after the war there wasn't such a need for them, they didn't have to make as many weapons or ships, so there wasn't as much investment in these industries as before / during the war. As these businesses were losing money they would have to make job cuts or reduce employer's wages, which further added to the unemployment problems. This was the start of an economic crisis. Spending money on weapons, supplies for men, extra first aid and other necessities for the war meant the government were spending a lot more money than they used to (Over 50% of GNP by 1918) (1) and due to Britain's inability to pay debts to countries including the USA, they had a lot on their plate to deal with financially. The government had no choice but to raise income tax. So even those who were unemployed either suffered wage cuts or high tax bills. Which a great deal of the British public were face to face with poverty. Some were leading worse lives than they were before the war. This was their 'reward' for fighting for their country. The war drained so much from Britain: men, money, and resources amongst others. It all interlinks. Less men equals more unemployment which equals less resources which means there's less trade which equals the government having less money which ultimately results in increased poverty. Britain was in a downward spiral which would be heard to get out of. (There were less resources because some of the people involves in labour of raw materials had died and also because they used them up or wasted them in the war and also that Britain lost her textiles markets in India and China.) (1)Trade was hit by millions of tonnes of shipping being sunk and the loss of overseas markets ( Britain increasingly had to keep to trading within their own country as a result of this.) a disadvantage of loosing overseas markets is that you don't have such a wide variety of goods. For example, since it was hard to obtain the staple products in Britain, if it became hard to obtain them overseas, then the staple industries will further decline. During the war, in 1915, the treasury agreement was passed which meant semi-skilled or unskilled workers could now be employed in jobs which were previously reserved for skilled workers. (The skilled workers went into jobs that really only required genuine skill). So this and the 'leaving certificate' helped redeem the post-war situation slightly in that if lots of skilled workers died in the war, the unskilled/semi-skilled could fill their boots. This still didn't help with the post war unemployment boom though and it did restrict the freedom and power of the worker by making it increasingly harder to go on strike. (They did this because they needed all the workers they could get to keep up with the high productivity rates needed for the war.) This didn't last long however, because once the feeling of community and co-operation had worn off a few broke the rules and went on strike anyway. One group of people that certainly prospered from the war in terms of employment were women. Because the vast majority of men were out fighting the war, there were obviously numerous job vacancies and industries such as the munitions factories needed more workers than before the war due to high demand. So they turned to women to fill in the gaps. A lot of working class women had worked before, but what were changing were the types of jobs being performed; they were now getting paid more and had more secure jobs. Women, form being totally dependent on men and used to being treated as second class citizens were now thinking for themselves, were financially and physically independent and realised that they were just as much a part of society as men and had an important role to play. They were gradually catching up with men on the equality front. Not only were women getting more jobs, a lot of them were in top white collar jobs such as clerks and shop assistants and because in the war they did so well in these jobs, some of the women got to keep them. But it didn't stop here for women, as well as getting more/ better jobs. In 1918 women over 30 got the vote, (as well as men over 21) this was because the war effort changed male attitudes towards women and also because women showed they were independent and could strive in society.

Although there was a great deal of poverty and depression after world war one, the government did a great deal to try and make living standards bearable again - particularly in working class areas. Because all of the bombing, obviously a lot people had lost their homes, there were more houses blown up then they had time to build new ones, so the 'homes fit for heroes' campaign was set up, which was basically a scheme to quickly build new housing, for instance new tower blocks for those who fought in the war mainly, but also others who had their houses destroyed. Many state benefits were extended during and after the war, which helped to deal with the poverty and helped to put people's minds off the massive unemployment figures. This tied in with the fact that orphans and widows were able to collect extra money to compensate for their fathers/husbands not being there anymore. Also before the war school dinners were not compulsory, but this soon changed as the government figured that if they provided free meals then it would solve under nourishment and health problems, which were prevalent in armies across Britain.

Politically the First World War effected Britain profoundly. It weakened the Liberals a great deal, because there was conflict within the party. Asquith liked the idea of a smaller cabinet, but since no one else agreed, he finally ended up resigning. So the Liberal supporters were split into two: those who supported George and those who supported Asquith. The tensions increased in May 1918 when there was a dispute concerning British troupes in the spring offensive, again this involved Asquith and George. Both of these factors and the fact that Sinn Fein stopped supporting them due to the war and the Easter rising in Dublin, this lead to a decline of the Liberals. At the other end, Labour was excelling as a party. Largely because of the Liberal downfall, the higher number of political candidates and the fact that Labour 'stole' many of the Liberal's supporters, also by their take on foreign policy and by using pressure groups effectively. (3)

It is not true to say though that all of the consequences came as a result of the 'great' war. A lot of the changes were just natural progressions which would have happened anyway. For instance you could argue that women would have won the right to vote regardless. Before the war the suffragettes (led by Emmeline Pankhurst) and the suffragists (led by Millicent Fawcett) movements were very evident in society. They would use both violent and non - violent methods to try and win female suffrage. They would pull off stunts like running in front of race horses to get attention; (4) this also helped to shock politicians to change to their mind on the matter. So even before the war women's suffrage was becoming recognised by the government, even some became supporters. There are numerous takes on why the suffragettes and suffragists won them the vote. The fact that they stopped campaigning during the war period meant they would gain some respect from the public and government alike and the fact that during the post war slump, the last thing the government wanted was to have a recurrence of militant protesting. As HH Asquith put it. 'We had no recurrence of that detestable campaign'. (5) So you could say the suffragists and suffragettes won the right to vote single-handedly. Also although there were women working in the war, it was nothing new for most working class women. The majority had already been in various manual jobs, even some women had experience in white collar jobs pre - war, they even outnumbered men as lower professionals. (62.9% female) Women overtaking men in jobs during the war period was inevitable, they had no other choice. In other words if the war hadn't happened then no more women would have got jobs than normally. It was also generally accepted that after the war that women would have to return their jobs back to the soldiers who fought in the war, Even though many men died, there were also a great deal of job cuts and factory closures. There were a direct proportion of men lost in the war to jobs lost, so the men were just put elsewhere, which meant a lot of women had to sacrifice their jobs. After the war on the whole it didn't change for women from pre - war times and anything such as some women getting paid more would have happened anyway. The suffrage for women in 1918 helped also to get women into better jobs because this was a large step towards equality with men despite some women having to give up their new jobs.

Another misconception about the war is the introduction of modern technology, it may have seemed as if machine guns, tanks and other such modern technology were made and introduced solely due to the war, but they were actually invented before the war, but because there was no need to tell the public about them, it may even scare some people into thinking a war was coming up, so the producers kept all this behind closed doors until they genuinely needed to be used. They also didn't introduce the new technology because the market for this type of thing was striving, so there was hardly a high need for their introduction. This new technology certainly did help though, when finally introduced.

The post war political situation could have also happened naturally, because look at todays current state of politics. Labour got into power in 1997 replacing conservative. Basically it changes a lot, which party is in power. So between the years 1918 - 1924 there was a high chance that the government would have changed hands anyway. Despite the goings on during the war. During the war a coalition government was set up, so in effect no one particular political group was in power. So this meant the government was in a state of chaos during the war anyway and with the publics mind on other things during the war, nobody would have paid particular attention to political goings on, in contrast to this, if there had been no war and people had been paying attention to political goings on, there would be a big chance one of the party's would slip up and a new one would be voted for - natural progression.

Finally the fact that society is always evolving. Even if the war did provide some definite big consequences, a lot would have changed anyway. If the war had never had happened for example there is a possibility that there wouldn't have been mass unemployment. Today there hasn't been a war for over fifty years and look how much has changed. Maybe the change would have been less extreme, but it would have still happened.

In conclusion, Britain definitely wouldn't have changed as much if the war hadn't of happened women wouldn't have had the job opportunities, there wouldn't have been such a dent in the population and the political system may not have changed so drastically. It is hard to tell though because society does evolve naturally and factors such as suffragette violence to win women the vote and the fact that modern had already been invented. But anything that could have possibly changed if there was no war was confirmed change by the war. In other words war definitely did change some things that were only maybe going to change anyway. It was more the war that changed society than natural progression.