WWI 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.

. . .
God above...I wish that I were back again / In the glens of Donegal, / They’ll call me coward if I return, / But a hero if I fail...Is it better to be a living coward / Or thrice a hero dead? / It’s better to go to sleep my lad / The Color Sergeant said” (MacGill). The devastating number of casualties experienced by Great Britain pushed many women into factories in the war effort because of the large number of men heading off to war. In his account of his days as an ambulance driver during the war, Doctor Harry L. Smith explains the horror of death in the author’s note to his memoir: “It is difficult to imagine a cause that would justify a repetition of the horror and malign destruction that took place during the last World War” (Smith 1940). Civilians and military personnel were not the only ones psychologically damaged by the conflict, however. All of Great Britain, including its political leaders, was psychologically damaged by WWI. British officials were aghast at the material and human costs of what they felt would be a quick and decisive military encounter. One of the most damaging aspects of the war on the political machinery of Great Britain was the allied need to ask for American assistance. Despite American aid b
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
World War, York Tribune, Patrick MacGills, Tom Morgan, President Wilson, Bryce Report, War Society, Bulletin Lawrence, Wilfred Owen, Authors War, world war, psychological impact, impact war, american assistance, psychological damage, citizens britain, military personnel, war-guilt clause, central powers, devastating impact, article 231 treaty, world war war, conflict world war, commission responsibility authors, psychological damage citizens,
Approximate Word count = 1843
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

More Essays on WWI Great Britain