Home front during World War I
Agriculture had to be mobilized as well, to provide food for both civilians and for soldiers (many of whom had been farmers and needed to be replaced by old men, boys and women) and for horses to move supplies.
Women played a major role on the homefronts and many countries recognized their sacrifices with the vote during or shortly after the war, including the United States, Britain, Canada (except Quebec), Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Ireland.
He pointed to new job opportunities and self-consciousness among workers that quickly built up the Labour Party, to the coming of partial woman suffrage, and an acceleration of social reform and state control of the British economy.
[27] David Lloyd George became prime minister in December 1916 and immediately transformed the British war effort, taking firm control of both military and domestic policy.
Germany launched a full scale Spring Offensive (Operation Michael), starting March 21 against the British and French lines, with the hope of victory on the battlefield before the American troops arrived in numbers.
Lloyd George found a half million soldiers and rushed them to France, asked American President Woodrow Wilson for immediate help, and agreed to the appointment of French General Foch as commander-in-chief on the Western Front so that Allied forces could be coordinated to handle the German offensive.
[32][33] When on May 7, 1918, a senior army general on active duty, Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice went public with allegations that Lloyd George had lied to Parliament on military matters, a crisis was at hand.
By summer the Americans were sending 10,000 fresh men a day to the Western Front, a more rapid response made possible by leaving their equipment behind and using British and French munitions.
[40] The British Empire provided imports of food and raw material, worldwide network of naval bases, and a steady flow of soldiers and workers into Britain.
The Conscription Crisis of 1917 saw the Liberal Party ripped apart, to the advantage of the Conservative's Prime Minister Robert Borden, who led a new Unionist coalition to a landslide victory in 1917.
He says the war turned a peaceful nation into "one that was violent, aggressive, angst- and conflict-ridden, torn apart by invisible front lines of sectarian division, ethnic conflict and socio-economic and political upheaval."
[50] The major military event involved sending 40,000 ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand) soldiers in 1915 to seize the Gallipoli peninsula near Constantinople to open an Allied route to Russia and weaken the Ottoman Empire.
Nasson says, "for many enthusiastic English-speaking Union recruits, going to war was anticipated as an exciting adventure, egged on by the itch of making a manly mark upon a heroic cause.
Afrikaners were split, with some like Prime Minister Louis Botha and General Jan Smuts taking a prominent leadership role in the British war effort.
The main fighting of the latter group was in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), where large numbers were killed and captured in the initial stages of the Mesopotamian campaign, most infamously during the Siege of Kut.
[69] Although Germany and the Ottoman Empire tried to incite anti-British subversion with the help of Indian freedom fighters, such as Rash Bihari Bose or Bagha Jatin, they had virtually no success, apart from a localized 1915 Singapore Mutiny,[70] which was a part of the Gadar conspiracy.
Belgium was heavily industrialized; while farms operated and small shops stayed open, most large establishments shut down or drastically reduced their output.
The dailies sometimes were limited to only two pages instead of the usual four, leading one satirical paper to try to report the war news in the same spirit: Georges Clemenceau became prime minister in November 1917, a time of defeatism and acrimony.
Meanwhile, elite distrust of the incompetent decision making at the highest levels was deepened when a semiliterate mystic, Grigory Rasputin, gained enormous influence over the Tsar and his wife until he was assassinated in 1916.
[90] While the central bureaucracy was overwhelmed and under-led, Fallows shows that localities sprang into action motivated by patriotism, pragmatism, economic self-interest, and partisan politics.
The nationalists won out, and in April 1915, the Italian government secretly agreed to the London Pact in which Britain and France promised that if Italy would declare war on Austria, it would receive its territorial rewards.
President Woodrow Wilson took full control of foreign policy, declaring neutrality but warning Germany that the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against American ships would mean war.
The causes included the transfer of so many farmers and food workers into the military, combined with the overburdened railroad system, a shortage of coal, and the British blockade that cut off imports from abroad.
[103] According to historian William H. MacNeil: Morale of both civilians and soldiers continued to sink, but using the slogan of "sharing scarcity", the German bureaucracy ran an efficient rationing system nevertheless.
When they occupied productive areas, such as Romania, they seized food stocks and other supplies for their own purposes, and blocked any shipments intended for civilians back in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
[118] A faction of the Young Turk movement, the Committee of Union and Progress, turned the Ottoman Empire into a one-party-state after a coup in 1913; they mobilized the country's society for war, employing numerous political and economic reforms.
[120] When the war broke out the sultan, in his capacity, as caliph, issued a jihad,[121] calling all Muslims in Egypt, India and other Allied territories to revolt against their Christian rulers.
High levels of desertion despite being threatened with death as a punishment were reported between enlistment and training due to the length in time between the two stages along with how long it took the process the incredibly large number of recruits.
[136] In the National Schism, King Constantine I, a traditionalist who had German ties, battled with his modernizing liberal Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, who was sympathetic to the Allies.
The death rate was much lower than other major countries because some immunity had developed from a mild outbreak earlier; public health officials successfully warned people to avoid contact; and the use of inoculation, herbals, masks, and gargling.
