The Social And Cultural Impact Of War

Question 1

What did Vera Brittain say

Answer 1

‘A new age was beginning’

Question 2

How many men of working age were taken out of the economy into the armed forces

Answer 2

Six million

Question 3

How many women entered the workplace

Answer 3

A million

Question 4

How many women moved from peacetime to wartime jobs

Answer 4

250,000 women

Question 5

What fraction of women made up the total workforce in 1918

Answer 5

1/3

Question 6

What percentage of the workforce in shell factories were women

Answer 6

80%

Question 7

What did the levels of women employed in transport rise to

Answer 7

1914 - 18,000
1918 - 117,00

Question 8

What percentage did the amount of women working in banking rise by

Answer 8

600 per cent

Question 9

What fields did women even go into by the end of the war

Answer 9

Traditionally all-male industries such as shipbuilding and engineering

Question 10

What was the negative of war work for wmen

Answer 10

It brought new dangerous working conditions

Question 11

What happened to women in shell factory explosions

Answer 11

They were killed or injured

Question 12

How many women died from diseases contracted through handling poisonous chemicals

Answer 12

More than 100

Question 13

What other negatives did women have to accept

Answer 13

They had to work long hours and had to accept shift work, sometimes at night. This disrupted family life and put relationships under strain.

Question 14

What was a positive of the war work for women

Answer 14

War work was much better paid than the domestic service, shop work or even spinning in the textile mills

Question 15

What did the womens effort in the war challenge

Answer 15

The dominant Victorian view that women were passive, weak creatures whose only role lay in the home. Many women became the main breadwinner and for the first time experienced some degree of financial independence from their husbands and fathers.

Question 16

When was the Sex Disqualification Act passed

Answer 16

1919

Question 17

What did the Sex Disqualification Act say

Answer 17

Women could no longer be barred from a career in the law or the civil service on the basis of their gender

Question 18

What was there still an emphasis on

Answer 18

Women’s traditional roles, both during the war years and after, they were portrayed as responsible for ‘keeping the fires burning’ and bringing up children

Question 19

How much did employment in the domestic service fall by during the war

Answer 19

400,000

Question 20

How many domestic servants were there in 1918

Answer 20

1.2 million

Question 21

What work were women still excluded from

Answer 21

Traditionally male jobs such as coal mining and dock work

Question 22

Did women receive the same pay as men

Answer 22

No

Question 23

What did lots of women do after the war in 1918

Answer 23

They returned either to their pre-war jobs or back home

Question 24

By 1921 the percentage of women in the total workforce was…

Answer 24

Little different from what it had been in 1911

Question 25

How did the war help the suffrage movement

Answer 25

The war was critical for overcoming the objections of those who believed that women should not vote or who felt that allowing any significant female suffrage was giving into violence

Question 26

How did the war also help male suffrage

Answer 26

It overcame the last remaining objections to full voting rights for men

Question 27

Why was reform to the franchise necessary

Answer 27

Because the government planned a wartime election. Soldiers, who were not resident householders, would not have been able to vote under the existing rules and this was unthinkable

Question 28

What did the ROPA do to the electorate

Answer 28

Tripled it

Question 29

What were the terms in the ROPA

Answer 29

- all men over the age of 21 became entitled to vote - men over the age of 19 who had seen active service in the war got the vote for the next general election - women over the age of 30 became entitled to vote if they were a member or married to a member of the local government register, a graduate voting in a university election or a property owner

Question 30

When did working class women receive the vote

Answer 30

1928

Question 31

What did the war create demand for

Answer 31

Extra workers

Question 32

What did the need for extra workers give trade unions

Answer 32

It gave trade unions extra bargaining power which they exercised through their Trade Union Congress (TUC)

Question 33

How did the unions operate during the war

Answer 33

The unions on the whole co-operated with the government in banning strikes in essential war industry and accepting dilution and conscription

Question 34

What did the labour party constitution of 1918 do

Answer 34

It gave unions a key role in the party

Question 35

When did government control of coal mines end

Answer 35

March 1921

Question 36

What did Labour MP, vernon hartshorn say the miners felt about the governments refusal to nationalise the mines

Answer 36

‘Deceived, betrayed, duped’

Question 37

What did mine owners now do

Answer 37

Cut wages and lengthened hours in order to compete with foreign coal imports

Question 38

What did the high levels of unemployment allow the mine owners to do

Answer 38

Reduce wages as the miners had no alternative jobs to go to

Question 39

What happened on the 1st of April 1921

Answer 39

A national miners’ strike began and it seemed that this could escalate into a general strike, as the railwaymen and transport workers backed the miners

Question 40

How was the potential alliance stopped

Answer 40

By Lloyd george personally intervening and managing to split the potential alliance

Question 41

What happened on Black Friday (miners)

Answer 41

The railway men and transport workers backed down. What was said to have been the ‘triple alliance’ became the ‘cripple alliance’ and the miners went on strike alone

Question 42

When did the miners go back to work and what happened

Answer 42

1 july and they were forced to accept pay cuts that left their wages 20 per cent lower than in 1914

Question 43

What beliefs did the war challege

Answer 43

Many of society’s beliefs and assumptions towards behaviour, morality and religious practice

Question 44

What happened to the stuffier aspects of Victorian society

Answer 44

They loosened during the war and never quite returned This was reflected in increased social mobility and changes in womens political and social positions during and after the war

Question 45

What aspect of society was not broken down during the war

Answer 45

Class divisions were not by any means broken down. - in female employment during the war working class girls went mainly into munitions and middle class girls more into administration and nursing.

Question 46

Where was there some class levelling

Answer 46

There was probably more social levelling within the working classes than between the working and middle classes

Question 47

However, what did the deaths in the war contribute too

Answer 47

The terrible death toll of the war created a common bond of suffering and loss that ran across all social classes and was later expressed in the war memorials and rituals of rememberance

Question 48

What were the positives of the war on the churches

Answer 48

The war gave the churches a greater public role: - Thousands of chaplains were needed for the armed forces to cater for the spiritual and religious needs of the vast armies - Churchmen were in demand to conduct religious services, preach supportive sermons and carry out burial services

Question 49

What were the negatives of the war for the churches

Answer 49

Some found it hard to justify the slaughter on the Western Front or to reconcile this with faith in God: - Some church leaders including the Pope, tried to reconcile the opposing camps and promote peace - Others preached that the cause the nation was fighting for was just and that God supported it - Secular as well as religious beliefs were undermined, especially the belief that progress was inevitable and beneficial

Question 50

What did the war do to ideas of western superiority

Answer 50

It challenged cultural assumptions about the superiority of Western civilisation - For four years the supposedly most civilised countries on the earth had waged an increasingly barbarous war against each other - this weakened assumptions about the innate superiority of European values and civilisation, and strengthened the ideas of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism

Question 51

How did the war affect the arts

Answer 51

Within the arts, the war created a culture that rejected the war and the society that allowed it to happen. Many artists embraced ‘modernism’ which rejected the values that had been so destructive

Question 52

What did the war create a wave of across all European countries

Answer 52

Patriotism

Question 53

How many men volunteered to fight in the war

Answer 53

2.5 million

Question 54

How did patriotism help the Government

Answer 54

It remained a key theme for government propaganda throughout the war as it sought to encourage industrial activity and urge people to conserve resources or request war loans

Question 55

What key symbols of britain were used in propaganda

Answer 55

John Bull and the British Bulldog or Britannia were used to remind people of the strength and importance of Britain and to evoke patriotic feelings

Question 56

When was conscription introduced

Answer 56

1916

Question 57

When was the No-conscription fellowship set up

Answer 57

1915

Question 58

What did the non conscription fellowship campaign for

Answer 58

They successfully campaigned to secure ‘the conscience clause’ in the 1916 Conscription Act. This meant that men had the right to claim exemption from military service. Such men were known as conscientious objectors

Question 59

What were the 3 reasons for CO

Answer 59

1. Religious reasons 2. Political reasons 3. Moral reasons

Question 60

Religious reasons:

Answer 60

Quakers, for instance, believed in pacifism

Question 61

Political reasons:

Answer 61

Activists of the left saw the First world war as an imperialist war and an example of the ruling classes making a war that the workers had to fight

Question 62

Moral reasons:

Answer 62

Some felt it wrong to kill - but not on religious grounds. For example Clifford Allen and Fenner Brockway formed the NCF; its members refused to fight ‘because they consider human life to be sacred’

Question 63

What did a CO have to do

Answer 63

- a CO had to go to a local tribunal to give his reasons for being a CO. - if his reasons were not accepted, and his appeal failed, he would be sent to the Front - those who sat on the tribunals were generally unsympathetic to the views particularly those who were objecting based on political beliefs

Question 64

Of roughly 16000 COs how many agreed to do work for the gov

Answer 64

Over 10,000 agreed to work for the government, doing work that didnt involve fighting such as driving ambulances

Question 65

How many COs were arrested

Answer 65

More than 6312

Question 66

What were the publics opinion of COs

Answer 66

- They were known as ‘conchies’ - they were seen by the public to be unpatriotic and cowardly - it was common for women to give men who did not want to sign up to fight white feathers: a sign of cowardice

Question 67

What was the long term impact of the war on individual soldiers

Answer 67

- many experienced shell shock or other mental trauma - others suffered disfigurement or loss of limbs - re-adjusting to civilian life was very difficult especially as men found it difficult to talk about their experiences