РефератыИностранный языкExExplain The Changing Attitudes Of British Soldiers

Explain The Changing Attitudes Of British Soldiers

And Civilians Towards The War Essay, Research Paper


When war broke out in 1914 soldiers were ready and eager to


fight a war they believed would be over by Christmas. They volunteered to beat


the Germans, to fight for King and country, to protect their land and families


and they believed it was their duty. There was also huge public pressure to


join up and objectors were given white feathers and publicly ridiculed. Friends


egged each other on and rushed to join up together ? these were known as ?pals


battalions?. Civilians were caught up by the war fever. Years of anti-German


feeling led to atmosphere of finally being able to teach the Germans a lesson.


Patriotic fever swept the country except for those who did not want to


fight? – mostly for religious reasons.


Huge efforts were made to raise money for the war effort and newspapers and


radios were read and listened to by a population hungry for the details of the


fighting.Gradually the soldiers realised that the fighting was not


only not going to be over by Christmas but could go on for years. New and more


efficient methods ? tanks, planes and gas added to the sheer misery of the


soldiers. Battles such as the Somme and Passchendale saw soldiers killed in


numbers never seen before. Plagued by cold, rats, fleas, lice with a shortage


of food and homesick the soldiers began to question what they were doing ?


especially since the Generals and Officers, with a few exceptions stayed well


behind the actual fighting lines.? The


condition in the trenches was appalling ? cold and wet with no comforts.? Food was rationed and inadequate so the


soldiers were usually hungry.? Leave was


rare and it could be difficult for the average soldier to get home given the


transport problems.? Many of the


soldiers were young, frightened and very homesick.? For thousands of men in the army it was the first time that they


had been away from home and the ?noble cause? they were fighting for became


harder to actually believe in.? Any


letters home were heavily censored and they couldn?t talk about they felt or


what was really happening.? News from


home could take weeks to arrive and men would worry about their families if


they lived in an area that was under threat and male relatives who were also


away fighting.? Whilst they were away


many became fathers and didn?t know when, if ever, they would see their


children.Having joined up with friends many witnessed friends


slaughtered on the battlefields and became depressed and demoralised. Soldiers


waiting to go over the top were probably terrified, reluctant to go and wanting


to go home. Morale became lower and lower as more and more men saw the fighting


as a futile exercise where neither side seemed to make any advance. The fact


that so much of the war was a stalemate led to boredom with nothing to relieve


the monotony.? The constant bombardment


from the enemy meant that sleep was short and interrupted so as well as every


thing else the soldiers would have been constantly tired ? some almost to the point


of exhaustion. Generals, distant from their men by miles, and often class,


appeared to have no real sympathy or understanding for the average soldier.


Field Officers understood more since they actually saw the conditions the


soldiers were fighting under but they were powerless to act.? Part of the problem was that many Generals


had

no real conception of how fighting tactics had changed since the Crimean


War over a decade before.? At the end of


the war the overriding feeling was of relief to be going home at last, to be


alive and able to go. It was probably very difficult to feel enthusiastic and


happy about the victory except it meant being able to see home again.On the home front women took over many men?s jobs and


settled down to ?keep the home fires burning? for their men to come home to


when the ?war to end all wars? was over. They presumed, as the soldiers had, it


wouldn?t be long. Germans were portrayed as evil monsters and the propaganda


machine worked all the time to try and keep morale high and justify the war.


The home front kept factories going, helped with rationing and tried to keep


people?s spirits up. By claiming the bombing of Scarborough 1916 was killing


innocent victims the Government could give a reason for the necessity of winning


the war.However many civilians had to suffer air raids, the carrying


of gas masks and uncertainty as to the whereabouts and well being of their


family and friends. Due to heavy censorship civilian attitude to war took


longer to change than the men fighting on the front. Civilian life changed


dramatically during the war.? Strikes in


factories were banned so that there could be no threat to the production of


arms or other wartime necessities and pubs were closed at lunchtime so that


workers could not get drunk and build faulty guns etc.? All talk of war was banned in public places


in case enemy spies overheard some important military talk.? They were subjected to endless speeches


promoting the war and began to suffer war fatigue.? Every where they looked there were reminders of the fighting ?


from radio broadcasts to posters warning of the dangers of careless talk and


propaganda to try to get men to enlist.?


Almost everything was rationed ? food, clothes and other things that


people had taken for granted before the outbreak of war.? The constant worry about husbands, boyfriends, brothers,


fathers etc took their toll and reading the casualty list of newspapers every


day to see whom you knew that had died would have added to the constant stress


that they were living under. The horror of the trenches was played down but


after 1916 the ever-increasing list of casualties, which the Government could


not hide, increased awareness in people that many hundreds of thousands were


dying and slowly morale began to falter.?


Many people just wanted life to return to normal and began to long for


the war to be over and for their loved ones to come home.? The long separation from loved ones was extremely


hard to bear once the belief that it would be a short war became a distant


memory.? For most married women it meant


that they were struggling to bring up their children alone, with fathers some


of them barely knew, work in the factories and live with the constant fear of


an air raid and their men not returning.?


Civilians celebrated the end of the war with parties and


victory celebrations. Many had no idea what the soldiers had been through and


could not understand the weary acceptance of the soldiers.? The relief that it was all finally over and


life could begin to return to normal was overwhelming and they all believed


that it would never happen again.? They


thought that the ?war to end all wars? would be a lesson no one could forget.

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