People in Britain were affected by six main ways:

1. Recruitment - there was a huge poster campaign to get people to join up, and
the government had to introduce conscription in 1916. Conscientious objectors
could be imprisoned. Women were recruited into the armed forces as nurses,
drivers, cooks and telephonists.
2. The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) - this was passed in August 1914.
DORA allowed the government to take over the coal mines, railways and
shipping. Lloyd George became Minister of Munitions and set up state-run
munitions factories. The government worked with the trade unions to prevent
strikes.
3. Reduced workforce - there were fewer workers because so many men left to
join the army.
4. Rationing - a fixed allowance for sugar, meat, butter, jam and tea was
introduced in 1918. British Summer Time was also introduced to give more
daylight working hours.
5. Propaganda - newspaper and soldiers' letters were censored. "The Tribunal"
(a pacifist newspaper) was shut down, and lies were made up about German
atrocities. Posters encouraged morale. The film "The Somme" was a semi-
successful attempt at using film for propaganda because the graphic nature of
actually seeing the men die upset many viewers.
6. Civilian casualties - 57 zeppelin bombing raids after 1915, and the German
navy shelled Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough.

How did women help the war effort?

1. Recruitment - women were recruited as nurses into the Voluntary Aid
Detachments (VADs) or First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), and as drivers,
cooks and telephonists into the WAAC, WRNS and WRAF.
2. DORA - many women 'munitionettes' worked in the government's munitions
factories.
3. Reduced workforce - women took on traditional men's jobs and became
firemen, coalmen and bus conductors.
4. Rationing - the main burden of coping fell on mothers. The Women's Land
Army helped with agricultural production.

After the war, men took back their jobs and most women returned to the family.
However, the War did bring about political and social changes:

 Political - women over 30 years old got the vote in 1918. Women over 21
years old got the vote in 1928. Women were also allowed to stand for
election as MPs, but there were only eight women MPs in 1923.
 Social - women became more liberated. Short skirts and short hair became
fashionable and many women smoked in public.
The First World War killed fewer victims than the
Second World War, destroyed fewer buildings, and
uprooted millions instead of tens of millions - but in
many ways it left even deeper scars both on the mind and
on the map of Europe. The old world never recovered
from the shock.
Edmond Taylor, in "The Fossil Monarchies"

1. “This is a war to end all wars.”

— Woodrow Wilson, 1917

5. “We're telling lies; we know we're telling lies; we don't tell the
public the truth, that we're losing more officers than the Germans,
and that it's impossible to get through on the Western Front.”

— Lord Rothermere, 1917

The prominent British journalist said this in a conversation with his colleague J.L.
Garvin, a fellow journalist.

8."However the world pretends to divide itself, there are only two
divisions in the world today – human beings and Germans."

—Rudyard Kipling, 1915

Kipling was an English journalist who published this statement in the British War
Propaganda Section of the Morning Post, a London-based daily newspaper, on June
22.

9. "The First World War was a horror of gas, industrialized

slaughter fear and appalling human suffering."

—Nick Harkaway, 2012

The British novelist and commentator wrote an article titled "On Poppy Burning" in
the Huffington Post in 2012.