Total War & The Home Front

Main Point - World War One was a "Total War" that required the full support of the Home Fronts - this resulted in the Home Fronts suffering the terrible cost of the war.

Source # 1 - Video Clip about the role of women on the Home Front - click here

Source # 2 - Infographic - Women's Service in World War One - click image for larger version of infographic

Biography - Vera Brittain - When the war began in 1914, Vera Brittian described it in her diary as ‘the most thrilling day of her life”. Brittain’s brother Edward volunteered to be an officer in the British army – men from wealthy families typically were automatically made into officers. In 1915, Vera became engaged to Roland Leighton, one of her brother’s closest friends, who was serving on the Western Front. It was during this time that Brittain decided to leave her studies at Oxford and volunteer to become an army nurse. Her work as a nurse opened Brittain’s eyes to the horror of the war. In December of that year, while she was working as a nurse in a military hospital in London, she learned that Roland Lieghton had been killed by a German sniper. Six months later, in July 1916, she learned that her brother had been wounded in the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

Brittain was sent to work as a nurse in a battlefield hospital in France where she cared for both wounded British soldiers and wounded German prisoners. During this time she wrote about the brutal and inhuman absurdity that she was caring for people were trying to kill her own friends and family. In June 1918, she learned that her brother Edward was killed fighting in Italy. In the course of the war, she had lost her brother and all of her male friends.

After the war, Brittain dedicated herself for working for peace. She wrote a book, “Testament of Youth” about her wartime experiences and the deaths of her brother, fiancé, and their friends. She wrote to show that the war was not” glamour or glory, but abysmal grief and purposeless waste.”

Source # 2 - Video clip from the movie Testament of Youth, in which Vera Brittain learns about the death of Roland Leighton - click here

Note - you have to be logged into your Bedford Schools Google account to watch the video

Source # 3 - Video clip from the movie Testament of Youth, in which Vera Brittain is working as a nurse at a battlefield hospital - click here

Note - you have to be logged into your Bedford Schools Google account to watch the video

Source # 4 - Drawing "Killed in Action" by German artist Kathe Kollwitz (1921) - The picture shows a woman receiving the notice from the army that her husband was killed in the war. Kollwitz lost her son Peter when he was killed fighting in France in 1914.

Source # 5 - Graphs of Economic Statistics for the Warring Countries During World War One

Source # 6 - British Propaganda poster from World War One - Propaganda is a form of communication that is designed to motivate a country's population to support the government's actions. During World War One, all of the countries in the war used propaganda to recruit men to fight in the war and to keep the population working to support the war.