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

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