The Extent of Popular Enthusiasm for the War in the Summer and Early Autumn of 1914 - Essay Example

Assess the Extent of Popular Enthusiasm for the War in the Summer and Early Autumn of 1914 The First World War, commonly called the Great War, was the first war which involved large portions of the population, and while there was a lesser death toll than the terrible Influenza which followed in its wake, the loss of life made it shocking to all those who participated in it. The War memorials which now decorate most British towns are a lasting testament to the disaster which overtook many of those who signed up at the beginning of the war. By 1919, the numbers of widows below 45 was more than 10% of all widows, and over half were below the age of 651. This is a reflection of the large numbers of deaths, which finally made the war unpopular on all sides. None of this means, however, that the war was unpopular in some countries to begin with. The European powers were still rivals for the spoils of Africa, and certainly Britain suffered from 'Jingoism' (A popular term for what is almost outward-directed xenophobia, extreme rivalry and bigotry aimed at Britain's economic rivals), and the majority of the other nations involved in the war did so too. Perhaps the only member of the Great War who was not a willing combatant is Russia, who entered into battle almost by accident, having become a third party in the Anglo-French Entente. Even there, however, public feeling was partially aroused by the 'neo Slav' movement "The Neo-Slavs envisaged truly independent Slavic nations in a free association"2. Other nations, such as America, also mobilised, but here the conditions of the popular movement are not always clear. While Woodrow Wilson's government swept into action: "People were ordered to 'work or fight'. Every adult male registered with a draft board"3. Although America joined the war too late to count as a subject for analysis here, the support which the war received when they finally joined provides an interesting parallel with the nations of Europe. In addition to the loss of life, the Great War had a number of consequences for all of the nations involved. Britain was obliged to grant women the vote after their war contribution; Russia collapsed into the Bolshevik Revolution, and then Communism; and Germany was damaged so severely that it also effectively disintegrated, and of course the mighty and powerful Austro-Hungarian Empire was finished. None of these consequences could have been foreseen at the beginning of the war. Britain The war in Europe came as no real surprise to anyone in Europe. For most of the first decade of the twentieth century, the continental powers were involved in a rapid series of peace talks and treaties. England and France became allies in 1905, with the Entente Cordial (Which became the Triple Entente when Russia joined). Forces such as the National Service League ensured that the general populace was prepared for war: " Unbelievably glib assertions that 'war is not murderwar is sacrifice - which is the soul of Christianity"4. In many ways, Britain was well placed for a short, sharp war with her continental rivals: the last decade of the nineteenth century has produced "An increase of 98.3 per cent in the size of the Army and a 70.9 per cent in the Navy"5. Marsh suggests the reason for this was the South African (Boer) War, but the ultimate result of this massive increase is that there were a large number of servicemen in the British Army at the outbreak of the war. Furthermore, there were pressing needs to develop a distraction for the British populace: the situation in Ulster was growing increasingly tense. As late as May 1914, the government was passing Home Rule legislation in order to contain the threat of war6. In a game of consequences with the Irish Nationalists, the Prime Minister Asquith was prepared to force a state of war in order to keep as much power in English hands as he could. Asquith was in trouble at home too, where the 1913 act that enabled Suffragettes to be force-fed was coming under fire.7 The additional problems of "intensified industrial unrest"8 had left Asquith's administration with big problems. Even David Lloyd George remarked at this time " I am sure I am not a Liberal. They have no sympathy with the people"9. With nationalist unrest, civil disturbance, and the likelihood of another uprising in the colonies, the war could not have come at a more appropriate time. Popular support for the war had been assessed by the Foreign Secretary, as "'possible' that British public opinion would condone British intervention on behalf of France"10 if the Germans were sufficiently aggressive; so long as Germany made the first move, Britain would come to France's aid. The same was not the case for Russia, even though the Royal Family had more ties with Germany and Russia than with France; However, British support was potentially with France. "What was neededwas a moral cause to unite the public"11. When on the 29th of July 1914, Germany invaded Belgium, a neutral country, the stage was set for an intervention which would carry public support. As Lawrence James observes, across the British territories, the volunteers "Welcomed the war as an adventure, but there was also a strong vein of patriotism running through the ranks"12. At the same time, however, he also notes that the majority of the public were not bothered about the 1914 Balkan Crisis, quite simply because they did not realise the enormity of what was about to happen: "The Balkan Crisis of June-July 1914 aroused as little stir in Britain as its predecessors"13. There is also evidence for some elements of popular resistance to the War: pressure for neutrality at the beginning of the War was high: " The anti-war forces rallied strongly"14. Had the idea of conscription been there at the beginning of the war, there would undoubtedly been more resistance: " If they had been able to foresee itthey certainly would have opposed intervention"15. As it was, however, "The 'people' wereanxious to make it their war. A wave of anti-German hysteria flooded public life"16. Popular support for the war was happening in all classes. The working classes were ready to snap up whatever was fed to them, and the middle classes were encouraged by Rupert Brooke, and other War poets. Even the Kind, George V, changed his family name from Saxe-Coberg-Gotha to Windsor in a patriotic gesture. This had both positive and negative consequences: the government had a stream of people who would be willing to join up (Famously, under-age boys lied about their age in order to get into the war early), and on the other hand, leaders such as Kitchener gathered such support that it was impossible to replace them when it became clear that that was necessary: "The most impressive evidence of popular support for the war was the quire unprecedented and unsurpassed response to Kitchener's appeal for recruits"17. However, he proved a waste of time at the War office, and "His immense public reputation made it difficult to get rid of him"18. In addition to the war being morally justified, it was also necessary to preserve the British colonies, which formed the backbone of British industry and commerce. 19 In essence then, in Britain there was popular support for war with Germany for a number of reasons; firstly, there was a large army which was left redundant after the Boer War, and many soldiers were eager to have battle their Germanic rivals. Secondly, there was significant unrest at home, with war in Ireland likely and violence in Wales; suffragettes being force-fed (and throwing themselves under the King's Horse only one year before); and unionist strikes in the period 1911-1914. The war itself was seen as provoked by Germany, and many people believed that the war would be won quickly, and "The immediate slogan was 'business as usual'"20. The public had been encouraged to think about war since the turn of the century, and this paid off with large numbers of young men signing up for a few weeks away from home. This optimistic mood continued, despite the War Office's incompetence and the mishandling of the first stages of the war, really until the December 1914 attack on Scarborough by "German Cruisers"21, and then the first Zeppelin raids the following year. After these events, and the fact that the war looked like it would not be so easily after all, made the public turn against people with German sounding names "So many bakers shopswere wrecked because of their German-sounding names that a bread shortage temporarily threatened"22. However, moral support for the war did not totally diminish; propaganda and hatred of the Germans made the war seem like a good idea until very late in its progress. At the beginning of the war, popular support ensured that there was no real opposition to England's interventions in Belgium. Russia While Britain made a good start with popular support for the war, other nations were not so lucky. Russia, which had been engaged in fighting the Russo-Japanese War until 1905, was in very dire straits. The last months of the war with Japan were also marked by the Moscow Rising, and the beginnings of a series of worker's strikes which would have Russia in turmoil by 1914. Bloody Sunday, also in 1905, left the Russian populace with a bad taste in their mouth, and also the beginnings of the revolutionary fervour which would bring the Romanov dynasty down. There were other reasons why the administration was very unpopular in 1914. "There was a strong temperance movement in the Duma. Prohibition was achieved in 1914"23. Popular support was not behind the government, but it was not behind the revolutionaries either, " Many regarded the revolutionaries as enemies of reform, and believed that violent protest only strengthened the position of the reactionaries"24. There were also reasons why Russia very desperately did not want to go to war with Russia, not least because the Emperor, the Tsar and the King of England were all cousins, but also because "By 1914 Germany was the Empire's main trading partner, with Britain far behind in second place"25. The Russian Empire was also closely associated with the Balkan States, which were in a constant state of turmoil; partially crushed between Turkey and Austro-Hungary, and also threatened by the grasping nature of the Russian Empire itself. The Russian public wanted to support the Balkans "An area, perhaps the only area, in which foreign policy had to take account of public opinion."26. Russia, and the Russian public, could not see Serbia divided up between the other empires: "The Annihilation of the country he would not agree to, first because Russia would never stand by and let it happen"27. It also seems likely that Russian influence was behind Serbia's rejection of Austrian offers of settlement; whether this was the administration, or ground roots support will probably never been known. When it came to the war itself, the revolutionaries proved to be a very shallow bunch. Lenin himself raged against their fickleness: "The defection of the Socialists and the social-democratswho, almost to a man, supported their respective national governments"28. Other former revolutionaries also took to the streets in support of the war: " St Petersburg studentsonce again broke the ban on demonstrations and marched on the German embassy"29. Although there is some suspicion that the Russian Administration manufactured some of the demonstrations, the war was essentially a popular move: " Certainly public opinionwas strongly for the war, and would probably never have forgiven Nicholas if he had not made a stand"30. Possibly for the first time in 100 years, the Russian people were behind the Tsar as he started mobilizing the troops. This seems to demonstrate the general unpopularity of the German (and their allies') moves against Serbia and the Balkans. Yet another German-prompted name change made St Petersburg into Petrograd. As with other members of the Anglo-French alliance, there was a massive influx of volunteers signing up for the army31. The popularity of the war went against the natural alliances of the Russian public. "A tradition of anti-British feeling dating back probably to the mid-nineteenth century"32, may have moved the Russian populace in the opposite direction to their government, and the conservative middle classes were also unsure of the liberal British, as well as " Conservatives regretted that Russia should be fighting against the two empires which represented traditional monarchy"33. British and French fears that Russia would make peace with Germany were probably based upon this idea that the Russians wanted a traditional alliance. The popularity of the War in the first months became a rapid disillusionment when the war became a long-drawn out affair: "Russia, like other belligerents, had not predicted a long war"34. German propaganda also contributed to disillusionment, as it suggested that the administration were about to make peace with the enemy. 35. The revolutionaries banded behind this dissatisfaction, turning what had been popular support for the war into a bitter and violent agitation against both the Tsar and the war. Both Britain and Russia began the war with high hopes of popular support. The nineteenth century had encouraged the build up of troops, especially in Britain, where there was a massive increase in the amount of both standing army and naval troops. Germany had been building a navy to break the british resistance, though strangely enough it never carried this through into the war. There were plenty of reasons why both the British and Russian populations should have opposed the war. The British system was involved in a series of disputes with its own citizens, from the Irish to feminists to the Labour movement, and Russia had a similar problem with strikes, bitter resentment against the administration, and a long history of troubles between the Tsar and his people. IN addition, Russia also had a strong economic alliance with Germany (Which makes its Entente with Britain and France even more incomprehensible). The next largest importer of goods, Britain, was way behind Germany. However, problems with Austro-Hungary forced Russian and German interests into direct conflict. At the beginning of the war, leading up to the first significant losses for both countries in early 1915, there was a great deal of support for the army. British and Russian men joined the army in large numbers, and there were also national fund-raising movements which produced astonishing results in a short amount of time. While the British public had people such as Kitchener to look up to, the Russian population only had Nicholas the Tsar, who was very much a puppet figure for the princes and other members of the Duma. In the latter's case, he took the full brunt of the sudden loss of popular support for the war, and he did not have the means or intelligence to defend himself against it. Popular support for the war was also engendered before the war occurred, with novels and other literature making the case for war as a noble effort. Press barons such as Lord Northcliffe were previously Germanophobic, and their contribution to the war effort was to stir up popular opinion against the Germans before the Balkan Crisis of 1914. 36 For most of the public in Britain and Russia, the war was expected to be over by 'Christmas'. This would have suited all governments in the triple entente, and it is a measure of how under prepared for their fighting they were, that conscripts were being sent to the front in 1915 after only a few weeks training. Had the public known that the war would take so long it is unlikely that it would have received such support in the first few months. Despite all of these factors, it remains certain that both Russia and Britain would have avoided conflict if Germany had not invaded Belgium, or been so confrontational with Serbia. Mishandling of the situation by the German Ministers meant that Germany effectively pushed Britain and Russia into war, creating popular support in both countries against Germany, which was depicted as an aggressor attacking neutral countries. Neither side really had any option when it came to avoiding a conflict, but the cards were stacked against Germany as soon as it took those measures against Belgium and Serbia. Bibliography Carr, E. H. (1966) The Bolshevik Revolution: 1917-1923 Pelican, London Crankshaw, Edward (1974)The Fall of the House of Habsburg Cardinal, London Fairclough, Adam (2002) Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-2000 Penguin, London. James, Lawrence (1997) The Rise and Fall of the British Empire Abacus, London. Marsh, David C. (1965) The Changing Social Structure of England and Wales 1871-1961 Routledge, London Pelling, Henry (1962) Modern Britain 1885-1955 Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd, Edinburgh. Porter, Bernard (1984) The Lion's Share: A short history of British Imperialism 1850-1983 Longman, London. Shannon, Richard (1979) The Crisis of Imperialism 1865-1915 Paladin, London Westwood, J.N. (1991) Endurance and Endeavour Russian History 1812-1986 Oxford University Press, Oxford. Read More