The Following Episode is sponsored by War2Glory.
When the Great War began, Great Britain was the largest empire in history, on which the
sun never truly did set, but what was going on in Britain socially, economically, and
industrially in that prewar period? That’s what I’ll talk about today.
I’m Indy Neidell; this is a Great War Special Episode about Great Britain before the First
World War.
In January 1901, Queen Victoria died after a reign of nearly 64 years.
She was crowned as Queen of the United Kingdom, but she died as Queen also of Canada and Australia,
and Empress of India. Mainland Britain had then 41 million inhabitants in 314,000 square
kilometers, British colonial possessions have 450 million inhabitants in 32 million square
kilometers- so around a quarter of the world’s land and population. This is not even considering
the huge commercial interests Britain had in other parts of the world, like South America.
The British were the first to industrialize, doing so already beginning in the 18th century,
and this brought about an economic and demographic revolution. The economic development relied
on a global dominance of finance and commerce, with the pound as global standard, the generalization
of free trade, and high technical standards developed in Britain and then spread throughout
the world. National income rose from 232M pounds in 1801 to 1.75B in 1901, iron production
from 120K tons to 13.5M, and by 1900 the British merchant fleet accounted for just over 50%
of global tonnage.
The role of the British as citizens was built around three types of liberties: individual,
like freedom of movement, speech, and thought; economic, based on private property and the
freedom of enterprise and contract; and public liberties, the rights to association and representation.
All of this all made Britain the forerunner in trade unionism. Unions were recognized
as early as 1825, legalized in 1871, and by 1900 2 million workers were unionized.
The domestic population also increased rapidly in the 19th century.
The birth rate reached nearly 3% a year and the death rate was below 2%, so a result,
other than just growth, is that the population is young by the new century. 40% are under
20 years of age. Most of the population- some 70%- now lives in densely packed urban areas,
and London, with 7M inhabitants, is the largest city in the world.
The traditional social hierarchy has still remained quite rigid, though. You have 5%
of the population as the nobility and gentry; they own more than half of the land and live
lives of ease, the Middle Class, 15-20% of the population, which also includes the wealthy
from industry and commerce, and the working class- over ¾ of the population. Now, they
are very diverse, from farmers to factory workers and beyond, and they have spatial
disparities. For example, they have relatively decent living conditions in England, but poorer
ones in Scotland and Wales. Still, 1% of the population held 2/3 of the wealth and the
working class in total held less than 10%.
There had been some notable social achievements, though. In 1900, primary school is free and
mandatory for everyone up to age 14, so the literacy rate has climbed from 40% in 1870
to 97% 30 years later. This results in a huge general media and information boom, particularly
the expansion of the newspapers and the press, since everyone can read now, but also in popular
literature, with Oscar Wilde, H.G.Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and more springing to prominence.
There is also a rise in the society of leisure, foremost through sport. Golf, tennis, football,
rugby, cricket, boxing, sailing, gymnastics... cricket in particular was a massive phenomenon.
But this society, at the end of the Victorian Era, was a society that was more and more
demanding change.
The first signs of the protests in the 20th century took root in the colonial empire in
the 19th. For example, the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 spurred distrust
toward the colonial regime. Toward these various emerging threats, Britain reacted by either
speeding up the reform process or using force.
That’s what happened in South Africa. We talked about the Boer Wars so I won’t go
into that again, but at the outset it was thought the British Army could beat the locals
in weeks. It took over half a year in the active field, and two and a half years of
guerrilla warfare to finally end. And 22,000 dead of the some 450,000 strong British contingent-
that’s one of 20. This all triggered deep doubts in the national conscience about the
ability of the empire to even survive.
There were great changes at home in the new century as well.
Even just the new King, Edward VII, brought society away from Victorian mores. He indulged
in things like card games and gambling, which had been very much frowned upon or even illegal.
The financial power of the gentry began decreasing as they started selling off land to avoid
taxation. The Middle Class was raising its social status, but there was also a big movement
toward secularization.
By the beginning of the Great War, only 10% of the Anglican community regularly attended
services. As a result of that, the demands for change could not be channeled through
moral dogmas and the protests more and more took a political form. We did a whole special
about Ireland that covered the Home Rule Crisis and it had a massive impact, but things like
feminism also became major issues. The Suffragette Movement to give women the vote, for example,
had existed in Britain since the 1870s, but it really took center stage in the prewar
period. There was an awareness of the situation of children and things like Boy Scouts and
Girl Guides were created, the situation of the elderly as life expectancy rose to over
50 and the idea of a right to retirement raised new political and medical issues, so the Edwardian
era saw a shift toward secularization, acculturation, and modernity.
Economic growth had kept protests quiet before, but that situation was also rapidly changing.
The UK still dominated global commerce, but national income now trailed the US and Germany,
as did the share of global production. And the revenues from labor were not equally distributed-
the dividends go up; the salaries don’t. This led to the great unrest of 1910-1911.
In 1911, over 10 million workdays were lost to strikes, from 1910-1914 trade union membership
rose by 2/3, and in the 7 months of 1914 before the war began, British industry was hit by
937 strikes.
The Conservative Government in power at the turn of the century was unable to keep up
with social dissatisfaction and in 1905 the general elections brought the Liberal Party
to power. They were faced with a really tense situation, and though they had an undisputed
majority until 1910, after that they had to ally themselves with the newly emerging Labor
Party and the Irish Nationalists to form a government.
Their political program rested on Home Rule, on reforms of social democracy, like workman’s
compensation, protections for abused children, old age pensions, a base salary for minors,
and a national insurance act, which granted almost everyone the right to health insurance.
Also Parliamentary reform- the Parliament Act of 1911 regulated the relations between
the houses of Parliament. So despite progress, Britain’s internal situation was quite
dark, with the real prospect of a civil war in Ireland, and the social unrest and disruption
to production caused by the strikes and the social movements.
Internationally, since 1815, British global leadership had rested on three principles-
preserving international peace, fighting against any hegemony especially in Europe, and defending
Britain’s global interests and possessions.
So Britain had developed a dense diplomatic network, and- intending to act as a judge
in international relations- refused any lasting alliance, leading to the policy of “splendid
isolation” that allowed her to change sides whenever needed to protect British interests.
But by 1900, only Britain and France favored maintenance of the status quo abroad, since
their imperial ambitions had been met. The first decade of the 20th century was a different
kettle of fish. True, the British navy was the largest in the world, but much of it was
dated, so growing competition had caused Britain to massively invest in the expansion and modernization
of the Royal Navy in order to maintain the two power standard- Britain’s navy should
maintain a fleet of battleships equal to the next two greatest naval powers combined. So
Britain intended to maintain peace while engaging in an arms race. As for the land forces, the
reforms completed in 1912 led to the creation of a BEF of 6 divisions, around 150,000 men.
They did not use conscription so this land force was far smaller than the continental
armies of 2-4 million men, though the British regulars were all professionally trained soldiers.
By now, Britain’s main continental rival was Germany, whose naval program definitely
threatened the two power standard. In 1904, Britain, rejecting splendid isolation, formed
an alliance with its oldest rival, France; an Anglo-Russian convention follows three
years later. Those alliances were tested in the Moroccan Crises, which ultimately strengthened
relations between Britain and France. At Germany’s expense The Triple Entente also remained strong
in the Bosnian Crisis of 1908 and the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913. In fact, Lord Haldane,
the British Secretary of State for War who had carried out those army reforms I mentioned,
and who was later Chancellor, told Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador to Britain
during the July Crisis, in the ambassador’s words, “England, if we attacked France,
would unconditionally spring to France’s aid, for England could not allow the balance
of power to be disturbed.”
Well, by now, it kinda has been.
Now, as I said in the beginning, this episode was sponsored by War2Glory, a real-time strategy
MMO browser game. Become the leader of the city, take care of its defense and build your
own army, carefully choose your own tactic and strategy to be successful.
If you want to learn more about War2Glory while also supporting this channel, follow
the link in the video description.