How were civilians affected by World War 1?

1
How were civilians affected by World War 1?

• Aim To revise key details about the British
  Home Front during the First World War

2
Total War

• What was the Total War?
• A war where the countries drafts all the people
  and collects all resources that they can.
• When did this war take place?
• Around 1916
• Where did it take place?
• Europe
• Why did the Total War occur?
• The war turned into a Total War because the
  countries expected the war to be short so they
  werent prepared for long term war, when their
  supplies ran out, total war was their only
  option.
• What was the significance of the war?
• WWI turned into a Total War which affected the
  home front and government a lot.
• It affected women too because with the absence of
  men they were expected to take over more jobs and
  help out with the war effort.
• They received the rights to new jobs, to vote,
  and the right to apartments.

3
WWI on the Home Front

• WWI was a Total War required populations on
  the home front to mobilize their resources
  completely toward the war effort civilian
  population centers also became targets of the war
  effort not since the US Civil War the
  Napoleonic Wars had the world seen such complete
  mobilization for war
• Mass conscription was carried out by all nations
  most European nations had armies of 1-2 million
  eventually over 70 million would be drafted
  worldwide many women would volunteer services
  as nurses at home the front
• Entire economies were geared toward war
  production led to rationing of all sorts of
  essentials as raw materials agricultural
  products were utilized to feed the war machine
  led to increased centralization govt control
  of economies
• WWI saw an increase in restrictions of civil
  liberties the press was censored as was speech
  mail due process of law was suspended for
  those suspected of treason German books were
  burned, speaking German was banned lynchings of
  German-Brits were interned in Britain and its
  colonies
• Women played an important role in the war effort
  taking up jobs as men were sent to the home
  front over 35 of the workforce was women in
  many European nations during the war

4
War on the Home Front
5
? starter activity
This was arguably the most successful recruitment
poster of the War. It shows Lord Earl Kitchener,
the man responsible for getting men to join the
army. It uses a clever visual trick. Can you
guess what it is?
6
Recruitment

• Initial recruitment used posters, leaflets, etc.
  to build an army quickly
• What is the message of this poster?
• How would this poster encourage men to join the
  army?

7
Why did people join up?
8
Patriotism

• Britain joined the War on 4 August 1914
• People encouraged to do your bit for King
  country
• Kings shilling
• Pals brigades (including villages, football
  teams, orchestras, old school friends)
• Over by Christmas
• By December 1914, 1 million men had enlisted

What is the artist of who made this poster trying
to say?
9
Propaganda

• Leaflets posters
• Women were told to encourage sons, husbands
  boyfriends to enlist
• By January 1916, 2.6 million men had enlisted

What do you think the man in the poster is
thinking?
10
Recruitment

• Initial recruitment used posters, leaflets, etc.
  to build an army quickly
• What is the message of this poster?
• How would this poster encourage men to join the
  army?

11
Recruitment

• Womens organisations tried to boost recruitment
• White feathers were given to men as a sign of
  their cowardice
• The Mothers Union urged its members to get their
  sons to join up

12
(No Transcript)
13
Recruitment

• Initial recruitment used posters, leaflets, etc.
  to build an army quickly
• What is the message of this poster?
• How would this poster encourage men to join the
  army?

14
Recruitment
15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
(No Transcript)
24
(No Transcript)
25
(No Transcript)
26
(No Transcript)
27
(No Transcript)
28
(No Transcript)
29
Recruiting by E. A. Mackintosh

• Lads, youre wanted, go and help,
• On the railway carriage wall
• Stuck the poster, and I thought
• Of the hands that penned the call.
• Fat civilians wishing they
• Could go out and fight the Hun.
• Cant you see them thanking God
• That theyre over forty-one?
• Girls with feathers, vulgar songs-
• Washy verse on Englands need-
• God-and dont we damned well know
• How the message ought to read.

30
Recruiting continued

• Lads, youre wanted! Over there,
• Shiver in the morning dew,
• More poor devils like yourselves
• Waiting to be killed by you.
• Go and help to swell the names
• In the casualty lists.
• Help to make a columns stuff
• For the blasted journalists.
• Help to keep them nice and safe
• From the wicked German foe.
• Dont let him come over here!
• Lads, youre wanted-out you go.

31
Recruiting continued

• Theres a better word than that,
• Lads, and cant you hear it come
• From a million men that call
• You to share their martyrdom.
• Leave the harlots still to sing
• Comic songs about the Hun,
• Leave the fat old men to say
• Now weve got them on the run.
• Better twenty honest years
• Than their dull three score and ten.
• Lads, youre wanted. Come and learn
• To live and die with honest men.

32
Recruiting continued

• You shall learn what men can do
• If you will but pay the price,
• Learn the gaiety and strength
• In the gallant sacrifice.
• Take your risk of life and death,
• Underneath the open sky.
• Live clean or go out quick-
• Lads, youre wanted. Come and die.
• What aspects of Home Front changes are addressed
  in this poem?
• What is the overall message?

33

• While it is true that the start of World War One
  was greeted with vast amounts of patriotism
  throughout Europe and the Empire, there were
  those who were pacifists and refused to have
  anything to do with the war. The pacifists were
  few in number (the UK had about 16,000 in total
  during the war) and would have had no impact on
  the number of fighting men Britain had in the
  lead up to conscription.
• However, despite their lack of numbers, the
  military and War Office came down on pacifists
  were great energy.  
• In the autumn of 1914, so many men volunteered
  for the British Army, that the few pacifists in
  society were all but overlooked.
• As the war would be over by Christmas 1914, most
  men were more concerned about missing out as
  opposed to thinking about those who did not want
  to fight.
• Religion was the main reason why men did not want
  to join up. Many such as Bert Brocklesby were
  very religious.
• On the day war was declared he said God has
  not put me on this Earth to go destroying His
  children.
• Therefore, he refused to have anything to do with
  the military and the war.
• Initially, the most these men could expect were
  white feathers being given to them and petty
  verbal abuse in the street.
• However, when it became clear that the war would
  not be over by Xmas 1914, the stance taken on
  pacifists became more aggressive.
• As the number of British casualties greatly
  increased from 1915 to 1916, it got worse. In
  public, known pacifists ran the risk of being
  assaulted and thrown in jail for the most trivial
  of reasons.

34
Conscription

• Voluntary recruitment was decreasing, but the
  demand for troops was increasing
• Voluntary recruitment didnt share the burden
  between all parts of society
• Conscription introduced in 1916
• All men aged 18-40 had to register
• They could be called up to fight at any time

35
Conscription

• The British army had consisted of all volunteers.
• As hundreds of thousands of men were killed or
  wounded, more volunteers were needed.
• Due to this the height limit was reduced.
• And the upper age limit increased.
• But the flow of volunteers was not enough.
• In January 1916, the Military Service Act was
  passed.
• It required all unmarried men between 18 and 41,
  except those in exempted occupations to serve.
• On April 26, 1916, the Act was extended to
  include married men between the ages of 18 and 41
  as well.
• The law went through several changes before the
  war's end with the age limit eventually being
  raised to 51.

36
Conscription

• It has been argued that enforced enlistment was
  more to do with employment circumstances,
  familial circumstances, physical fitness, skills
  and aptitudes and, to a much lesser extent
  religious and political grounds.
• This was vetted very closely by the Tribunals who
  had to assess a man's fitness for military
  service and weigh that against his usefulness to
  the domestic economy.
• As one historian has pointed out "a farm lad,
  aged 19, might have escaped call-up in one part
  of the country whereas a 40-year old brickie from
  another part may have been drafted."
• Conscription caused real hardships for the
  British people.
• For example, in November 1917 a widow asked
  Croydon Military Tribunal to let her keep her
  eleventh son, to look after her.
• The other ten were all serving in the British
  armed forces.
• A man from Barking asked for his ninth son to be
  exempted as his eight other sons were already in
  the British Army.
• The man's son was given three months exemption.

37
Conscription

• Who took practiced conscription during the time
  of World War I?
• Europe
• When exactly did conscription occur during this
  time?
• Between 1890 and 1914
• What was conscription?
• Conscription was a military draft which made
  European armies double in size.
• Why did countries choose to practice
  conscription?
• European countries felt the need to become more
  powerful because of tensions tightening between
  them.
• What was the significance of conscription during
  this time?
• Conscription, which is an act of militarism,
  cause Military leaders to receive more power and
  gave countries the means to go to war.

38
Conscription

• Casualties increased
• News returned to Britain of horrors of trenches
• Conscription introduced for all men between ages
  of 18 and 41
• Conscientious objectors (conshies) given white
  feathers
• By 1918 2.5 million extra men had been enlisted

Why did millions of men feel obliged to fight
in the War?
39

• King George V, statement issued on 25th May
  1916.
• To enable our country to organise more
  effectively its military resources in the present
  great struggle for the cause of civilisation, I
  have, acting on the advice of my Ministers,
  deemed it necessary to enrol every able-bodied
  man between the ages of eighteen and forty-one.
• I desire to take this opportunity of expressing
  to my people my recognition and appreciation of
  the splendid patriotism and self-sacrifice which
  they have displayed in raising by voluntary
  enlistment since the commencement of the War, no
  less than 5,041,000 men, an effort far surpassing
  that of any other nation in similar circumstances
  recorded in history, and one which will be a
  lasting source of pride to future generations. I
  am confident that the magnificent spirit which
  has hitherto sustained my people through the
  trials of this terrible war will inspire them to
  endure the additional sacrifice now imposed upon
  them, and that it will, with God's help, lead us
  and our Allies to a victory which shall achieve
  the liberation of Europe.

40
The No-Conscription Fellowship was founded as
early as 1914 and it produced the following
leaflet

• Repeal the Act Fellow citizens
• Conscription is now law in this country of free
  traditions. Our hard-won liberties have been
  violated. Conscription means the desecration of
  principles that we have long held dear it
  involves the subordination of civil liberties to
  military dictation it imperils the freedom of
  individual conscience and establishes in our
  midst that militarism which menaces all social
  graces and divides the peoples of all nations.
• We re-affirm our determined resistance to all
  that is established by the Act. We cannot assist
  in warfare. War, which to us is wrong. War, which
  the peoples do not seek, will only be made
  impossible when men, who so believe, remain
  steadfast to their convictions. Conscience, it is
  true, has been recognised in the Act, but it has
  been placed at the mercy of tribunals. We are
  prepared to answer for our faith before any
  tribunal, but we cannot accept any exemption that
  would compel those who hate war to kill by proxy
  or set them to tasks which would help in the
  furtherance of war.
• We strongly condemn the monstrous assumption by
  Parliament that a man is deemed to be bound by an
  oath that he has never taken and forced under an
  authority he will never acknowledge to perform
  acts which outrage his deepest convictions.
• It is true that the present act applies only to a
  small section of the community, but a great
  tradition has been sacrificed. Already there is a
  clamour for an extension of the act. Admit the
  principle, and who can stay the march of
  militarism?
• Repeal the Act. That is your only safeguard.
• If this be not done, militarism will fasten its
  iron grip upon our national life and
  institutions. There will be imposed upon us the
  very system which statesmen affirm that they set
  out to overthrow.
• What shall it profit the nation if it shall win
  the war and lose its own soul?

41
What Happened to The No-Conscription Fellowship?

• The No-Conscription Fellowship was an
  organisation made up by members of the Socialist
  Independent Labour Party and the Quakers.
• The men who signed the above leaflet were
  Clifford Allen, Edward Grubb, A Fenner Brockway,
  W J Chamberlain, W H Ayles, Morgan Jones, A
  Barratt Brown, John Fletcher, C H Norman and Rev.
  Leyton Richards.
• All charged under the Defence of the Realm Act.
• They were all fined those who decided not to pay
  the fine were sent to prison.  

42
Conscientious Objectors

• The Military Service Act that introduced
  conscription put many who opposed the war into a
  position of direct personal conflict with the
  British Government.
• Exemption was allowed on grounds of conscience,
  and unsympathetic and biased trials were set up
  to assess those who claimed conscience as a
  reason for not fighting.
• David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister,
  promised the conscientious objectors a rough
  time.
• However, such was the decline in enthusiasm for
  the war, there were 750,000 claims for conscience
  exemption.
• One was told that he was only fit to be on the
  point of a German bayonet.
• Of these tribunals, only 16,500 of the 750,000
  were accepted as Conscientious Objectors.
• The great majority of these men accepted some
  form of alternative service, working in
  hospitals, factories, mines, etc
• However, over 1000 refused all forms of war
  service.
• These men were imprisoned, and most were brutally
  treated, resulting in physical and mental abuse.
• 70 of these men dies in prison.

43

• Herbert Morrison, An Autobiography (1960) A
  large anti-conscription conference was held at
  the Ethical Society's Hall near Liverpool Street
  Station, London. There were determined but
  unsuccessful efforts to break it up. Toughs who
  had obviously been encouraged to be present
  fiercely attacked us as we emerged, with the City
  police doing little or nothing to stop them.
• When conscription came into force in 1917 I duly
  received my call-up notice. Of course, there was
  no question of my being fit for military service
  because of my blindness in one eye and it would,
  I suppose, have been easy to pretend that I
  wanted to put on uniform and then allow the
  medical officers to turn me down, but I was
  intent on sticking to my principles. In due
  course I was ordered to report before the
  Conscientious Objectors Tribunal for Wandsworth.
  Exemption could be absolute conditional on
  taking up some form of national service or
  refused on the grounds that the applicant had
  failed to prove the genuine nature of his
  objection.
• There are many stories of the ruthless and
  sometimes insulting behaviour of the members of
  these tribunals in the First World War when the
  standard question to an absolutist (as men who
  were not willing to help the military machine
  directly or indirectly were called) was, "What
  would you do if you came upon a German attempting
  to rape your sister?". However, my inquisitors
  were both courteous and fair.
•  

44
(No Transcript)
45
'The Ideal' - one of many cartoon produced by
COs (1917).This and several other were also
produced and widelydistributed as
postcard        
46
In The Daily Express on July 4, 1916, Lieutenant
Colonel Reginald Brooke, Commander of the
Military Detention Barracks for the C.O.s bragged
about how he broke them

• Some of the early batches, when nothing could be
  done with them, were taken singly and run across
  the yard to special rooms---airy enough, but from
  which they could see nothing. They were fed on
  bread and water and some of them presently came
  round. I had them placed in special rooms, nude,
  but with their full army kit on the floor for
  them to put on as soon as they were so minded.
  There were no blankets or substitutes for
  clothing left in the rooms which were quite bare.
  Several of the men held out naked for several
  hours, but they gradually accepted the
  inevitable. Forty of the conscientious objectors
  who passed through my hands are now quite willing
  soldiers.

47
(No Transcript)
48
Conscription and Conscientious Objectors

• Conscientious objectors opposed the war for
  political or religious reasons
• They refused to fight, and were imprisoned or
  executed for doing so
• Others helped the war effort, but not through
  military action
• Field hospitals
• Stretched bearers

49
(No Transcript)
50
The Conchies

• Conscientious objectors were people who simply
  did not want to fight in World War 1.
• Conscientious objectors became known as
  'conchies' or C.O's
• They were a sign that not everybody was as
  enthusiastic about the war as the government
  would have liked.

51
(No Transcript)
52

• Over one million soldiers died on the Western
  Front during World War One but there were some
  men who refused to go because they believed the
  war was wrong.

53
There were several types of conscientious
objector.

• Some were pacifists who were against war in
  general.
• Some were political objectors who did not
  consider the government of Germany to be their
  enemy
• Some were religious objectors who believed that
  war and fighting was against their religion.
  Groups in this section were the Quakers and
  Jehovah Witnesses.
• A combination of any of the above groups.

54
Quakers were prominent in promoting conscientious
objection, and were ridiculed in the papers.

• A Christian To A Quaker
• I much regret that I must frown
• Upon your cocoa nibs, (reference to Cadbury
  chocolate owned by a Quaker family)
• I simply hate to smite you down
• And kick you in the ribs
• But since you will not think as I,
• Its clear you must be barred,
• So in you go (and may you die)
• To two years hard.
• We are marching to freedom and to love
• Were fighting every shape of tyrant sin
• We are out to make it worth
• Gods while to love the earth,
• And damn it, you wont join in!

• To drive you mad, as I have done,
• Has almost made me sick.
• To torture Quakers like a Hun
• Has hurt me to the quick.
• But since your logic wars with mine
• Youre something I must guard,
• So in you go, you dirty swine,
• To two years hard.
• We are marching to destroy the hosts of hate
• Weve taken, every man, a Christian vow
• We are our to make war cease,
• That men may live at peace,
• And, damme, youre at it now!
• By Harold Begbie

55

• Some conscientious objectors did not want to
  fight but were keen to 'do their bit'. These
  people were willing to help in weapons factories
  and some went to the trenches to become stretcher
  bearers etc., though not to fight. Other C.O's
  refused to do anything that involved the war -
  these were known as 'absolutists.

56
What did people think of the conchies?

• They were treated as cowards
• Traitors
• Criminals
• White feathers were handed out to young men who
  had not joined the army
• They could not get jobs in factories doing war
  work

57
What happened to the conchies?

• Some did war work
• Medical services
• Support services
• Some refused every kind of alternative service
  and went to prison. Ten died and 31 went mad as
  a result of their experiences

58

• In his autobiography, Fate Has Been Kind,
  Frederick Pethick-Lawrence explained why he
  refused to be conscripted into the British
  Army.It was not until the middle of 1918 that
  my age group came within the Conscription Act and
  I was called up. I was then 46. Believing as I
  did that the war could and should be brought to
  an end by a negotiated peace, I could not very
  well go out to fight for Mr. Lloyd-George's
  'knock-out blow'. I accordingly went before a
  tribunal in Dorking as a conscientious objector.
  The Clerk to the Council told the tribunal that
  he knew I had held my views for a considerable
  time, and the military representative said that
  he did not particularly 'want this man'. So I was
  awarded exemption, conditional on my doing work
  of national importance, and work on the land was
  indicated.

59

• After Raymond Postgate was sent to prison for
  refusing to be conscripted, his sister, Margaret
  Postgate, became involved in the Peace Movement.
  In the spring of 1916 Ray, a scholar in his
  first year at St. John's College, Oxford, was
  called up. Of course he refused to go, thereby
  reducing his father to apoplectic fury and,
  after he had failed to secure exemption and was
  brought before the magistrates as a mutinous
  soldier, I went up to Oxford be by his side. At
  that date it needed a fair amount of courage to
  be a C.O. Though the Military Service Act allowed
  exemption on grounds of conscience, it was
  regrettably vague in its definition of either
  "conscience" or "exemption" and the decision as
  to whether a man had or had not a valid
  conscientious objection, and if he had, whether
  he was to be exempted from all forms of war
  service or from combatant service only, or
  something between the two, was left to local
  tribunals all over the country, who had no common
  standard or guidance, and generally - though not
  by any means invariably - took the view that
  every fit man ought to want to fight, and that
  anyone who did not was a coward, an idiot, or a
  pervert, or all three.

60
Raymond Postgate continued

• Objection on religious grounds was for most part
  treated with respect, particularly if the sect
  had a respectable parentage Quakers usually came
  off lightly, and were permitted to take up any
  form of service they felt able to do though
  Quakers who were "absolutists," i.e., who refused
  to aid the war effort in any way whatever, were
  apt to be jailed after a long and futile
  cross-examination by the Tribunal on how they
  would behave if they found a German violating
  their mother. But non-Christians who objected on
  the grounds that they were internationalists or
  Socialists were obvious traitors in addition to
  all their other vices, and could expect little
  mercy. They would be sent to barracks, and thence
  to prison - and then nobody quite knew what would
  happen to them. There was talk of despatching
  them to France, unarmed, and shooting them there
  for mutiny. It is almost literally true that
  when I walked away from the Oxford court-room I
  walked into a new world, a world of doubters and
  protesters, and into a new war - this time
  against the ruling classes and the government
  which represented them, and with the working
  classes, the Trade Unionists, the Irish rebels of
  Easter Week, and all those who resisted their
  governments or other governments which held them
  down. I found in a few months the whole lot which
  Henry Nevinson used to call "the stage-army of
  the Good" - the ILP, the Union of Democratic
  Control, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the
  Daily Herald League, the National Council of
  Civil Liberties - and, above all, the Guild
  Socialists and the Fabian, later the Labour
  Research Department.

61

• John William Graham, Conscription and Conscience
  (2010) In this place, alone, you spend
  twenty-three hours and ten minutes out of the
  twenty-four in the first month of your sentence,
  hungry most of the time. You get little exercise,
  and probably suffer from indigestion, headache or
  sleeplessness. The entire weekend is solitary
  until you attend chapel. After the first month
  you have thirty minutes exercise on Sunday. You
  would go mad but for the work. You sit and stitch
  canvas for mailbags. Your fingers begin by being
  sore and inflamed, but they become used to it. At
  first your daily task can hardly be finished in a
  day. You struggle hard to get the reward of a
  large mug of sugarless cocoa and a piece of bread
  at eight o'clock. It will save you from hunger
  all night, for your previous food - I cannot call
  it a meal - had been at 4.15. This extra ration,
  which varied, and was not universal, was a
  war-time incentive to produce work of national
  importance. It was cut off as a war economy in
  1918.
• Except on monthly visits (15 minutes), or if he
  has to speak to the Chaplain or doctor, or if he
  has to accost a warder, the prisoner is not
  allowed to speak for two years the sentence
  usually given to a conscientious objector.
• The punishments for breaking a rule, for talking,
  for lying on your bed before bedtime, looking out
  of a window, having a pencil in your possession,
  not working, and many other such acts were
  savage. If those things were reported to the
  Governor, there would be, say, three days bread
  and water and in a gloomy basement cell, totally
  devoid of furniture during the daytime. This was
  famine. In addition, your exercise might be taken
  away, and your work in association, your letter
  or visit would be postponed, whilst your family
  were left wondering what had happened, and marks,
  with the effect of postponing your final release,
  would be taken off.

62

• The case of James Brightmore was even more
  outrageous. It certainly got more publicity.
  Brightmore was a young solicitor's clerk from
  Manchester. After serving eight months of a
  twelve months sentence for refusing to put on the
  uniform, Brightmore was sent to Shore Camp,
  Cleethorpes. Still refusing, he was sentenced to
  twenty-eight days solitary confinement on bread
  and water. According to Army Order X, Brightmore
  should have been serving his sentence in prison,
  but the authorities pretended not to know. There
  was no solitary cell in the camp, so the Major
  had to improvise, like the efficient soldier he
  was. He had a deep hole dug in the parade ground,
  coffin shaped, and into this young Brightmore was
  inserted. For four days he stood ankle-deep in
  water, then a piece of wood was lowered for him
  to stand on, but that sank into the water, which
  now stank, and in which a dead mouse floated.
• One day it rained heavily. Some of the soldiers
  took him from the hole and put him into a tent
  where he slept the night. He remained there all
  the next day, and then the Major became aware of
  it, and he was roughly wakened and thrust down
  the hole again, and a black tarpaulin pulled over
  it to keep out the rain. He was kept there for a
  week, the Major calling on him during the day to
  jeer, telling him on one occasion that his
  friends had been sent to France and shot, and
  that he would be in the next batch.
• One of the soldiers who had been reprimanded for
  taking Brightmore out of the hole, realising that
  there was no intention of releasing the youth,
  tore open a cigarette packet and passed it down
  with a stub of pencil, suggesting that Brightmore
  write to his parents. He did so, and the soldier
  added a covering note, saying that the hole was
  twelve feet deep. They were under orders not to
  take any notice of the boy's complaints, but "the
  torture is turning his head." At that time
  Brightmore had been in the vertical grave for
  eleven days.

63

• Brightmore's parents took the letter to the
  Manchester Guardian, which published it with a
  strongly worded editorial. Within forty minutes
  of the paper arriving at the camp, Brightmore had
  been taken from the hole, which was hastily
  filled in. The major and a fellow officer were
  dismissed from their posts for disobeying the
  Order.
• The third case of Court Martial did not involve a
  young man, but the mature and articulate C.H.
  Norman, a writer on international politics and
  founder-member of the No Conscription Fellowship.
  He came up against the out-spoken sadist Lt. Col.
  Reginald Brooke, Commandant of Wandsworth
  Military Detention Camp, who declared that he
  didn't give a damn for Asquith and his
  treacherous Government. He would do what he liked
  with his prisoners.
• C.H. Norman thought differently. When he went on
  hunger strike he was badly beaten, tied to a
  table and a tube forced up his nose and down into
  his stomach. Through this, liquid food was
  poured. Then he was forced into a straitjacket
  fastened so tightly that breathing was difficult,
  and he suffered a spell of unconsciousness. He
  was bound in the jacket for twenty-three hours,
  during which time the Col, called on him to jeer.
  Norman was not an inexperienced adolescent he
  brought a civil action against the Col., who was
  court martialled and sentenced to be dismissed
  from his cherished position where his sadism (for
  it could have been no less) had free play.

64

• John Taylor Caldwell, Come Dungeons Dark The
  Life and Times of Guy Aldred (1988)The
  treatment of nineteen-year-old Jack Gray was in
  blatant defiance of the Order. On 7th May 1917 he
  arrived at Hornsea Detention Camp. Refusing to
  put on the uniform he was abused and tormented
  for the rest of the day. Live ammunition was
  fired at his feet, his ankles were beaten with a
  cane, his mouth was split open by a heavy blow
  from a sergeant. Next day the process was
  continued. Then his hands were bound firmly
  behind his back and his ankles tied together. A
  rope was fastened to his wrists and pulled tight
  to the ankles. In this position he had to stand
  for several hours, then a bag of stones was
  fastened on his back and he was beaten round the
  training field till he collapsed. There were
  other brutalities inflicted on Jack which we will
  not detail, but of such a nature that eight of
  the soldiers refused to take part, leaving
  themselves liable to severe penalties.
• The torture which broke the boy's resolve was
  when he was stripped naked and had a rope tied
  round his waist. He was then thrown into the camp
  cesspool and pulled around. After the second
  immersion the rope had so tightened round his
  waist that he was in great pain. Still the
  treatment continued "for eight or nine times",
  said a witness at the subsequent court martial.
  Someone, transported into ecstasies of sadistic
  excitement at the sight of the lad's muddy,
  filth-encrusted body, got an old sack and making
  holes for arms and head, forced the youngster
  into it for further grotesque immersions. Then
  Jack Gray gave in, promising to fight for England
  and save the world from the barbarity of the Hun.
• The local M.P. forced an Enquiry. The officers
  responsible were censured. Nobody was allowed to
  see the report of the Enquiry.

65

• HAROLD BING'S STORYThere were plenty of
  protests against war in 1914. Some of the
  protesters were socialists, who believed that the
  working men of the world should unite, not obey
  orders to kill each other.
• Some belonged to religious groups which forbade
  taking human life.
• Some thought this particular war was wrong, some
  thought all war was wrong.
• Thousands of these varied protesters gathered in
  London's Trafalgar Square on August 2 to make
  their anti-war voices heard.
• A 16-year old called Harold Bing was there.
• He had walked the 11 miles from Croydon (and
  walked back again afterwards).
• It was thrilling,' he said. Harold and his father
  were both pacifists (his father had opposed the
  Boer War as well), and they both joined the
  No-Conscription Fellowship.
• Harold helped to distribute NCF leaflets from
  house to house on one occasion he was chased by
  a hostile householder wielding a heavy stick.
• After conscription was introduced in 1916,
  Harold, an 'absolutist' CO, went before his
  tribunal.
• He was not thought to qualify for exemption.
• '18? - you're too young to have a conscience,'
  said the chairman.
• But not, apparently, too young to be sent to war.
  
• A policeman came to his home to arrest him, and
  he was taken to Kingston Barracks.

66

• A policeman came to his home to arrest him, and
  he was taken to Kingston Barracks.
• When he refused to regard himself as a soldier,
  or obey military orders, he was court-martialled.
  
• The sentence 6 months hard labour. In the end
  Harold spent nearly 3 years in prison.
• Many COs were given what was called the 'cat and
  mouse' treatment at the end of their sentences
  in civilian prisons, they were released, taken
  back to barracks, arrested again for disobeying
  orders, and imprisoned once more.
• The good thing, as Harold observed, was that each
  time someone was released, they had enough time
  before re-arrest to get hold of newspapers and
  information which they could then pass on
  covertly to fellow inmates. 'I remember there was
  great excitement when news of the Russian
  revolution came through. People thought this
  would make a great difference to the war.'
• Harold made a difference himself.
• He helped to get vegetarian food provided (though
  unappetisingly) by the prison kitchen, and
  additional nourishment (a mug of cocoa) supplied
  for men who worked overtime.
• He also made friends with a few of the kinder
  warders - helping the daughter of one of them
  with her maths homework that particular warder
  died soon after the war, and Harold and some
  other ex-prisoners set up a fund to pay for the
  girl's secondary education.
• Harold was also one of the men who together
  created a prison magazine written on thin brown
  sheets of toilet paper using the blunt end of a
  needle and the ink supplied for monthly letters
  home.

67

• Just the one copy ('different people writing
  little essays or poems or humorous remarks,
  sometimes little cartoons or sketches') was
  passed secretly from one prisoner to another.
• In Harold's prison this unique publication was
  called 'The Winchester Whisperer'.
• The idea was widely copied.
• Wandsworth COs, for example, produced their 'Old
  Lags Hansard', once with an apology for late
  publication 'owing to an official raid on our
  offices', the editor's cell.
• A work camp attached to a stone-breaking quarry
  published 'The Granite Echo', with copies printed
  by a supporter in London.
• Harold Bing left prison with his sight damaged by
  years of stitching mailbags in dim light, but
  also having taught himself German and French.
• He wanted to teach, but he quickly found that
  many advertisements for teachers said 'No CO need
  apply'.
• 'And if you did apply, you got turned down as
  soon as they knew you were a pacifist.'
• But at last he found a sympathetic headmaster who
  was willing to employ him.
• As well as teaching, Harold worked as a peace
  campaigner (often travelling abroad) for the rest
  of his life. He died in 1975.

68
AFTER THE WAR

• No-one was in a hurry to release the COs -
  certainly not until the surviving soldiers were
  brought back from the front, which took months.
• Some COs went on hunger strike in protest at
  their continued detention 130 were forcibly fed
  through tubes (as suffragettes had been) - so
  forcibly that many were injured by the treatment
  and had to be temporarily released.
• Others went on work strikes and were brutally
  punished for it.
• In May 1919 the longest-serving prisoners began
  to be released the last CO left prison in
  August.
• Many found that no-one wanted to employ them.
• Those who hadn't done alternative or
  non-combatant service were deprived of their
  votes for five years (though this wasn't always
  strictly enforced)

69
Planned Economies

• What was planned economies?
• An economy controlled by the government, for
  example, when European governments decided price
  of goods, wages of the people, and the rent
  people had to pay. They also rationed food and
  materials and controlled imports, exports,
  transportation and industries.
• Where/ Who used planned economies?
• Europe
• When did these take place?
• During WWI
• Why were these used?
• Planned economies were set up as a result of
  Total War and the high demands of the war.
• What was the significance of planned economies?
• The planned economies that the government set up
  had a large impact on the civilians at home and
  caused their support of the war

70
DORA

• The Defence of the Realm Act
• Introduced on August 8, 1914
• Gave the government powers to control many
  aspects of peoples daily lives
• The priority was to keep industrial production
  high, but other things were affected too
• One of the first businesses it took over was the
  railways

71
DORA

• Mines and railways were taken over by the
  government
• The government had ultimate control over them
• This meant production of coal, and the movement
  of trains, would be prioritised for the war
  effort

72
(No Transcript)
73
DORA

• Ministry of Munitions created in May 1915
• Ministries of Labour, Shipping, and Food all
  created in Dec 1916
• In ten years, from 1911 to 1921, the number of
  government employees doubled due to DORA

74
DORA

• British Summer Time was introduced
• The government move the clocks forward by an hour
  in the summer
• This ensured factories had maximum daylight,
  meaning they could operate later

75
Impact on Industry Primary Source from Birmingham
in 1918

• Jewelers abandoned their craftmanship and the
  fashioning of gold and silver ornaments for the
  production of anti-gas apparatus and other war
  materials old-established firms noted for their
  art productions, turned to the manufacture of an
  intricate type of hand grenade. Cycle-makers
  adapted their machines to the manufacture of
  cartridge clips and railway carriage companies
  launched out with artillery wagons, limbers,
  tanks and aeroplanes, and the chemical works
  devoted their energies to the production of
  deadly TNT.

76
Unions Reactions to DORA

• April-May 1917 unofficial strikes broke out
• Resulted in the estimated loss of 1.5 million
  working days
• April-July 1918 Engineering Workers Strike in
  Leeds and Birmingham
• Government ended the strike with the threat of
  conscriptions
• Overall, between 1915-1918, there were 3227
  strikes involving 2.6 million workers
• Estimated loss of 17.8 million working days

77
DORA

• Licensing hours were introduced
• Pubs could only open for 2 hours at lunchtime and
  3 hours in the evening
• This made sure the workforce was awake and sober
  for factory work

78
DORA

• Beer was diluted
• The government allowed publicans to make beer
  weaker
• This ensured the workforce didnt drink so much
  as to make them drunk or hung-over while at work

79
DORA Leisure and Pastime Changes

• Prohibitions on public clocks chiming in between
  sunset and sunrise
• No whistling for taxis between 10PM and 7AM
• Restaurants and hotel dining rooms had to turn
  off lights at 10PM
• All places of entertainment had to close at
  1030PM
• British Summer Time was introduced in May 1916

80
DORA

• Food was rationed
• The government took over land and used it for
  farm production
• This ensured there was enough food to feed the
  public and the army, despite German U-Boat
  attacks
• During war, average household spent 75 of income
  on food, fuel, and housing

81
DORA

• Pubs were to close by 10PM
• Weakening of the spirits and watering down beer
• We are fighting the Germans, Austrians, and
  Drink, and so far as I can see the greatest of
  these deadly foes is Drink. was said by Prime
  Minister David Lloyd George
• Spectator sports continued until 1915
• Football or soccer was targeted
• So was hunting and horse-racing
• People still went to the beach but now there was
  barbed wire along the beaches and some piers were
  cut in half as precautions against invasion

82

• American jazz and ragtime became popular
• 150 night clubs operated in Central London by
  1915 with illegal liquor sold in coffee cups
• Soho was very popular
• Cinema became very popular---20 million tickets
  sold per week
• War Exhibitions were created to communicate
  public information on health and hygiene
• Examples War Exhibits on Houseflies and
  Exhibits on Lice
• Church attendance declined

83
Homefront Food Administration

• Assure the supply, distribution, and conservation
  of food during the war,
• Facilitate transportation of food and prevent
  monopolies and hoarding, and
• Maintain governmental power over foods by using
  voluntary agreements and a licensing system.

84
The Home Front

• Brings changes in hair length and fashions
• World War I innovations
• --Chanel 5
• --Spam
• --Deodorant
• Impact on language and culture
• -- Dud
• -- Lousy
• -- Rats!
• -- Gas Attack

85
Rationing

• In April 1917, German U-Boats were sinking one in
  every four British merchant ships
• Britain was running out of food

86
Rationing

• In 1917 voluntary rationing began, led by the
  royal family
• In 1918 compulsory rationing began
• Sugar
• Butter
• Meat
• Beer

87

• Efforts to control Food Consumption
• Dec 1916 Lunches in public eating places were
  restricted to two courses and dinners to three
  courses
• Fines were introduced for feeding pigeons and
  stray animals
• Food Control Campaign of 1917
• One Ministry of Food Leaflet introduced the
  public to Mr. Slice oBread proclaiming that 48
  million slices of bread were wasted every day

88

• I am the bit left over the slice eaten
  absent-mindedly when really I wasnt needed I
  am the waste crust.
• If you collected me and my companions for a whole
  week, you would find that we amounted to 9,380
  tons of good bread---Wasted.
• It was similarly claimed that a teaspoon of
  breadcrumbs saved by every person every day would
  amount to 40,000 tons a year.

89

• Government Bread
• Reducing the amount of white flour and
  substituting other grain or potato
• Long queues or lines for food led to people
  taking off from work to wait in line, crowds
  bordering on riots, changing clothes and
  appearance to try to get seconds, etc
• Inflation skyrocketed 80 increase on wheat and
  40 on meat just within the first year of the war

90

• Diets of ordinary families changed throughout the
  war
• 1914 oatmeal was the cheapest
• 1915 beans and rice
• 1916 lentils and oatmeal
• By 1918 sorrel, dandelion leaves and nettles
  were substitutes for vegetables
• Official Government Rationing
• Began in 1917
• Sugar rationed first
• Then meats and fats
• Weekly Ration 15oz beef, mutton, or lamb, 5 oz
  of bacon, 4 oz of fat, and 8 oz of sugar

91

• Coal Rationing began in Oct 1917
• 200 hundred weight a week for up to four rooms
• 300 hundred weight a week for up to five or six
  rooms
• The Total War led to many Welfare Programs being
  passed
• Health of Munitions Workers Committee of the
  Ministry of Munitions provided for factory
  inspectors and 900 canteens created to feed the
  workers---sausage and mash, mince and mash,
  stewed fruit, and milk pudding

92

• The Maternity and Child Welfare Act was passed in
  August 1918 to provide services for mothers and
  infants under the age of five
• Extension of government provision of school meals
  for the needy for the whole calendar year
• Rents and Mortgage or Rent Restriction Act of
  1915 eased the pressures of housing shortages