Psychological Impact on Great Britain
One of the most significant and devastating events of the twentieth century was the military conflict known as World War I. The war erupted in July 1914 and would last until November 1918, along the way involving all the industrialized powers of Europe with the Allied Forces of Great Britain, France and Russia pitted against the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Allies would later be joined by Italy, Japan and Romania while Turkey and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers. When all was said and done World War I, which all participants expected to be a short and decisive war, had evolved into a lengthy and costly one.
World War I would cost a great deal to Great Britain from a psychological perspective. Resources from money and labor and material property and human life had been lost in the War. Society shifted from a peacetime industrial manufacturer to a military production society, transforming the domestic and psychological perspective of social and political life in Great Britain. From needing U.S. assistance to large numbers of casualties from gruesome methods of combat like trench warfare, the psyche of Great Britain both in terms of a nation and in terms of its citizens was radically altered as a consequence of World War I. This analysis will use primary source over the four-year course of the war to provide an illustration of this thesis.
One of the most psychologically damaging aspects of World War I was the transformation of the military front. New weapons like long-ranger artillery, repeating rifles and machine guns, not to mention poison gas and tanks later in the conflict, caused tremendous numbers of casualties on both sides of the conflict. Will Irwin, a correspondent for the New York Tribune reported in 1915 that “On Thursday, the Germans suddenly threw in that attack its asphyxiating bombs, which will doubtless become famous in this war” (Irwin...