Le rôle de l'Angleterre durant la 1ère guerre mondiale (écrit en anglais)

During the last few lessons we’ve studied the British involvement in WW1. As we all know WW1 was a global war that originated in Europe and that lasted from the 28th of July 1914 to the 11th of November 1918. This war opposed two alliances: the Allies and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. Great Britain played a huge part in this war. They did this because France and Belgium were invaded, and this was against their interests due Britain's close friendship with France but also because Germany could then use the Chanel as a hostile base. Britain also decided to declare war against germany to save her good name, her life, her empire and the freedom of all the people in europe.

We’re going to ask ourselves how and with which motivations did the British people get involved in the first World War.

To answer this question we can rely on the information learnt during our lessons but also on the following documents

-Our first source is a poster that was published in the end of 1914 inciting people to join the British army. On this poster we can see John Bull, the British national symbol. We can also read the phrase “Who’s absent? Is it you?”

-Our second source is a series of extracts of British and Australian soldiers testimonies concerning WW1.

-Our third and last source is a video about the Australian involvement in WW1

We are first going to present how people got involved in the first war. We will then present their motivations. Finally we’re going to talk about the means the British government used in order to encourage this involvement

First of all, the first world war was a global involvement. Loads of people answered the call and pulled their weight to help Britain beat the aggressor, Germany. British men joined the army in huge waves. So many in fact that the recruitment offices had to turn some volunteers away. Other men helped Britain by doing things like making weapons, working in factories or by providing medical help to injured soldiers. Women were also a huge part of world war one. They were part of the home front even though men didn’t always react well to this. Their main job was to make ammunition, they also transported things like guns, people or food for the troops. They worked on the farms, in factories and still found the time for domestic services. Their numbers kept growing. For example at the beginning of the war, 212 000 women were making ammunition. But by the end of the war, that number was up to 974 000. The British colonies like india, australia or parts of africa also got involved. An extract of an Australian soldier’s memoir says “When war was declared I wanted to enlist immediately” We also watched a short video in class entitled the Australian involvement in WW1. It taught us that at the time, Australia had strong ties with Britain. Their newspapers were saying things like “the British empire is our family circle and we can not live without it, who lives if england dies”. They’d promised in the past that they would defend Britain and that’s exactly what they did during WW1 when a great deal of australiens swore their allegiance and fought for us. .

We will now present their motivations.

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