First World War

The British role in the war was centred on the Western Front, where following the heroics of British Expeditionary Force, trench warfare led to stalemate. The experience of the ‘Tommies’ in their day-to-day lives can be contrasted with the horror of the Somme. The development of destructive new weapons brought death on an unprecedented scale. Attention also needs to be given to the role of the British Empire, the war in the air and, particularly, the war at sea. It can be argued that it was the sea campaign which guaranteed British victory in 1918.

The war profoundly affected life in Britain, the government took much greater control of everyday life: it promoted recruitment through propaganda and, later, conscription, it brought women into the workplace (and the ballot), it rationed food supplies. Attitudes to life were changed and no family would have gone through the war without experiencing the loss of somebody close.

Beside Russia, France and (after 1917) the USA, the British were one of the major powers opposing Germany and its allies in World War I (1914–18).[32] Engaged in much of its empire, several regions in Europe and increasingly taking a major role on the Western front, the armed forces grew to over five million people.[33]

The nation suffered an estimated two and a half million casualties and finished the war with a huge national debt.[33] After the war the United Kingdom received the League of Nations mandate over former German and Ottoman colonies and the British Empire had expanded to its greatest extent, covering a fifth of the world's land surface and a quarter of its population.[34] The Great Depression (1929–32) broke out at a time when the UK was still far from having recovered from the effects of the war and led to hardship and political and social unrest.[35]

World wars (1914–1945)

By the turn of the 20th century, fears had begun to grow in Britain that it would no longer be able to defend the metropole and the entirety of the Empire while at the same time maintaining the policy of "splendid isolation".[89] Germany was rising rapidly as a military and industrial power and was now seen as the most likely opponent in any future war. Recognising that it was overstretched in the Pacific[90] and threatened at home by the German navy, Britain formed an alliance with Japan in 1902, and its old enemies France and Russia in 1904 and 1907, respectively.[91]

[edit] First World War

Main article: History of the United Kingdom during World War I

The Grand Fleet sails for Jutland, 1916.

Britain's fears of war with Germany were realised in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War. The British declaration of war on Germany and its allies also committed the colonies and Dominions, which provided invaluable military, financial and material support. Over 2.5 million men served in the armies of the Dominions, as well as many thousands of volunteers from the Crown colonies.[92] Most of Germany's overseas colonies in Africa were quickly invaded and occupied, and in the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand occupied German New Guinea and Samoa respectively. The contributions of Australian and New Zealand troops during the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign against the Ottoman Empire had a great impact on the national consciousness at home, and marked a watershed in the transition of Australia and New Zealand from colonies to nations in their own right. The countries continue to commemorate this occasion on ANZAC Day. Canadians viewed the Battle of Vimy Ridge in a similar light.[93] The important contribution of the Dominions to the war effort was recognised in 1917 by the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George when he invited each of the Dominion Prime Ministers to join an Imperial War Cabinet to coordinate imperial policy.[94]

Under the terms of the concluding Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919, the Empire reached its greatest extent with the addition of 1,800,000 square miles (4,662,000 km2) and 13 million new subjects.[95] The colonies of Germany and the Ottoman Empire were distributed to the Allied powers as League of Nations Mandates. Britain gained control of Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq, parts of Cameroon and Togo, and Tanganyika. The Dominions themselves also acquired mandates of their own: South-West Africa (modern-day Namibia) was given to the Union of South Africa, Australia gained German New Guinea, and New Zealand Western Samoa. Nauru was made a combined mandate of Britain and the two Pacific Dominions.[96]

[edit] Inter-war period

The British Empire following the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, at its greatest extent.

The changing world order that the war had brought about, in particular the growth of the United States and Japan as naval powers, and the rise of independence movements in India and Ireland, caused a major reassessment of British imperial policy.[97] Forced to choose between alignment with the United States or Japan, Britain opted not to renew its Japanese alliance and instead signed the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, where Britain accepted naval parity with the United States.[98] This decision was the source of much debate in Britain during the 1930s[99] as militaristic governments took hold in Japan and Germany helped in part by the Great Depression, for it was feared that the Empire could not survive a simultaneous attack by both nations.[100] Although the issue of the Empire's security was a serious concern in Britain, at the same time the Empire was vital to the British economy: during the inter-war period, exports to the colonies and Dominions increased from 32 to 39 percent of all exports overseas, and imports increased from 24 to 37 percent.[101]

In 1919, the frustrations caused by delays to Irish home rule led members of Sinn Fein, a pro-independence party that had won a majority of the Irish seats at Westminster in the 1918 British general election, to establish an Irish assembly in Dublin, at which Irish independence was declared. The Irish Republican Army simultaneously began a guerrilla war against the British administration.[102] The Anglo-Irish War ended in 1921 with a stalemate and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, creating the Irish Free State, a Dominion within the British Empire, with effective internal independence but still constitutionally linked with the British Crown.[103] Northern Ireland, consisting of six of the 32 Irish counties which had been established as a devolved region under the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, immediately exercised its option under the treaty to retain its existing status within the United Kingdom.[104]

King George V with the British and Dominion prime ministers at the 1926 Imperial Conference.

A similar struggle began in India when the Government of India Act 1919 failed to satisfy demand for independence.[105] Concerns over communist and foreign plots following the Ghadar Conspiracy ensured that war-time strictures were renewed by the Rowlatt Acts, creating tension,[106] particularly in the Punjab, where repressive measures culminated in the Amritsar Massacre. In Britain public opinion was divided over the morality of the event, between those who saw it as having saved India from anarchy, and those who viewed it with revulsion.[106] The subsequent non-cooperation movement was called off in March 1922 following the Chauri Chaura incident, and discontent continued to simmer for the next 25 years.

In 1922, Egypt, which had been declared a British protectorate at the outbreak of the First World War, was granted formal independence, though it continued to be a British client state until 1954. British troops remained stationed in Egypt until the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty in 1936,[107] under which it was agreed that the troops would withdraw but continue to occupy and defend the Suez Canal zone. In return, Egypt was assisted to join the League of Nations.[108] Iraq, a British mandate since 1919, also gained membership of the League in its own right after achieving independence from Britain in 1932.[109]

The ability of the Dominions to set their own foreign policy, independent of Britain, was recognised at the 1923 Imperial Conference.[110] Britain's request for military assistance from the Dominions at the outbreak of the Chanak crisis the previous year had been turned down by Canada and South Africa, and Canada had refused to be bound by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.[111][112] After pressure from Ireland and South Africa, the 1926 Imperial Conference issued the Balfour Declaration, declaring the Dominions to be "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another" within a "British Commonwealth of Nations".[113] This declaration was given legal substance under the 1931 Statute of Westminster.[114] The parliaments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, the Irish Free State and Newfoundland were now independent of British legislative control, they could nullify British laws and Britain could no longer pass laws for them without their consent.[114] Newfoundland reverted to colonial status in 1933, suffering from financial difficulties during the Great Depression.[115] Ireland distanced itself further from Britain with the introduction of a new constitution in 1937, making it a republic in all but name.

Conscription brought people of many different classes, and also people from all over the empire, together and this mixing was seen as a great leveller which would only accelerate social change after the war. Major industries were returned to private hands; the government began a consistent financial policy to ensure an eventual return to the gold standard. This would entail a deflationary approach with a steady contraction of the note issue.

The social reforms of the last century continued into the 20th with the Labour Party being formed in 1900, but this did not achieve major success until the 1922 general election. Lloyd George said after the First World War that "the nation was now in a molten state", and his Housing Act 1919 would lead to affordable council housing which allowed people to move out of Victorian inner-city slums. There appeared over 200.000 publically built houses .The slums, though, remained for several more years, with trams being electrified long before many houses. The Representation of the People Act 1918 gave women householders the vote, but it would not be until 1928 that equal suffrage was achieved (women aged 30 and above were given the vote). In 1918 elementary education was made free. There appeared improved medical arrangements, better conditions for children and old people; Medical Research Council which was later turned into a new Ministry of Health.

A short lived post-war boom soon lead to a depression that would be felt worldwide. Particularly hardest hit were the north of England and Wales, where unemployment reached 70% in some areas. In rural areas the population steadily declined; prices for farm products fell. Unemployment was a general phenomenon: it afflicted shipbuilding, steel, coal-mining, shipping and textiles. The General Strike was called during 1926 in support of the miners and their falling wages, but little improved, the downturn continued and the Strike is often seen as the start of the slow decline of the British coal industry. In 1936 200 unemployed men walked from Jarrow to London in a bid to show the plight of the industrial poor, but the Jarrow March, as it was known, had little impact and it would not be until the coming war that industrial prospects improved. Why were the depressed areas so bad? Firstly, they contained the older export industries and many countries found alternative sources of supply during the war. Import duties worsened the position. Secondly, government actions were unimaginative and failed to get at the root of the problem: the Unemployment Act of 1934 took into account family income and savings; the careful and the thrifty were penalized – they didn’t get unemployment benefits while drunks and idlers did – they naturally didn’t have any savings or ‘assets’. It was not uncommon to see almost new bicycles, prams left in the dumps – the inspectors could otherwise consider them ‘assets’ which proved the family got enough means and didn’t need state support. Employers were not compelled to move into depressed areas either. What really helped from 1936 onward was the rearmament program. For the South and Midlands, however, this was a time for growing contentment and prosperity.