And We Shall Shock Them: The British Army in the Second World War (Bloomsbury Reader)

War and the Practice of Psychotherapy: The UK Experience 1939–1960

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Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts. The Diners Out Handbook. The War in France and Flanders. The Battle for France. Churchill and the Generals. The Great War on the Western Front. The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring. Dunkirk and the Fall of France. The British Army on the Western Front The Hindenburg Line The German Army on the Western Front The Great War Explained. Why the Germans Lost. World War I in Photographs. Fall of the Reich. First World War Great Battles: The Seven Years' War.

Campaigns of Alexander of Tunis — Cricket and the Law. The Fragility of Law. The arguments of the second chapter, unlike those of the first one, are complex. Most of the historians of the British Indian army have either looked at British paternalism of Sipahis 8 , or they have looked at the disciplining regime of the army. In the early 19th century, Sipahis were governed by the British military law, but unlike white soldiers they were not punished with flogging or transportation.

After , while punishments became mild for the white soldiers, Sipahis received both transportation kala-pani and flogging. He discusses, from the two world wars, three specific grievances of the soldiers: But these grievances, Gajendra Singh argues, did not lead to disloyalty or rebellion as the anti-British revolutionaries had expected p.

The importance of the chapter, as Gajendra Singh suggests, lies in the fact that while Indian revolutionaries and the German war-agents had failed to convince the soldiers in favour of an anti-British mutiny — the soldiers mutinied on their own, and especially when there was no instigation from elsewhere. The fourth chapter is based on the analysis of testimonies of four soldiers, which they gave in the court room, during the trial of Singapore mutiny case In most of the accounts of the munity, the soldiers have been denied any role.

The mutiny is either attributed to be a work of German agents or the anti-British Indian revolutionaries, and even in the British official account, the mutineers are missing, for the emphasis was on those white officers who suppressed it pp. Each soldier, Gajendra Singh shows, fabricated an account to save other soldiers, or even to implicate their personal enemies.

Moreover, the soldiers never seemed to be revealing what the inquiry team had in mind. It is without doubt a stupendous effort to rehabilitate the soldiers into their own history. It was this understanding which shaped the post-war INA trials, but as the trials progressed, the court room testimonies suggested that the reality was complex and that probably most soldiers had anti-British sentiments even at the beginning of the war.

18th Infantry Division (United Kingdom)

They were not puppets in the hands of the Japanese, or of the anti-British nationalists and their famed leader Subash Chander Bose p. They chose their own destinies. The casualties amounted to 1, killed, and 3, wounded. Anti-zeppelin defences were more successful, with 17 shot down and 21 lost in accidents.

Propaganda and censorship were closely linked during the war. Until its abolition in , the department published books and pamphlets in 21 languages, distributed over 4, propaganda photographs every week, and circulated maps, cartoons, and lantern slides to the media. The Times reported on 22 August that "Crowded audiences Newspapers during the war were subject to the Defence of the Realm Act , which eventually had two regulations restricting what they could publish: For these reasons, it has been concluded that censorship, which at its height suppressed only socialist journals and briefly the right wing The Globe had less effect on the British press than the reductions in advertising revenues and cost increases which they also faced during the war.

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 , After the German Navy raid on Hartlepool and Scarborough, the Daily Mail devoted three full pages to the raid and the Evening News reported that The Times had sold out by a quarter past nine in the morning, even with inflated prices. The public's thirst for news and information was in part satisfied by news magazines , which were dedicated to reporting the war.

They included amongst others The War Illustrated , The Illustrated War News , and The War Pictorial , and were lavishly filled with photographs and illustrations, regardless of their target audience. Magazines were produced for all classes, and ranged both in price and tone. Many otherwise famous writers contributed towards these publications, of which H. Editorial guidelines varied; in cheaper publications especially it was considered more important to create a sense of patriotism than to relay up-to-the-minutes news of developments of the front.

Stories of German atrocities were commonplace. On 13 August , the Irish regiment the Connaught Rangers were witnessed singing " It's a Long Way to Tipperary " as they marched through Boulogne by the Daily Mail correspondent George Curnock, who reported the event in that newspaper on 18 August The song was then picked up by other units of the British Army. In November , it was sung in a pantomime by the well-known music hall singer Florrie Forde , which helped contribute to its worldwide popularity.

There was also a notable group of war poets who wrote about their own experiences of war, which caught the public attention. Themes of the poems included the youth or naivety of the soldiers, and the dignified manner in which they fought and died.

On the whole the British successfully managed the economics of the war. There had been no prewar plan for mobilization of economic resources. Controls were imposed slowly, as one urgent need followed another. The War saw a decline of civilian consumption, with a major reallocation to munitions. The financing was generally successful, [] as the City's strong financial position minimized the damaging effects of inflation, as opposed to much worse conditions in Germany.

Scotland specialized in providing manpower, ships, machinery, food particularly fish and money. Its shipbuilding industry expanding by a third. In line with its " business as usual " policy, the government was initially reluctant to try to control the food markets. When it did introduce changes, they were only limited in their effect. In , it became illegal to consume more than two courses whilst lunching in a public eating place or more than three for dinner; fines were introduced for members of the public found feeding the pigeons or stray animals.

In January , Germany started using U-boats submarines in order to sink Allied and later neutral ships bringing food to the country in an attempt to starve Britain into surrender under their unrestricted submarine warfare programme. One response to this threat was to introduce voluntary rationing in February , [68] a scheme said to have been endorsed by the King and Queen themselves. Total British production fell by ten percent over the course of the war; there were, however, increases in certain industries such as steel.

In , a powerful new Ministry of Munitions under David Lloyd George was formed to control munitions production. The Government's policy, according to historian and Conservative politician J. Marriott , was that:. By April , just two million rounds of shells had been sent to France; by the end of the war the figure had reached million , [] and a year's worth of pre-war production of light munitions could be completed in just four days by Aircraft production in provided employment for 60, men and women; by British firms employed over , Industrial production of munitions was a central feature of the war, and with a third of the men in the labour force moved into the military, demand was very high for industrial labour.

Large numbers of women were employed temporarily. However the coal miners and engineers were less enthusiastic. Women were grudgingly admitted to the trade unions. Looking at a union of unskilled workers, Cathy Hunt concludes its regard for women workers, "was at best inconsistent and at worst aimed almost entirely at improving and protecting working conditions for its male members.

The Munitions of War Act followed the Shell Crisis of when supplies of material to the front became a political issue. The Act forbade strikes and lockouts and replaced them with compulsory arbitration. It set up a system of controlling war industries, and established munitions tribunals that were special courts to enforce good working practices. It suspended, for the duration, restrictive practices by trade unions. It tried to control labour mobility between jobs. The courts ruled the definition of munitions was broad enough to include textile workers and dock workers.

The act was repealed in , but similar legislation took effect during the Second World War. It was only as late as December that a War Cabinet Committee on Manpower was established, and the British government refrained from introducing compulsory labour direction though men were moved as part of the voluntary National Service Scheme. Belgian refugees became workers, though they were often seen as "job stealers". Likewise, the use of Irish workers, because they were exempt from conscription, was another source of resentment. The efficiency of major industries improved markedly during the war.

For example, the Singer Clydebank sewing machine factory received over government contracts, and made million artillery shells, shell components, fuzes, and airplane parts, as well as grenades, rifle parts, and , horseshoes. Its labour force of 14, was about 70 percent female at war's end. Energy was a critical factor for the British war effort. Most of the energy supplies came from coal mines in Britain, where the issue was labour supply.

Critical however was the flow of oil for ships, lorries and industrial use. There were no oil wells in Britain so everything was imported. In , total British consumption was million barrels, of which 85 percent was supplied by the United States, and 6 percent by Mexico. Convoys and the construction of new tankers solved the German threat, while tight government controls guaranteed that all essential needs were covered. Fuel oil for the Royal Navy was the highest priority. In , the Royal Navy consumed 12, tons a month, but had a supply of 30, tons a month from the Anglo-Persian Oil Company , using their oil wells in Persia.

Variously throughout the war, serious shortage of able-bodied men "manpower" occurred in the country, and women were required to take on many of the traditional male roles, particularly in the area of arms manufacture; though this was only significant in the later years of the war, since unemployed men were often prioritised by employers. The number of women employed by the service increased from 33, in to over , by They did this both through the so-called "Order of the White Feather" and through the promise of home comforts for the men while they were at the front.

In February , groups were set up and a campaign started to get women to help in agriculture and in March , the Women's Land Army was set up. One goal was to attract middle-class women who would act as models for patriotic engagement in nontraditional duties. However the uniform of the Women's Land Army included male overalls and trousers, which sparked debate on the propriety of such cross-dressing. The government responded with rhetoric that explicitly feminized the new roles.

The war also caused a split in the British suffragette movement , with the mainstream, represented by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel 's Women's Social and Political Union , calling a ' ceasefire ' in their campaign for the duration of the war. In contrast, more radical suffragettes, like the Women's Suffrage Federation run by Emmeline's other daughter, Sylvia , continued their at times violent struggle.

Women were also allowed to join the armed forces in a non-combatant role [12] and by the end of the War 80, women had joined the armed forces in auxiliary roles such as nursing and cooking. Following the war, millions of returning soldiers were still not entitled to vote. The Representation of the People Act attempted to solve the problem, enfranchising all adult males as long as they were over 21 years old and were resident householders.

The enfranchisement of this latter group was accepted as recognition of the contribution made by women defence workers, [] though the actual feelings of members of parliament MPs at the time is questioned. The new coalition government of charged itself with the task of creating a "land fit for heroes", from a speech given in Wolverhampton by David Lloyd George on 23 November , where he stated "What is our task?

To make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in. The War had a profound influence upon rural areas, as the U-boat blockade required the government to take full control of the food chain, as well as agricultural labour. Cereal production was a high priority, and the Corn Production Act guaranteed prices, regulated wage rates, and required farmers to meet efficiency standards.

The government campaigned heavily for turning marginal land into cropland. However, there was a shortage of both men and horses on the land by late County War Agricultural Executive Committees reported that the continued removal of men was undercutting food production because of the farmers' belief that operating a farm required a set number of men and horses.

Kenneth Morgan argues that, "the overwhelming mass of the Welsh people cast aside their political and industrial divisions and threw themselves into the war with gusto. After some debate, the miners agreed to extend the working day. Scotland's distinctive characteristics have attracted significant attention from scholars. In the post war publication Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War — The War Office , March , the official report lists , 'soldiers' as being either killed in action , dying of wounds, dying as prisoners of war or missing in action in the World War.

A Kiss for the Enemy

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists , war dead from the UK and colonies excluding the dominions , which are listed separately. This figure includes identified burials and those commemorated by name on memorials; there are an additional , unidentified burials from the Commonwealth then Empire as a whole.

The civilian death rate exceeded the prewar level by ,, which included , deaths due to food shortages and , from Spanish Flu. With a population of 4. In the Lowlands, particularly Glasgow, poor working and living conditions led to industrial and political unrest. The horrors of the Western Front as well as Gallipoli and Mesopotamia were seared into the collective consciousness of the twentieth century.

To a large extent the understanding of the war in popular culture focused on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Images of trench warfare became iconic symbols of human suffering and endurance. The post-war world had many veterans who were maimed or damaged by shell shock.

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In 1,, men were in receipt of pensions for war disabilities, with a fifth of these having suffered serious loss of limbs or eyesight, paralysis or lunacy. The war was a major economic catastrophe as Britain went from being the world's largest overseas investor to being its biggest debtor, with interest payments consuming around 40 percent of the national budget. Reparations in the form of free German coal depressed the local industry, precipitating the General Strike. Most of this was replaced in and all immediately after the war.

Less concrete changes include the growing assertiveness of the Dominions within the British Empire. Battles such as Gallipoli for Australia and New Zealand, [] and Vimy Ridge for Canada led to increased national pride and a greater reluctance to remain subordinate to London. Britain was to face unrest in Ireland —21 , India , Egypt —23 , Palestine —21 and Iraq at a time when they were supposed to be demilitarising.

Further change came in From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the effect of the war on civilian and military life in the United Kingdom, — For information on the engagements in which its armed forces fought, see First World War. Prehistoric Britain until c. Causes of World War I. Defence of the Realm Act Conscription Crisis of Bombardment of Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Rationing in the United Kingdom. World War I casualties. World War I portal. The Encyclopedia of World War I: A Political, Social, and Military History.

Retrieved 16 May Archived from the original on 30 May Retrieved 25 April The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War. Gilbert, "Pacifist to interventionist: David Lloyd George in and Was Belgium an issue?. Steiner, Britain and the origins of the First World War pp — How Europe Went to War in The Downfall of the Liberal Party, — Lloyd George versus Asquith, December War leader, — London: Britain — pp 28— The importance and treatment of profits during the First World War. Taylor, English History — pp 40 — Daunton, "How to Pay for the War: Official web site of the British monarchy.

Archived from the original on 15 February Retrieved 8 May Retrieved 17 May The House of Windsor.

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