Chapter 14 Section 3: THE HOME FRONT HISTORY LAB

Areas of Focus: What is a Home Front? The Wartime State Evolution of Attitude on the Home Front Propaganda Role of Women

Defining Home FrontTask: In this new era of “total war”, a new term home front emerges, construct an appropriate definition for “home front”

during World War I:

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The Wartime StateTask: Analyze how and why did the Role of Government Change as a Result of World War I ?

Source: British Defense of the Realm Act 1914

(1) His Majesty in Council has power during the continuance of the present war to issue regulations for securing the public safety and defence of the realm, and as to the powers and duties for that purpose of the Admiralty and Army Council and of the members of His Majesty's forces and other persons acting on his behalf; and may by such regulations authorise the trial by courts-martial, or in the case of minor offences by courts of summary jurisdiction, and punishment of persons committing offences against the regulations and in particular against any of the provisions of such regulations designed:

(a) to prevent persons communicating with the enemy or obtaining information for that purpose or any purpose calculated to jeopardise the success of the operations of any of His Majesty's forces or the forces of his allies or to assist the enemy; or

(b) to secure the safety of His Majesty's forces and ships and the safety of any means of communication and of railways, ports, and harbours; or

(c) to prevent the spread of false reports or reports likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty or to interfere with the success of His Majesty's forces by land or sea or to prejudice His Majesty's relations with foreign powers

(3) It shall be lawful for the Admiralty or Army Council:(a) to require that there shall be placed at their disposal the whole or any part of the output of any factory or workshop in

which arms, ammunition, or warlike stores or equipment, or any articles required for the production thereof, are manufactured;

(b) to take possession of and use for the purpose of His Majesty's naval or military service any such factory or workshop or any plant thereof; and regulations under this Act may be made accordingly.

(4) For the purpose of the trial of a person for an offence under the regulations by court-martial and the punishment thereof, the person may be proceeded against and dealt with as if he were a person subject to military law and had on active service committed an offence under section five of the Army Act. . . .

Restricted Individual Rights

From the declaration of war, the authorities realised that they had to act decisively. They passed the Defence of the Realm Act (Dora), which, after many amendments, gave the government unprecedented powers to intervene in people's lives. They were empowered to take over any factory or workshop. Curfews and censorship were imposed. Severe restrictions on movement were introduced. Discussing military matters in public became a serious offence. Almost anyone could be arrested for "causing alarm". In the interests of the work ethic, British summer time commenced, opening hours for pubs were cut, and beer was watered down. Women who were suspected of having venereal disease could be stopped by the police and subjected to a gynaecological examination. A woman with VD could be prosecuted for having sexual intercourse with a serviceman. It did not matter that he could have been her husband, and may have given her the disease in the first place.

'Don't waste it' In 1918, new laws set by the government introduced

rationing, a way of sharing food fairly. Sugar, meat, flour, butter, margarine and milk were all rationed so that everyone got what they needed.

Each person had special ration cards, even King George and Queen Mary.

Before rationing, the government used posters like this one to discourage people from wasting food.

The cards could only be used at certain shops. Families had to say which butcher, baker and grocer they would buy food from.

The rules were very strict. Anyone found cheating could be fined or even sent to prison.

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Evolution of Attitude on the Home Front During World War ITASK: Analyze how attitude and morale on the Home Front evolved as a result of total war during World War I

Type/Write your analysis on the lines below.

Initial Attitudes towards the Outbreak of WarQuotes from the book "Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the world wars" G. L. Mosse, Historian

“High hopes" were present at the conception of the war, and how their "generation no longer knew the reality of war". Strong nationalism and "enthusiasm" experienced by soldiers on both sides fuelled their desires to volunteer, as well as "love of adventure and ideals of masculinity". The shortness of the Franco-Prussian war made the thought of a short war more realistic and more appealing to soldiers.”

Stefan Zweig, Austrian writer, describing the reaction to the outbreak of the war in Vienna from his 1941 autobiography.“There were parades in the street, flags, ribbons, and music burst forth everywhere, young recruits were marching triumphantly, their faces lighting up at the cheering. . . As never before, thousands and hundreds of thousands felt what they should have felt in peace time, that they belonged together. . . . All differences of class, rank, and language were flooded over at that moment by the rushing feeling of fraternity. Strangers spoke to one another on the streets, people who had avoided each other for years shook hands, everywhere on saw excited faces.”

Crowds outside Buckingham Palace cheer King George V, Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales at the outbreak of war, August 1914.

Latter Attitudes and Morale Concerning the War EffortS Johnston, 1915

“The destruction of our fellow men – young men like ourselves – appals us; we cannot assist in the cutting off of one generation from life's opportunities,… we deny the right of any government to make the slaughter of our fellows a bounden duty”

Berlin police chief: addresses the worsening situation throughout Germany and Europe

“[the] general populace… was hungry, cold, and weary of war… The public was gripped by a mood of ‘despondency and fear of the future’”

Source: Rosa Luxemburg, German Socialist, “The War and the Workers” 1916

The scene has changed fundamentally. . . . Gone is the euphoria. Gone the patriotic noise in the streets, . . . the swaying crowds in the coffee shops with ear-deafening patriotic songs surging ever higher. . . . The spectacle is over. . . .The trains full of reservists are no longer accompanied by virgins fainting from pure jubilation. They no longer greet the people from the windows of the train with joyous smiles. . . . Business thrives in the ruins. Cities become piles of ruins; villages become cemeteries; countries become deserts; populations are beggared; churches become horse stalls. International law, treaties and alliances, the most sacred words and the highest authority have been torn in shreds. . . . There are food riots in Venice, in Lisbon, Moscow, Singapore. There is plague in Russia, and misery and despair everywhere.

Source: Letter from the prefect (governor) of the department of Isere to France’s minister of the interior, June 1917

I have the honour to reply here within to the questions in your confidential telegram circulated on 10 June. . . . The farmers work, but they do not hide the fact that “it’s been going on too long”; they are tired of their continuous over-exertion in the fields, of the lack of hands and of the very heavy burden of the requisitions. . . . In the towns. . . . the workers, the ordinary people are upset about the duration fo the struggle, impatient with the increasing cost of living, irritated by the considerable profits being made out of the war by the big industrialists in their neighborhood, and increasingly taken in by propagandists of the united Socialist Party and their internationalists ideas.

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PropagandaAs the war continued to rage on the Western Front, the home front were equally as frustrated and resentful of the war. Germany maintained lies to mask their failures, whilst Britain relied heavily on propaganda (as did Germany) to keep the general population satisfied with their achievements. After 4 years of fighting in vain, the dedication to ‘total war’ had pulled its final strings on both Britain and Germany

Examine the Following Examples of World War I Propaganda and explain: The targeted audience The overall message Factors or Ideas that Have Influenced

World War I Propaganda # 1

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World War Propaganda Picture #2

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World War I Propaganda Image #3

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World War I Propaganda Image #4

Translation reads: 'This is how it would look in German lands if the French reached the Rhine.' 1918.

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World War I Propaganda Image #5

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World War I Propaganda Image #6

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Role of Women on the Home FrontTask: Analyze how roles for women changed during World War I and how women used World War I to attain political equality

Women, Work, and World War I-Bonnie S. Anderson and Judith P. Zinsser

“As soon as the war broke out, European governments moved to suspend protective legislation for women for the duration. Just as nations expected working-class men to serve in the military, so they exhorted working-class women to serve in the factories, taking the places of the men who had joined the armed forces. Drawn by the high wages as well as patriotism, women thonged into these new, previously male jobs. . .

Governments initially insisted that women receive equal pay for doing a job formerly done by a man, but this policy was largely ineffective: factories tended to divide up jobs into smaller operations and pay women at a lesser rate. Women’s industrial wages rose during the war, both relative to men’s and absolutely, but they still remained measurable as a percentage of male earnings. In Paris women in metallurgy earned only 45 percent of what men earned before the war; by 1918, the women earned 84 percent of what men earned. In Germany, women’s industrial earnings relative to men’s rose by about 5 percent. Both women and men seemed to view the changes brought by the war as temporary. After the war, the men would return to their jobs, the women would leave men’s work, and all would return to normal. . .”

Purpose and emancipationhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/11/first-world-war-changing-british-society

Many women revelled in a new sense of purpose and emancipation. As Naomi Loughnan admitted in 1917, she was "sick of frivolling" and "wanted to do something big and hard, because of our boys and of England". Factories offered better conditions, higher wages, more interesting work and greater freedoms than domestic service had done. Female factory workers challenged the gender order: they were earning much more than previously (three times more in some cases), were able to demonstrate their ability to carry out skilled work in areas previously barred to them, and were allowed greater leeway in the way they comported themselves publicly.

As trade union leader Mary Macarthur concluded in 1918: "No longer are we told that 'the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world'. Today it is the hand that drills the shell that determines the destiny of the world; and those who did not hesitate to refuse the rights of citizenship to the mothers of men are ready and anxious to concede these rights to the makers of machine guns."

Macarthur believed that women's war work would make female suffrage politically unavoidable. The suffragettes (members of the Women's Social and Political Union, the more militant wing of the suffrage movement), who a few months before had been torching churches and cricket pavilions, became patriotic war workers. Although a sizeable minority of the more moderate members of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies ("suffragists") joined the peace movement, most also threw themselves into the war effort in an attempt to link their demands for citizenship with service during a national emergency.

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