2) The First World War (1914-18)
- Britain declared war on 4 August 1914 when Germany invaded France through
Belgium – a British professional army of less than 100,000 soldiers was sent to
help the French to stop the German advance.
- Volunteering for the armed forces – about 2.5 million men volunteered in 1914-
1915 (“Kitchener’s army”) – a similar number joined after conscription
(obligatory military service) for men of 18-41 was introduced in 1916 – about 4
million in the British army by 1918
- The main area of British activity: The Western Front (northern France and
Belgium) – trench warfare – major battles at the River Somme in France (July
to November 1916 – over 20,000 killed on the first day) and round Ypres in
Belgium – traumatic experience reflected in literature and art
- Other important areas:
- the war at sea – German submarines trying to stop food and other supplies
reaching Britain across the Atlantic – the Royal Navy trying (generally
successfully) to keep the Germany navy in harbour and to stop supplies
reaching Germany
- Gallipoli – 1915 – unsuccessful attempt to attack Constantinople (the
Ottoman Empire was allied to Germany and Austria-Hungary) –
remembered particularly in Australia and New Zealand, whose armies
suffered heavy losses there
- At home - expansion of government – new ministries – bureaucracy
- Women working in “men’s jobs” (but only till the men came back)
- Rebellion in Ireland, by a republican minority within the national movement –
the Easter Rising, 1916 – the rebels were defeated by the British army and their
leaders were shot – seen as martyrs even by many Irish people who had not
supported the rebellion
- Armistice – Germany surrendered – fighting stopped at 11 a.m. on 11.11.1918
- Remembrance – how to commemorate the Great War and its dead – about
700,000 British dead: war graves, war memorials, poppies – Remembrance Day
(11 November)
3) Irish independence
- The harsh British response to the Easter Rising strengthened support for the
radical nationalist party Sinn Féin. In the 1918 elections Sinn Féin won most
Irish parliamentary seats and set up a secessionist parliament, Dáil Éireann, in
Dublin. After a guerrilla war between the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and the
British authorities, a treaty was negotiated and the Irish Free State was set up in
December 1922, as an autonomous Dominion in the British Commonwealth
(like Canada, Australia, or South Africa). Six counties in Ulster (where
J. Brown - British Civilization 2015-2016
Protestants, who identified with Britain, were in the majority) immediately
opted out of the Free State (as the legislation had allowed them to do) and
remained in the United Kingdom, with their own Home Rule government—
these six counties became known as Northern Ireland.
- In 1937, the Irish Free State became simply Éire / Ireland, under a new
constitution which also gave the Roman Catholic Church a special position and
established the Irish language as the first official language. Unlike the other
Dominions, Ireland remained neutral in the Second World War. In 1949, it broke
all remaining connections to the British monarchy, became a republic (often
referred to as the Republic of Ireland), and left the Commonwealth. Through
much of this period, the dominant figure in Irish politics was Éamon de Valera, a
leader of the 1916 Easter Rising, later Prime Minister (with the Irish title
Taoiseach from 1937), and President (1959-73).
4) Britain Between the Wars
- Women got the right to vote in parliamentary elections for the first time in 1918,
when voting rights were extended to all men over 21 and most women over 30.
All women over 21 got the vote in 1928.
- The British Broadcasting Company was set up in 1922, and became the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1927, with the role of developing radio (and
later television) broadcasting as a public service, funded by a licence fee (a tax
on radio sets) and not by advertising (as in some other countries). Its first
director general, John Reith, established its public-service ethic and “improving”
mission – inform, educate, entertain.
- Rise of the Labour Party (founded in 1906 by socialists and trade unionists) –
briefly in government in 1924 and 1929-31 (Prime Minister Ramsay
MacDonald) – otherwise the Conservatives were dominant (Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin).
- Economic depression – post-war depression followed by the world-wide Great
Depression in the 1930s.
- social discrepancies and tensions: relative prosperity in southern England, where
new industries, like car manufacturing, were successful, and many new houses
were built, especially in the suburbs around London—high unemployment and
poverty in the traditional industrial areas of northern England, Scotland, and
Wales.
- The Empire –
- The Empire expanded to its greatest extent after the First World War, as
former German and Ottoman territories in the Middle East and Africa were
put under British “mandate”.
 - By the Statute of Westminster, 1931, the self-governing dominions
(Australia, Canada, Irish Free State, Newfoundland, and South Africa)
became fully independent and equal members of the Commonwealth.
- India remained under British rule, but negotiations with Gandhi and other
Indian nationalist leaders began.
- The Abdication, 1936 – George V died – the new king, Edward VIII abdicated
because his intended marriage to a divorced woman was considered to be in
conflict with his role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England and was
opposed by the government leaders of the UK and the Dominions – his younger
brother, George VI, became king
5) The Second World War (1939-45)
- the outbreak of war – In the late 1930s Britain combined preparations for
possible war with a policy of “appeasement” (negotiating to keep peace)
towards Germany and Italy. In 1938 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
thought he had achieved “peace in our time” by agreeing to let Hitler’s Germany
take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia on the understanding that other
territorial disputes would be submitted to an international commission. However
the following year Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain now
promised that Britain would support Poland if it was threatened, and when Hitler
invaded Poland in September 1939, Chamberlain declared war on Germany.
- In May 1940, Chamberlain was replaced as Prime Minister by Winston
Churchill, who headed a coalition government through the war years till 1945.
As the German army advanced into France, British forces had to be evacuated
from Dunkirk.
- The Battle of Britain, 1940 – fought in the skies over southern England, as the
German Luftwaffe unsuccessfully tried to gain air supremacy in preparation for
an invasion of Britain
- The Blitz, 1940-41 – heavy bombing of British cities, especially London – in
this war, civilians on the “home front” could now be in as much danger as
members of the armed forces
- The “home front” – evacuation of children from cities, food rationing (meaning
some families actually had a more nourishing diet than before), “utility” clothes
and other products (plain, no waste of materials) – egalitarian spirit
- In 1942, Japan defeated British forces in Malaya and Singapore and invaded
Burma, advancing towards India.
- The course of the war began to turn when British and Commonwealth forces
defeated the Germans and Italians at El Alamein in Egypt in 1942 – meanwhile
the Germans were heavily engaged by their invasion of the Soviet Union.
- In 1943, British, Commonwealth and American forces invaded Italy
J. Brown - British Civilization 2015-2016
- In 1944, allied forces landed in northern France (D-Day)
- Germany surrendered on 8th May 1945 (celebrated as VE Day “Victory in
Europe”), and Japan on 15th August.
6) Post-war Britain
- Britain emerged from the Second World War victorious but exhausted, clearly
overtaken as a world power by the USA and the Soviet Union (unable to afford
to maintain the large navy that had been the basis of its power in the past), and
economically dependent on borrowing from the USA. Food and clothing
continued to be strictly rationed (at times even more severely than during the
war).
- During the war, there had been much discussion of how conditions of life in
Britain could be improved afterwards, including the circulation of a report by Sir
William Beveridge proposing a national system of social welfare—the “welfare
state” to fight the five “giants” of “want”, “disease”, “squalor”, “ignorance”, and
“idleness”.
- Reforms started even before the end of the war, with the 1944 Education Act,
which provided education for all children up to the age of 15. The system
involved selection at age 11 by an IQ test, according to which pupils were
assigned to grammar schools (for the academically able) or secondary modern
schools (for the rest) – a big advance in opening access to education to working
class children. (About 5% of children continued to be sent to independent
schools, including the Public Schools.)
- In the General Election of July 1945, Labour achieved a large majority in the
House of Commons, and the Labour leader, Clement Attlee, replaced Churchill
as Prime Minister. Between 1945 and 1951, Attlee’s government nationalized
major industries (coal mining, transport, steel, gas and electricity), and
implemented the proposed Welfare State, including a National Health Service
offering free medical treatment to all who needed it.
- Britain played a leading role in the formation of NATO in 1949 (having
persuaded the USA to remain involved in the protection of Western Europe). On
the other hand, Attlee’s government rejected invitations to participate in the
setting up of the European Coal and Steel Community (the beginning of today’s
European Union) in 1950.
- In 1947, India became independent, divided between India and Pakistan, both of
which joined the Commonwealth. India became a republic in 1949, but
remained in the Commonwealth (a precedent for other countries to join the
Commonwealth in the future without necessarily keeping the British king or
queen as their head of state).
Quotations from the lecture – Winston Churchill’s speeches:

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal
of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle
and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea,
land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to
wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable
catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can
answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror,
victory, however long and hard the road may be.”

“The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout
the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who,
undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are
turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in
the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps,
the end of the beginning.”

As well as his wartime speeches, Churchill was famous for his many short and
memorable remarks on all sorts of subjects – what nowadays would be called
“sound bites”. See, for example,
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14033.Winston_S_Churchill for a
selection of quotations from him.

J. Brown - British Civilization 2015-2016