The Effect of World War I on Civilians Essay

The First World War impacted significantly on the homefronts of the participating nations in many different social, political and economic areas. There was a widespread restructuring of primary industry with a large orientation towards militarism. There was massive political change where new systems of power were introduced that gave governments a range of new powers including the control over industry. The civilian population had severe restrictions placed upon their rights and liberties due to the necessities that total war required.

World War I was a ghastly experience for the soldiers due to what they experienced during the war. Many of the Soldiers that were drafted in the war were young and fresh out of high-school. These young soldiers left their home, away from family and friends, to fight a war not knowing if they were going to return home. These young soldiers hardly had any training before being forced to fight a war and many had lost their lives. These young soldiers were finding themselves losing their youth and innocence during the war. For those who returned from the war they came back a different person. While the outside world was living carefree lives; these soldiers were living in monstrous horror.

“Our men are being put into the hottest fighting and are being sacrificed in harebrained ventures like Bullecourt and Passchendaele …and there is no one in War Cabinet to lift a voice in protest…so Australian interests are suffering badly and Australia is not getting anything like the recognition it deserves.” So wrote General, later Sir, John Monash to his wife on October the 18th 1917.

Desperate to get men to list, in December 1915 Labor Prime Minister William Hughes issued a ‘Call to Arms’ to all men aged 18 to 45: “..if you love your country, if you love your freedom, the take your place alongside your fellow Australians as the front” . Intense recruiting campaigns were also used to entice enough men to enlist. Many urged the government to introduce conscription, but Australia had a federal Labor government in power at the time, whose platform disapproved of conscription. Labor supporters thought it unfair that there be conscription of working men when there was no conscription of the wealth and privileged. In 1916, after returning from seeing the devastation on the Western Front, Hughes was convinced that Australia should introduce conscription, blatantly going against Labor policy. On the 28 October 1916 Hughes decided to hold a referendum on the issue “Are you in favor of the government having, in this grave emergency…compulsory power over citizens in regard to requiring their military service”. The proposal was narrowly defeated. Conscription split the Labor Government. Hughes, with twenty-three of his Labor supporters left the Labor party

In 1914 World War I became the first event to impact society on a global scale. No person or country experienced such mass destruction or annihilation before. The closeness of Europe’s countries pitted them against each other and strong nationalist feelings emerged in government and civilian life. The soldiers experienced the worst of the war during its duration. Most lost their innocence due to the clouded perception of war by society, the young age of the recruits, and such high intensity falling on their shoulders. All Quiet on the Western Front candidly portrayed the struggles of the Lost Generation while and after the Great war took place.

The warfare of WWI affected society by causing crucial pain to many soldiers.Many soldiers came home limping and blind.When soldiers came home wives and children were distraught to see them in this condition. Everyone did not have hope in the United States winning this war anymore. One reason the soldiers came home blind was because of poisonous gas. The gas would slowly asphyxiate the soldiers, and the wind will blow the gas towards the villages where the civilians lived. So since the gas would spread to the villages the civilians would suffer for no reason. But, this is sort of the soldiers fault because they used this gas but it is not really their fault for the wind blowing the gas.

The Home Front is often overlooked when discussing the impact of World War One (WWI), as the impact is often less glorified when compared to the bloodshed of the battlefields. This exhibition looks at life in Australia during WWI and explores the experiences of those away from the actual fighting who are at home. By extensively using primary sources and brief profiles of both notable and everyday Australians during WWI, the exhibit gives a holistic view on life in Australia during the Great War. The exhibit focuses on the themes of the initial excitement of those in Australia when the war began, technology advancements, how the public received news of the war and their reaction to it, as well as the sense of growing disillusionment that developed as the war progressed. It comprehensively looks at these experiences and emotions and describes them with clarity.

World War I, also called First World War or the Great War, was the first global conflict that lasted from 1914 to 1918. Some of the people who suffered the most on WW1 were the soldiers and people who lived in the Home Front. Soldiers didn’t live a normal life, they lived in horrible conditions. It was dirty, that’s why there were many animals like rats, frogs, insects etc., that eat the soldier’s food and contaminated it, by eating contaminated food soldiers got sick that’s was one of the main reasons why soldiers died.

Men, as young as the age of twelve, fought to protect their land and liberty. The tolls it took out on each country involved were tremendous. Empires were ripped apart and absorbed into neighboring countries, others were crushed with devastating numbers of casualties. World War I consumed the mental, physical, and emotional states of all human beings during the early 1900’s as a total war..

The home front is the name given to the activities of the civilians when their nation is at war. Life on the front during WW2 was A significant part of the war effort for all Americans.

World War one was a war unlike any other before it in history, with trench warfare and chemical weapons the battlefield was foreign to even experienced veterans. It was also at this point in time that nationalism started to become bigger and bigger. Leading to the belief that the citizens of the countries involved in the war had to enlist or due their duty in order to make their family and country proud of them, otherwise they would bring shame to their family and country. For the enlisted men and women, though this perception quickly changed when they were at the front and seeing the war first hand. Those who stayed home though and those who went to the front lines soon become alienated from each other. Creating a huge divide for the enlisted men and women on the front lines and back home, making it difficult for them to fit back in if ever back home. Young men and women who fought in World War I were alienated by the youth and elders back home due to their lack of understanding of the burdens of being on the frontlines.

A nation is a conglomerate of people bonded by the same culture, history, and motives. A government exists to further the prosperity of the state in which it was installed. In a nation with such a diverse and assorted population, constantly expanding due to immigration, complications are bound to arise: loyalty to different lands, various cultural differences, diverging aspirations. The United States has excelled in all facets of society due to this diversity; but, it is not exempt from the drawbacks which such diversity entails. Such a young country, founded on immigration, can be easily divided when global conflict becomes apparent. People are suddenly more aware of their heritage, their connections to the home of their ancestors. The motives of the population which originally brought them together to form a nation are promptly pulling them apart. How can a government act according to the motives of its people when the people have diverging motives? A government will have to choose the will of one community over that of another. More often than not, this can lead to the isolation and persecution of the neglected party in order to safe-guard the actions of the government. Neighbors are turned against each other,

World War I changed the course of history, and in many ways the effects of this war are still being felt even to this day. It was one of the bloodiest events the world ever saw with over 31 million soldiers killed, wounded or disfigured. In Europe many of the Europeans believe that this war altered the makeup of war itself and called it by another name, the Great War. The war was not only fought between soldiers of the Allied forces and the Great Powers, but civilians were also beginning to be targeted to a large extent for the first time. Bombing of cities with the use of artillery and aircraft, the use of unrestricted submarine warfare to sink unarmed merchant or passenger ships, and the introduction of chemical weapons on a mass scale

The United States had entered World War I against many wishes of the American public, which made the ratification for the peace agreement an even more difficult task. Woodrow Wilson justified American involvement by claiming that an Ally victory would ensure a new world order. The war would be used as an instrument to "make the world safe for democracy". However, many Americans, government officials, and even the Allies did not agree with the progressive ideals that would be enforced to attain the peace that Wilson had desired and promised. This was made evident when Wilson's negotiations for the peace treaty were criticized and rejected by the leaders of the other Allied nations and isolationists. Even when Wilson acknowledged

The Great War involved most of the adult population either 'head on' or discretely. On average, 6 million men served in Britain's armed forces during the course of the war. Many millions of innocent civilians had their lives affects to the overall changes, both economic and social that the war caused or added to. The impact of the war varied greatly between the different regions of the sommunity. There were many differences and considerations ; these being gender and social class, so it is had to dinstinguish and measure the war's exact impact on people's attitudes, beliefs and values.