Download (technically the Third Battle of Ypres, of which Passchendaele was

BRITAIN AND WORLD WAR I
The First World War was the first Great War
and it was to be the war to end all wars. Its
origins were complex. Its scale was vast. Its
conduct was intense. Its impact on military
operations was revolutionary. Its human and
material costs were enormous. And its
results were profound.
The United Kingdom was one of the
Allied Powers during World War I (1914–
1918), and developed as a nation
throughout the war in order to further its
goal of defeating the Central Powers (the
German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the
Kingdom of Bulgaria).
The country's armed forces were reorganised—the
war marked the creation of the Royal Air Force, for
example—and increased in size because of the
introduction of forced conscription for the first
time in the country's history. At the outbreak of
war, patriotic feelings spread throughout the
country.
At the start of World War I, for the first time
since the Napoleonic Wars, the population of
the United Kingdom was in danger of attack
from naval raids. For the first time ever, the
country also came under attack from air raids
by zeppelins and fixed-wing aircraft. German
bombardments (naval and air raids) were
concentrated on the east coast of England.
The Raid on Yarmouth, which took place in
November 1914, was an attack by the
German Navy on the British North Sea port
and town of Great Yarmouth. Little damage
was done to the town itself, since shells only
landed on the beach once German ships
laying mines offshore were interrupted by
British destroyers.
In December 1914, the German navy carried out
attacks on the British coastal towns of Scarborough,
Hartlepool and Whitby. The attack resulted in 137
fatalities and 593 casualties, many of which were
civilians. The attack made the Germany navy very
unpopular with the British public, as an attack
against British civilians in their homes. Likewise, the
British Royal Navy was criticised for failing to prevent
the raid.
British propaganda fuelled by the German raid
on Scarborough
German zeppelins bombed towns on the east
coast, starting on 19 January 1915 with Great
Yarmouth. London was also hit later in the
same year, on 31 May. Propaganda supporting
the British war effort often used these raids to
their advantage: one recruitment poster
claimed: "It is far better to face the bullets than
to be killed at home by a bomb".
British propaganda poster from 1915, drawing on
the fear of zeppelin attacks to aid recruitment
Throughout 1917 Germany began to deploy
increasing numbers of fixed-wing bombers, the
Gotha G.IV's first target being Folkestone on 25
May 1917, following this attack the number of
airship raids decreased rapidly in favour of raids
by fixed wing aircraft, before Zeppelin raids were
called off entirely. In total, Zeppelins dropped
6,000 bombs, resulting in 556 dead and 1,357
wounded. Soon after the raid on Folkestone, the
bombers began raids on London: one daylight
raid on 13 June 1917 by 14 Gothas caused 162
deaths in the East End of London
Morale remained relatively high due in part to
the media; newspapers flourished during the
period. Large quantities of propaganda were
produced by the government under the
guidance of such journalists as Charles
Masterman and newspaper owners such as
Lord Beaverbrook.
By adapting to the changing demographics of the
workforce, war-related industries grew rapidly,
and production increased, as disparate groups of
people pulled together. In that regard, the war is
also credited by some with drawing women into
mainstream employment for the first time, and
forcing politicians to grant a large number of
women the vote in 1918.
Propaganda and censorship were closely linked
during the war. The need to maintain morale and
counter German propaganda was recognised early in
the war and the War Propaganda Bureau was
established under the leadership of Charles
Masterman in September 1914. The Bureau enlisted
eminent writers such as H G Wells, Arthur Conan
Doyle, Rudyard Kipling as well as newspaper editors.
By the summer of 1915, the Bureau had printed over
2.5 million books, speeches, official documents and
pamphlets. Masterman also commissioned films
about the war such as The Battle of the Somme,
which appeared in August 1916, while the battle was
still in progress as a morale-booster and in general it
met with a favourable reception.
The most popular papers of the period
included dailies such as The Times, The
Daily Telegraph and The Morning Post,
weekly newspapers such as The Graphic
and periodicals like John Bull, which
claimed a weekly circulation of 900,000.
The public demand for news of the war
was reflected in the increased sales of
newspapers.
During the war, the British Royal Family, under
George V, dissolved ties with its German
relatives and changed its name from the
German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
to the decidedly British House of Windsor.
The causes of World War I are complicated and unlike
the causes of World War II, where the guilty party was
plain to all, there is no such clarity. Germany has been
blamed because she invaded Belgium in August 1914
when Britain had promised to protect Belgium.
However, the street celebrations that accompanied the
British and French declaration of war gives historians
the impression that the move was popular and
politicians tend to go with the popular mood.
World War One technically began as a strictly
European
conflict
with
Austria-Hungary's
declaration of war against the Kingdom of Serbia on
July 28th, 1914. Within literally days it escalated as
Russia initiated mobilization of its army and
reservists as a precautionary measure, and in
sympathy with its Serbian Slavic "cousins". Refusing
Germany's ultimatum to stand down its
mobilization, which had not yet taken any offensive
action against any state, Germany subsequently
declared war upon the Russian Empire on August
1st.
Great Britain's entry also brought the "British
Dominion" nations of Canada, Australia, New
Zealand and South Africa into the war against
Germany and Austria-Hungary. Japan's entry into
the war, British and South African moves against
Germany's African colonies, and Canadian,
Australian and New Zealand contribution of troops
to Britain's European war theaters were what
converted a European conflict into a "world war".
The German propagandists were the first to use
the term "Weltkrieg" (world war), and it was soon
picked up by both sides. The nations opposing the
Germanic forces quickly became simply and
universally known as "The Allied Powers".
Participants in World War I The Central Powers and their colonies
in orange, the Allies and their colonies in green, and neutral
countries in gray.
Certain specific problems also helped to create suspicion
throughout Europe. The first was Germany's fear of the
huge British Empire. By 1900, Britain owned a quarter of
the world. Countries such as Canada, India, South Africa,
Egypt, Australia and New Zealand were owned by Britain
as part of the British Empire. Queen Victoria had been
crowned Empress of India. Huge amounts of money were
made from these colonies and Britain had a powerful
military presence in all parts of the world. The Empire was
seen as the status symbol of a country that was the most
powerful in the world. Hence Britain's title "Great
Britain".
Germany clearly believed that a sign of a great
power was possession of overseas colonies. The
'best' had already been taken by Britain but
Germany resolved to gain as much colonial
territory as possible. Germany’s main target was
Africa. It colonised territory in southern Africa
(now Namibia) which no-one really wanted as it
was useless desert but it did create much anger in
London as Germany's new territories were near
South Africa with its huge diamond and gold
reserves.
A second issue that caused much friction
between Britain and Germany was Germany's
desire to increase the size of her navy. Britain
accepted that Germany, as a large land-based
country, needed a large army. But Germany had
a very small coastline and Britain could not
accept that Germany needed a large navy.
Britain concluded that Germany's desire to
increase the size of her navy was to threaten
Britain's naval might in the North Sea. The
British government concluded that as an island
we needed a large navy and they could not
accept any challenges from Germany. As a
result, a naval race took place. Both countries
spent vast sums of money building new
warships and the cost soared when Britain
launched a new type of battleship - the
Dreadnought. Germany immediately responded
by building her equivalent.
HMS Dreadnought
17,900 tons; 526 feet in length; ten 12 inch guns,
eighteen 4 inch guns, five torpedo tubes; maximum belt
armour 11 inches; top speed 21.6 knots.
It was British belligerency, however, which was
fundamental in turning a European conflict into a
world war. Britain was the world's greatest imperial
power. The British had world-wide interests and
world-wide dilemmas. They also had world-wide
friends. Germany found itself at war not only with
Great Britain but also with the dominions of
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa
and with the greatest British imperial possession,
India. Concern for the defence of India helped bring
the British into conflict with the Ottoman Empire in
November 1914 and resulted in a major war in the
Middle East.
Most important of all, perhaps, Britain's close
political, economic, and cultural ties with the
United States of America, if they did not
ensure that nation's eventual entry into the
war, certainly made it possible. The American
declaration of war on Germany on 6 April 1917
was a landmark not only in the history of the
United States but also in that of Europe and
the world, bringing to an end half a millennium
of European domination and ushering in 'the
American century'.
The British Army during World War I was small in size when
compared to the other major European powers. In 1914, the
British had a small, largely urban English, volunteer force of
400,000 soldiers, almost half of which were posted overseas
to garrison the British Empire. (In August 1914, 74 of the 157
infantry battalions and 12 of the 31 cavalry regiments were
posted overseas.) This total included the Regular Army and
reservists in the Territorial Force. Together they formed the
British Expeditionary Force (BEF), for service in France. The
mass of volunteers in 1914–1915, popularly known as
Kitchener's Army, was destined to go into action at the battle
of the Somme. In January 1916, conscription was introduced,
and by the end of 1918, the army had reached its peak of
strength of four million men.
The Royal Navy at the start of the war was the largest
navy in the world due, in the most part, to the The
Naval Defence Act 1889 and the two-power standard
which called for the navy to maintain a number of
battleships such as their strength was at least equal
to the combined strength of the next two largest
navies in the world, which at that point were France
and Russia.
Particularly in the early stages of the war, many
men, for a wide variety of reasons, decided to
"join up" to the armed forces - by 5 September
1914, over 225,000 had signed up to fight. Over
the course of the war, it is thought that a number
of factors contributed to recruitment rates,
including the work of the Parliamentary
Recruiting Committee in producing posters,
dwindling employment opportunities, and a
want amongst some to escape humdrum routine
The geographical scale of the conflict meant that it
was not one war but many. On the Western Front in
France and Belgium the French and their British
allies, reinforced from 1917 onwards by the
Americans, were locked in a savage battle of attrition
against the German army. Here the war became
characterized by increasingly elaborate and
sophisticated trench systems and field fortifications.
Dense belts of barbed wire, concrete pillboxes,
intersecting arcs of machine-gun fire, and
accumulating masses of quick-firing field and heavy
artillery rendered manœuvre virtually impossible.
Casualties were enormous.
Following the outbreak of World War I in
1914, the German Army opened the Western
Front by first invading Luxembourg and
Belgium, then gaining military control of
important industrial regions in France. The
tide of the advance was dramatically turned
with the Battle of the Marne. Both sides then
dug in along a meandering line of fortified
trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the
Swiss frontier with France. This line remained
essentially unchanged for most of the war.
Between 1915 and 1917 there were several
major offensives along this front. The
attacks
employed
massive
artillery
bombardments and massed infantry
advances. However, a combination of
entrenchments, machine gun nests,
barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly
inflicted severe casualties on the attackers
and counter attacking defenders. As a
result, no significant advances were made.
In an effort to break the deadlock, this front saw
the introduction of new military technology,
including poison gas, aircraft and tanks. But it
was only after the adoption of improved tactics
that some degree of mobility was restored.
In spite of the generally stagnant nature of this
front, this theater would prove decisive. The
inexorable advance of the Allied armies in 1918
persuaded the German commanders that defeat
was inevitable, and the government was forced
to sue for conditions of an armistice
In World War I both sides constructed elaborate trench
and dugout systems opposing each other along a front,
protected from assault by barbed wire. The area
between opposing trench lines (known as "no man's
land") was fully exposed to artillery fire from both
sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe
casualties as a matter of course.
Trenches of the 11th Cheshire Regiment at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, on
the Somme, July 1916
Trench warfare has become a powerful
symbol of the futility of war. Its image is of
young men going “over the top” (over the
parapet of the trench, to attack the enemy
trench line) into a maelstrom of fire leading
to certain death, typified by the first day of
the Somme (on which the British suffered
57,000 casualties).
Trench warfare is associated with needless slaughter in
appalling conditions, combined with the view that
brave men went to their deaths because of
incompetent and narrow-minded commanders who
failed to adapt to the new conditions of trench
warfare: class-ridden and backward-looking generals
put their faith in the attack, believing superior morale
and dash would overcome the weapons and moral
inferiority of the defender. The British and Empire
troops on the Western Front are commonly referred to
as "lions led by donkeys."
During the course of World War One, eleven percent
(11%) of France's entire population were killed or
wounded! Eight percent (8%) of Great Britain's
population were killed or wounded, and nine percent
(9%) of Germany's pre-war population were killed or
wounded! The United States, which did not enter the
land war in strength until 1918, suffered one-third of
one percent (0.37%) of its population killed or
wounded.
The Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme started in July 1st 1916. It
lasted until November 1916. For many people, the
Battle of the Somme was the battle that symbolised
the horrors of warfare in World War One; this one
battle had a marked effect on overall casualty figures
and seemed to epitomise the futility of trench
warfare. This was one of the major battles on the
Western Front for Britain.
On 1 July, after a week of heavy rain, British
divisions in Picardy launched an attack around the
river Somme, supported by five French divisions on
their right flank. The attack had been preceded by
seven days of heavy artillery bombardment. The
experienced French forces were successful in
advancing but the British artillery cover had neither
blasted away barbed wire, nor destroyed German
trenches as effectively as was planned. They
suffered the greatest number of casualties (killed,
wounded and missing) in a single day in the history
of the British army, about 57,000.
The final phase of the battle of the Somme saw the first use
of the tank on the battlefield. The Allies prepared an attack
that would involve 13 British and Imperial divisions and
four French corps. The attack made early progress,
advancing 3.2–4.1 km in places, but the tanks had little
effect due to their lack of numbers and mechanical
unreliability. The final phase of the battle took place in
October and early November, again producing limited gains
with heavy loss of life. All told, the Somme battle had made
penetrations of only 8 km, and failed to reach the original
objectives. The British had suffered about 420,000
casualties (including nearly 60,000 on the first day alone)
and the French around 200,000. It is estimated that the
Germans lost 465,000.
The Third Battle of Ypres
The Battle of Passchendaele, fought July 1917, is
sometimes called the Third Battle of Ypres. For the
soldiers who fought at Passchendaele, it was known as
the 'Battle of Mud'. Few battles encapsulate World
War One better than the Battle of Passchendaele.
On 11 July 1917 during this battle, the Germans
introduced a new weapon into the war when they fired
gas shells delivered by artillery. The limited size of an
artillery shell required that a more potent gas be
deployed, and so the Germans employed mustard gas,
a powerful blistering agent. The artillery deployment
allowed heavy concentrations of the gas to be used on
selected targets. Mustard gas was also a persistent
agent, which could linger for up to several days at a
site, an additional demoralizing factor for their
opponents. Along with phosgene, gas would be used
lavishly by both German and Allied forces in later
battles, as the Allies also began to increase production
of gas for chemical warfare.
Beginning in late July and continuing into October the struggle
around Ypres was renewed with the Battle of Passchendaele
(technically the Third Battle of Ypres, of which Passchendaele
was the final phase). The battle had the original aim of pushing
through the German lines and threatening the submarine bases
on the Belgian coast, but was later restricted to advancing the
British Army onto higher (and drier) ground around Ypres, no
longer constantly under observation from German artillery.
Canadian veterans joined the depleted British forces and took
the village of Passchendaele on 30 October despite extremely
heavy rain and casualties. Again the offensive produced large
numbers of casualties for relatively little gain, though the British
made small but inexorable gains during periods of drier weather.
The ground was generally muddy and pocketed by shell craters,
making supply missions and further advancement very difficult.
.
However, the Third Battle of Ypres or Passchendaele
had been a very costly battle. For the sake of a few
kilometres, the British had lost 310,000 men and the
Germans 260,000. Haig was heavily criticised for the
attack and for failing to modify his plans as the attack
clearly was not going to be a success. Haig argued
that any German loss of men was of greater
importance than British loss as the Allies could
sustain more losses as America had joined the war by
the end of Passchendaele
Final allied offensives
In July, Foch initiated an offensive against the
Marne salient produced during the German attacks,
eliminating the salient by August. A second major
offensive was launched two days after the first,
ending at Amiens to the north. This attack included
Franco-British forces, and was spearheaded by
Australian and Canadian troops, along with 600
tanks and supported by 800 aircraft. The assault
proved highly successful, leading Hindenburg to
name 8 August as the "Black Day of the German
Army".
The German army's manpower had been severely
depleted after four years of war, and its economy
and society were under great internal strain. The
Entente now fielded a total of 216 divisions against
197 under strength German divisions. The Hundred
Days Offensive beginning in August proved the final
straw, and following this string of military defeats,
German troops began to surrender in large numbers.
As the Allied forces broke the German lines, Prince
Maximilian of Baden was appointed as Chancellor of
Germany in October in order to negotiate an
armistice.
The Battle of Jutland was the largest naval battle of World War
I, and the only full-scale clash of British and German battleships
in that war. Jutland had all the ingredients to be a great British
naval victory, but in the event the result was much less clearcut.
It was fought on 31 May – 1 June 1916, in the North Sea near
Jutland, Denmark. The combatants were the Imperial German
Navy's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice-Admiral Reinhard
Scheer, and the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, commanded by
Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. The German fleet's intention was to
lure out, trap and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, as the
German numbers were insufficient to engage the entire British
fleet at one time. This formed part of a larger strategy to break
the British blockade of Germany and to allow German
mercantile shipping to operate. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy
pursued a strategy to engage and destroy the High Seas Fleet, or
keep the German force contained and away from Britain's own
shipping lanes.
Why was the battle fought? It was generally believed that
Britain had naval supremacy not only in Europe but also
throughout the world. One of the major clashes involving
Germany and Britain before the outbreak of war in
August 1914, was what was described as the naval race
between the two nations. The British public had grown to
believe that Britain could not be challenged when its navy
was concerned. The song “Rule Britannia” was very much
in this mould as the song starts “Rule Britannia, Britannia
rules the waves, Britain never, never, never shall be
slaves.” A strong British navy was expected by the public,
as was the inevitable naval victory
Both sides claimed victory. The British lost more
ships and twice as many sailors, and the British
press criticised the Grand Fleet's failure to force a
decisive outcome. But Scheer's plan of destroying a
substantial portion of the British fleet also failed.
The Germans continued to pose a threat that
required the British to keep their battleships
concentrated in the North Sea, but the battle
confirmed the German policy of avoiding all fleetto-fleet contact, and they never again contested
control of the high seas. Instead, the German Navy
turned its efforts and resources to unrestricted
submarine warfare and the destruction of Allied and
Neutral shipping.
The Germans claimed that Jutland was a victory for
them as they had sunk more capital ships than the
British. Jellicoe claimed that the victory belonged to
the British as his fleet was still a sea worthy entity
whereas the German High Seas fleet was not. The
British did lose more ships (14 ships and over 6,000
lives) than the Germans (9 ships and over 2,500
casualties). But the German fleet was never again to
be in a position to put to sea and challenge the British
Navy in the North Sea.
In addition to Europe, Britain also fought on other
fronts in World War I. In the Middle East the British
army fought the Turks in a major conflict with farreaching consequences. Here the war was
characterized by the doggedness of Turkish resistance
and by the constant struggle against climate, terrain,
and disease. The British attempted to knock Turkey
out of the war with an attack on the Gallipoli
peninsula in April 1915, but were compelled to
withdraw at the end of the year, having failed to
break out from their narrow beach-heads in the face
of stubborn Turkish resistance.
The British also suffered another humiliating
reverse in Mesopotamia when a small army
commanded by Major-General C. V. F. Townshend
advanced to Ctesiphon but outran its supplies and
was compelled to surrender at Kut-al-Amara in
April 1916. Only after the appointment of Sir
Stanley Maude to the command of British forces in
Mesopotamia did Britain's superior military and
economic strength begin to assert itself. Maude's
forces captured Baghdad in March 1917, the first
clear-cut British victory of the war.
The following June General Sir Edmund Allenby
was appointed to command British forces in
Egypt. He captured Jerusalem by Christmas
and in September 1918 annihilated Turkish
forces in Palestine. Turkey surrendered on 31
October 1918.
The war also found its way to tropical Africa.
Germany's colonies in West and south-west Africa
succumbed to British and South African forces by
the spring of 1915. In East Africa, however, a
German army of locally raised black African
soldiers commanded by Colonel Paul von LettowVorbeck conducted a brilliant guerrilla campaign,
leading over 100,000 British and South African
troops a merry dance through the bush and
surrendering only after the defeat of Germany in
Europe became known.
The End and Aftermath of the War
The war along the western front led the German
government and its allies to sue for peace in spite of
German success elsewhere. As a result the terms of the
peace were dictated by France, Britain and the United
States, during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The
result was the Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919
by a delegation of the new German government.
The terms of the treaty would effectively cripple Germany as an
economic and military power. The Versailles treaty returned the
border provinces of Alsace-Lorraine to France, thus limiting the
coal required by German industry. The Saar, which formed the
west bank of the Rhine, would be demilitarized and controlled by
Britain and France, while the Kiel Canal opened to international
traffic. The treaty also drastically reshaped Eastern Europe. It
severely limited the German armed forces by restricting the size
of the army to 100,000 and disallowing a navy or air force.
Germany in 1919 was bankrupt, the people living in a state of
semi-starvation, and having no commerce with the remainder of
the world. The allies occupied the Rhine cities of Cologne,
Koblenz and Mainz, with restoration dependent on payment of
reparations.
Europe's political and military leaders have been
subjected to much retrospective criticism for their
belief that the ‘war would be over by Christmas'.
This belief was not based on complacency. Even
those who predicted with chilling accuracy the
murderous nature of First World War battlefields,
such as the Polish banker Jan Bloch, expected the
war to be short. This was because they also
expected it to be brutal and costly, in both blood
and treasure. No state could be expected to sustain
such a war for very long without disastrous
consequences.
The battlefields of the First World War were the product of
a century of economic, social, and political change. Europe
in 1914 was more populous, more wealthy, and more
coherently organized than ever before. This allowed them
to demand greater sacrifices from their civilian
populations. Improvements in agriculture reduced the
numbers needed to work on the land and provided a
surplus of males of military age. Changes in administrative
practice brought about by the electric telegraph, the
telephone, the typewriter, and the growth of railways
allowed these armies to be assembled and deployed
quickly. Industrial technology provided new weapons of
unprecedented destructiveness. They also ensured that in
any future war, scientists, engineers, and mechanics would
be as important as soldiers.
The First World War redrew the map of Europe
and the Middle East. Four great empires, the
Romanov, the Hohenzollern, the Habsburg, and
the Ottoman, were defeated and collapsed.
They were replaced by a number of weak and
sometimes avaricious successor states. Russia
underwent a bloody civil war before the
establishment of a Communist Soviet Union
which put it beyond the pale of European
diplomacy for a generation.
Germany became a republic branded at its birth with
the stigma of defeat, increasingly weakened by the
burden of Allied reparations and by inflation. France
recovered the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, but
continued to be haunted by fear and loathing of
Germany. Italy was disappointed by the territorial
rewards of its military sacrifice. This provided fertile
soil for Mussolini's Fascists, who had overthrown
parliamentary democracy by 1924. The British
maintained the integrity and independence of
Belgium. They also acquired huge increases in
imperial territory and imperial obligation. But they did
not achieve the security for the Empire which they
sought.
The cost of all this in human terms was 8.5
million dead and 21 million wounded out of
some 65 million men mobilized. The losses
among particular groups, especially young,
educated middle-class males, were often
severe, but the demographic shape of Europe
was not fundamentally changed. The real
impact was moral. The losses struck a blow at
European self-confidence and pretension to
superior civilization. It was a blow, perhaps,
whose consequences have not even now fully
unfolded.
The experiences of the war in the west are
commonly assumed to have led to a sort of
collective national trauma afterward for all of the
participating countries. The optimism of 1900 was
entirely gone and those who fought in the war
became what is known as "the Lost Generation"
because they never fully recovered from their
experiences. For the next few years, much of
Europe mourned privately and publicly; mourning
and memorials were erected in thousands of
villages and towns.
The death of over 10 million men in combat left a
gaping chasm in the social and economic life of
the postwar world. Many of those who survived
the war returned home with physical disabilities
that prevented them from rejoining the work
force. Others suffered the lasting effects of what
in those days was called shell shock and what is
today labeled post-traumatic stress disorder, a
psychological affliction that prevents a successful
adaptation to civilian life. Many of the dead left
widows and orphans who had to cope with
severe economic hardship and emotional loss
The war also profoundly disrupted the revered
cultural tradition of the Western world. Optimism
about human nature and about the glorious future
of civilization was discredited as soldiers from what
had been hailed as the most highly civilized
societies on earth slaughtered each other without
mercy. Artists began to produce works that mocked
the self-confident assertions of humanism and
portrayed the sordid realities of modern life. Social
scientists and psychologists probed the sources of
human aggression in an effort to explain the orgy of
violence that had ended. Philosophers bemoaned
the decadence of civilization and the decline of the
west.
Certainly a sense of disillusionment and cynicism
became pronounced. Nihilism grew in popularity.
Many people believed that the war heralded the
end of the world as they had known it, including the
collapse of capitalism and imperialism. Communist
and socialist movements around the world drew
strength from this theory, enjoying a level of
popularity they had never known before. These
feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or
particularly harshly affected by the war, such as
central Europe, Russia and France.
'Everybody knows' what World War One was like and
what it meant. Modern Britons think of the war as a
muddy, bloody mess - a futile massacre in which a
generation of young men were slaughtered at the
behest of asinine generals. Those who survived barbed
wire and machine gun bullets went mad or wrote
poetry. Their sacrifice achieved nothing, succeeding
only in laying down the foundations for another bloody
conflict 20 years later. World War One has become a
byword for how awful, stupid and useless war can be.
The positive meanings ascribed to the war have been all
but forgotten.
Notwithstanding the enormous casualty lists, in 1918
many Britons thought they had achieved a miraculous
deliverance from an evil enemy. They celebrated a
remarkable military victory and national survival. For
those who had served in the trenches, and for those left
at home, the war experience encompassed not only
horror, frustration and sorrow, but also triumph, pride,
camaraderie and even enjoyment, as well as boredom
and apathy. In the years after the war, Britons
commemorated it in print, on stage, in stone and in
ceremonies.