ILN During WWI: Sacrifice and Support for the war

Sacrifice and Support for World War One

Support for the First World War was bolstered by patriotic appeals aimed to unify each nation with its allies against a common foe. Through patriotic propaganda comes a fevered sense of nationalism in which supporting the war effort becomes akin with ensuring the identity and continued future of one's nation. As a result, able bodied men rushed to enlist on both sides of the conflict, while others volunteered for national service, and women took up jobs in munitions factories in an effort to do their part in support of the war.

In Britain, advertisements promoting the serenity of the enlisted man over the discontent of the doubter circulate in 1915. While military enrolment is still voluntary at this time, the appeal is made for service and the public is cautioned that enlistment will soon cease to be voluntary. By the following year, Britain passes the Military Service Act of 1916, which mandates the enlistment of all unmarried men and widows without child dependents aged 18 to 41. Mandatory service created an urgent need for volunteers to fill the posts left vacant by the men now heading for war. Advertisements appear in British newspapers calling on its citizens, not mandated to enlist, to serve Britain's war effort via National Service, and again a sense of nationalism spurs significant civilian response. Patriotic appeals also aim to fund the monetary cost of war through the sale of war bonds. Advertisements depicting a wounded soldier first in line to buy bonds and posters prompting Britons to purchase war bonds as the "patriotic present" for Christmas circulate in 1917.

Supporting the war effort required sacrifice from the warring nations and their civilians. With men off to war, industry and food production slowed and, combined with other factors, lead to eventual shortages. In Britain and France, the food supply was surer than Germany's, and as a result soldiers and civilians faced less severe rationing and substitutions than their rivals. Until 1917, Britons were not widely encouraged to decrease their food consumption. Rationing was promoted on a voluntary basis beginning in 1917 and became mandatory the following year, but rationing in Britain did not reach the levels of desperation experienced in Germany. Flour for bread making, meat and sugar were the first to be rationed and were in the shortest supply in Britain, while coffee, tea, and cocoa, foods unobtainable in Germany and Austria, were readily available to Brits with the means to purchase them. In all cases, British allowances exceeded Germany's; the limited food supply forced the Germans to experiment with substitutes for unavailable foods, often with unappealing results.