WW1 - The British home front Flashcards
When did David Lloyd George become prime minister of Britain ?
7th of December 1916
When was the first air raids by German Zeppelin airships against East Anglian towns ?
19th January 1915
What did the defense of the realm act (DORA) do and when was it introduced ?
Introduced on the 8th of August 1914 the (DORA) was used to take over industries and land needed for the war effort and also censor newspapers.
When was the first bombing of British civilians by German forces during WW1 ?
16th of December 1914 German warships shell the east coast of Britain, in Scarborough 119 are killed. It is also used as propaganda to paint the Germans as immoral to increase recruitment under the headline of
REMEMBER SCARBOROUGH.
When was conscription first introduced during WW1 ?
25th of January 1916 The bill is introduced for single men from 18 - 40 years of age.
When was compulsory rationing first introduced during WW1 ?
25th of February 1918 it was introduced to London and Southern England. Then later in the year in April it was extended for meat, butter and cheese to the entire country.
How many Mp’s voted against conscription in parliament ?
50 including leading Liberals
What specific work force had to be sent back home because they where more valuable on the home front ?
Miners.
What stories where spread to create anti-German feelings within England ?
Babies being butchered in Belgium, Nurses being murdered and soap being made out of boiled up corpses.
The recruitment campaign was successful though as half a million signed up in the first month and by 1916 over 2 million had enlisted.
What was the ‘munitions crisis’
In 1915 when the war became bogged in a stalemate many soldiers where being rationed 3 bullets a day and training was done with wooden sticks. More worryingly artillery was unable to keep up their barrage on enemy trenches due to the lack of shells.
Who exposed the munitions crisis and what was done about it ?
The Daily Mail exposed the crisis.
To fix it a collation government was set up who found out there was a shortage of skilled workers in the end women where hired to do the jobs in munitions factories instead.
What was the policy of good news only ?
Any negative stories where just not shown to the public. For example the when the British battleship HMS audacious was sunk on October 1914 it was simply not reported.
What was the policy of forced censorship ?
Many papers where closely followed by censors and censored or closed down for publishing anti-war articles. Pacifist papers like the Tribunal where shut down.
What was ‘The Red Book’ ?
Signed by H.G Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling. It was a declaration by authors in support of the war. Most of them produced patriotic publications for no fee.
What sort of propaganda was aimed at kids ?
Patriotic comic books and toys that represented Germans as cowards and English as modest brave hero’s.
