What was civilian life like in ww1

Canada entered the war with a small public service, no income tax, and few forms of direct government involvement in the economy. But the war cost vast amounts of money, demanded enormous supplies of people, goods, and services, and placed great stress on wages, prices, and many areas of home front activity. In mobilizing support for the war abroad while attempting to ease or manage its effects at home, the federal government became increasingly involved in the lives of Canadians, usually with great reluctance and not always with success.

Such scenes were repeated throughout Europe. Many believed that the war would be over by Christmas and many young men rushed to answer the call to arms — as did many men who were too old to serve but wanted to show their patriotism.

The government asked for , volunteers but got , in just one month. Those who did not want to join the military could be targeted by people as cowards — being handed white feathers and being refused service by shops and pubs etc. Many believed that victory against Germany — and a quick one at that — was a certainty and the vast bulk of the nation was supportive not only of the declaration of war but also of any man who wanted to join up.

This enthusiasm did not last. After the Battle of the Marne, it became obvious that there would be not quick victory and as trench warfare took its hold, the true reality of a modern war became obvious to all.

The nation as whole was living off its accumulated capital stock, both in the form of brick and mortar as well as overseas investments. Troops in the frontline were not the only ones exposed to the particular dangers of wartime.

Bombing raids by zeppelins or the shelling of coastal towns by a German squadron of destroyers in were probably the least importants events. The dangers of ammunitions production in particular were large, especially when picric acid had to be handled. Its 21 million life insurance policies covered roughly one quar- ter of the troops and about half of the men who stayed at the "home front". What exactly does it mean to say that civilian health benefited from the First World War?

Clearly, it is not sufficient to demonstrate that mortality rates and other indicators showed strong improvements. In the case of maie non-combatants, Winter seeks to demonstrate this by calculating a coun- terf actual based on life tables.

But when pre-war trends are taken into account, divergence between counterfactual and actual development becomes minutes Cf. Winter, , fig.

Infant mortality rates IMR's are Winter' s second source. IRM's were reduced as much between and as they were between and The largest gains were probably made by the lowest income groups.

As Marwick has pointed out, the need to mobilize the nation' s resources on a unprecedented scale left many. Wage rises were commensurate Marwick, , p. Yet there are few sources that directly support Winter's claims. The unusually high infant mortality rates in , however, speak strongly against Winter's thesis.

He feels that this one observation should be disregarded since it resulted from "a change in the virulence or the periodicity of certain viral and bacterial diseases" Winter, , p.

This is a dangerous technique: Winter leaves ail the "accidentally" bad years in his prewar sample, but wishes to disregard them for the years Winter seeks to support his claim that income redistribution lay behind rising civilian health through data on female mortality.

Winter is able to point to important improvements in death rates for most diseases save tuberculosis Winter, , p. This exactly mirrors his finding from the accounts of the Prudential Life Insurance Company - for those who were didn't serve in the military, life expectancy increased.

As Winter's table 4. Furthermore, the drop in death rates in is very pronounced. I shall return to this point later. His work on balance suggest that the time of the great carnage on the battlefields was one of increasing life expectancy for those who stayed at home. Redistribution of income, leading to rising living standards of the lower classes, were crucial for this development. Not ail states, however, were able to afford their citizens such advances.

In Winter' s perspective, the Entente prevailed precisely because it was able to maintain civilian health. Germany's bid for mastery in Europe was thus bound to fail because of excessive efficiency in reallocating resources to the "first military-industrial complex" in history. The first problem is one Winter himself acknowledges. Full life tables do not exist for Germany in this period. Data on mortality is only available for quinquennial groups Winter, , p.

Two other factors also cast doubt on the value of calculating percentage increases of German and French mortality rates over hypothetical progessions of pre-war trends. First, we must question if it is sensible to forecast future mortality development merely on the basis of past trends. Germany was, for example, more successful than France in reducing adult mortality before the war.

German crude death rates started at British ambulance drivers stand atop a pile of rubble. German prisoners, during World War I. Portraits of a German prisoners taken by an official British photographer, to be shown to folks back home. Villagers interested in the arrival of British troops. Western Front. A Captured British soldier salvages the valuables of fellow Englishmen killed in battle, in April of British soldiers play football while wearing gas masks, France, Three young-looking German prisoners of war.

Their clothes are caked in mud and are a mishmash of styles. The soldier on the left still has his helmet, but the others have bandages wrapped round their heads. Between Laon and Soissons, German railway troops wash their clothes beside 50 cm shells, on July 19, Thiepval, September Bodies of German soldiers strewn across the bottom of a trench.

Berlin—Children of soldiers at front. Watched by a group of locals, German prisoners of war walk down a street in the French town of Solesmes, on November 1, , near the end of World War I. French patrol in occupied Essen, Germany. A fallen Russian soldier being buried where he fell by civilians being overseen by the Germans. Russia lost some two million men in combat during World War I. German machine-gun nest and dead gunner at Villers Devy Dun Sassey, France, on November 4, —one week before the end of the war.

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