BRITAIN IN THE 20th CENTURY
By the beginning of the 20th century, Britain was no longer the world’s richest country, thought it was still the greatest world power. By the middle of the century, although still one of the ‘Big Three’, Britain was clearly weaker than either the USA or the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1970s Britain was no loner a world power at all. One reason for this sudden decline was the cost and effort of two world wars. Another reason was the cost of keeping up the empire, followed by the economic problems involved in losing it. But the most important reason was the basic weakness in Britain’s industrial power, and particularly its failure to spend as much as other industrial nations in developing its industry.
Edward VII, Queen Victoria’s eldest son, who came to the throne in 1901, was already 59. As he spent many years as King-in-waiting, much of his time was devoted to enjoyment rather than work. He was more renowned as a good-humored seeker of pleasure, who was fond of travelling, female company and sports. Edward’s preoccupation with pleasure made him extremely popular and respected among all classes. But all good things must come to an end. The Boer War of 1899-1902 ended in victory for Britain in South Africa but damaged its international reputation.
The first twenty years of the century were the period of extremism in Britain. There appeared the Suffragettes, i.e. the women who demanded the right to vote and were prepared both to damage property and to die for their beliefs. The situation in Ireland led to a split. In 1921 Ireland was divided into the Irish Free State in the south and Northern Ireland, which remained part of Britain. This led to civil war in Ireland. In 1932 a new party won the election in Ireland, and five years later the Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera declared southern Ireland a Republic in 1937.
In 1910 George V became king of Britain. His family name was Saxe-coburg-Gotha, which was the family name of his father Edward VII, and his grandfather, Prince Albert (queen Victoria’s husband). For the first 7 years of his reign he kept his German surname. But then he changed it into Windsor.
The fact is that at the beginning of the 20th century France, Germany and America were competing for world markets. The newly united German State was the biggest threat, its education system putting it far ahead of Britain in science and technology. It also had a lot of natural resources and was becoming the world’s biggest producer of steel, which was used to build battleships to rival those of the British navy. From 1908 onwards Britain spent large sums of money to make sure that it possessed a stronger fleet than Germany. Britain’s army was small, but its size seemed less important than its quality. In any case, no one believed that war in Europe, if it happened, would last for more than six months.
By 1914 an extremely dangerous situation had developed. Germany and Austria-Hungary had a military alliance. Russia and France, frightened of German ambitions, had made one as well. Fear of Germany’s growing strength forced Britain and France into an alliance. This brought Britain into World War I (in 1914), which claimed over a million British casualties, most of them under the age of 25. Apart from the Crimean War, this was Britain’s first European war for a century, and the country was quite unprepared for the terrible destructive power of modern weapons. Modern artillery and machine guns had completely changed the nature of war. The invention of the tank and its use on the battlefield to break through the enemy trenches in 1917 could have changed the course of the war, if its military value had been properly understood at the time. By November 1918 about fifty times more people had died than in the twenty-year war against Napoleon. Public opinion demanded no mercy on Germany.
In recognition of anti-German feelings of the British people during the First World War, George changed his surname to Windsor and his family followed the suit. It was a symbolic and popular gesture by the king who took his role seriously.
The German army was held back at the River Marne, deep inside France. But British men who had fought in France and been promised a “land fit for heroes” were disillusioned when they found unemployment and poor housing awaiting them at the war’s end. Women who had worked in factories during the war were not prepared to give up any of their independence.
Previously, a man thought of his wife and daughters as his property, and so did the law. It was almost impossible for a woman to get a divorce, even for those rich enough to pay the legal costs. Until 1881, a woman had to give up all her property to her husband when she married him. The husband was legally allowed to beat his wife. Working women were paid much less than men.
In 1897 women started to demand the right to vote in national elections and to have equal rights with men. The war of 1914 changed public attitude to women. Britain would have been unable to continue the war without the women who took men’s place in the factories. By the 1918 29 per cent of the total workforce of Britain was female. In 1918, women over the age of 30 gained the right to vote after a long, hard struggle. But it was only in 1928 that the voting age of women came down to 21, equal with men.
The liberation of women took other forms. They started to wear lighter clothing, shorter hair and skirts, began to smoke and drink openly, and to wear cosmetics. Married women wanted smaller families, and divorce became easier.
In the first half of the 20th century people moved away from Victorian values. Leading writers like D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf freely discussed sexual and other sensitive matters, which would have been impossible for earlier generations.
An important political development during World War I was the rapid growth of the Labour Party. Although it was formally established in 1900, its beginning dates from 1874, as part of trade union movement. The trade unions themselves had grown enormously, from 2 million members to 5 million by 1914, and 8 million by 1918. as a result of these changes, the Labour Party, which had won 29 seats in the 1906 election, won 57 seats in 1918, 142 seats in 1022, and 191 seats in 1923. The following year the first Labour government was created. However, the Labour Party was not ‘socialist’; its leaders were members of the middle classes. Instead of social revolution, they wanted to develop a kind of socialist that would fit the situation in Britain. As a result of Labour’s success in 1924, the Liberal Party almost completely disappeared. Liberals with traditional capitalist ideas on the economy joined the Conservative Party, while most Liberal ‘reformers’ joined the Labour Party.
The 1920s are characterized by multiple strikes organized by trade unions. There were strikes on the railways and in the mines. In 1926 the trade unions were powerful enough to hold a General Strike, which paralyzed the country, but the unions demands were not met and people returned back to work disappointed and worse off than before. Still, from 1930s until 1980s the Trade union Congress was probably the single most powerful political force outside the institutions of government and Parliament.
In 1936, following the death of George V, the country was rocked by an unprecedented crisis. Edward VIII succeeded his father but obliged to abdicate when family, Church and Government united in their refusal to let him marry a twice-divorced American, Mrs. Wallis Simpson. The couple married in France and remained in permanent exile as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Edward’s brother came to the throne and, as George VI, became a popular monarch, not last for the solidarity which he and his queen, Elizabeth, later the Queen Mother, showed their subjects during the Blitz, as the German bombing air raids were called.
In the 1930s the British economy started to recover. Economic recovery resulted partly from the danger of another war. By 1935 it was clear that Germany, under its new leader Adolf Hitler, was preparing to regain its position in Europe, by force of necessary. As Britain had done nothing to increase its fighting strength since 1918 because public opinion was against the war, the government had to rebuild its armed forces. This meant large investments in heavy industry. By 1937 industry was producing weapons, aircraft and equipment for war, with the help of money from the USA.
As in September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, Britain entered the war to fight for the weaker nations in Europe and for democracy. But few people realized how string German army was. In May 1940 it attacked, defeating the French in a few days, and driving the British army into the sea. British new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, told the nation there could be no thought of surrender: “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender… until in God’s good time the New World, with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.” Sir Winston Churchill had received massive popular support as a war leader, and he is still regarded by many people as Britain’s greatest Prime Minister.
Everyone in Britain expected Germany to invade, but the British air force won an important battle against German planes in the air over Britain. However, it didn’t prevent Germans from bombing the British towns. Almost 1,5 million people in London were made homeless by
German bombing during the next few months. The war began as a traditional European struggle, with Britain fighting to save “the balance of power” in Europe, and to control the Atlantic Ocean and the sea around Britain.
One of the most far-reaching consequences of the war was that it hastened the end of Britain’s empire. Starting with India’s independence in 1947, the colonies one after another achieved autonomy during the next two decades. Although many remained in the Commonwealth, with the Queen as their titular head.
The post-war years were ones of uneasy peace. Britain joined the war against North Korea in 1950 and its troops fought there for four years. In 1956, following Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal, British and French forces conspired to attack Egypt, pleading bogus provocation. The imperialist action was widely condemned both at home and in the USA. These were also the years of he Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West, which prompted Britain to become a nuclear power. The first British hydrogen bomb was tested in 1957. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was born in response and organized impressive protest marches.
There were also less gloomy events. In 1947 Edinburgh had a highly successful festival of music and drama, which has gone from strength to strength. At the same time the first annual International Music festival was held in Wales. Four years later the festival of Britain was held in the newly built Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank – the National Theatre was added to the complex in 1964.
In 1953, a new Elizabethan Age began as Elizabeth II was crowned in Westminster Abbey. Britain’s Television age began in earnest that day, too, as millions watched the coronation live on tiny flickering screens.
The 1960s saw the explosion of new talent, much of it from the north of England. Alan Sillitoe and Stan Barstow wrote about working class life in a way no one had done before. Northern actors, such as Albert Finney, achieved huge success and, in the cinema, directors Lindsay Anderson and Karel Reisz (best known for If and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning) made British films big box-office attraction. Pop music, as it was now called underwent a revolution when the Beatles became world celebrities and tuned their home town of Liverpool into a place of pilgrimage. It was a decade of optimism and national self-confidence was infectious: in 1966 England’s footballers even won the World Cup.
The 1970s can be called subdued years. It was during the winter of 1973, when an oil embargo and miners’ strike provoked a State of Emergency that the self-confidence collapsed. In the same year, with mixed feelings, Britain finally became a full member of the Common Market (now the European Union). Economic worries dominated as rising oil prices pushed up the cost of living, high inflation took place, and unemployment became worse. The 1970s also saw nationalism flourishing in Wales and Scotland. By 1979, unemployment had reached 3½ million and a wave of strikes plunged the country into what was called “the winter of discontent”. The country lost confidence in its Labour government and the next election returned the Conservative to office under their new leader, Margaret Thatcher. The impact of the West’s first woman prime minister was enormous, but her personal popularity soon began to fade.
The 1980s became known as the Thatcher decade. For many it was a decade of increased prosperity and bright new shopping centres all over the country. As the 1990s began, the City was no longer riding so high. Many newly constructed luxury apartments remained empty. After 11 years of Thatcher’s rule, people began to be tired of the Iron Lady’s uncompromising style and she was finally voted out in 1990, even by her own party.
Two events of the 1997 shook the nation out of its complacency. In a general election the Conservative party was swept from power after 17 years as the Labour party, with Tony Blair as Prime Minister, received the majority of seats in the House of Commons. The 2nd event was the death in a car crash in Paris of Diana, Princess of Wales. The wave of grief that swept the country took everyone by surprise.
In fact, the tragedy seemed to strengthen the monarchy as the Queen, like her subjects, began seriously to contemplate the changes that the 21st century might have in store.
When looking at Britain today, it is important to remember the great benefits from the past. No other country has so long a history of political order, going back almost without interruption to the Norman Conquest. Few other countries have enjoyed such long periods of economic and social well-being.
