There are contested views when one tries to interpret the meaning and reality of what is known as the People’s War. Undeniably, the people of England made it through the Battle of Britain, or the ‘Blitz’, with an air of unrelenting morale. With that being said, the idea of the People’s War as representative of the cohesiveness of the social classes in England, and a strong front all around, is an ideology that some argue to be contestable. To show that the People’s War generates class cohesiveness, this paper will examine both sides of the argument, and determine that the People’s War did not actually unify the whole nation. Throughout the paper, memoirs and testimonies will be used to give a representation of the acceptance of the People’s War. There is a vast amount of information to support this, such as propaganda and speeches made by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. However, the goal of this paper is to determine that the People’s War did not unify everyone in Britain, and it did not hold the theme that ‘everyone was in it together’, as seen majorly through class and gender. There are a few select groups that would disagree with the idea of the People’s War, and claim that they did not fit into this niche that is presented so popularly today.
To be able to understand how the idea of the People’s War began, the term has to be examined back to its first use. Questions like ‘what does the Peoples’ War mean?’ and ‘who coined the term?’ need to be asked to help properly understand it. The first person to use the term was A.J.P. Taylor in his “English History 1914-1945”. It stated, “In the second World war the British people came of age. This was a people’s war” . It was after this that the term “People’s War” became popular, but...
... middle of paper ...
...history/ww2peopleswar/stories/45/a1300645.shtml
Rose, Sonya O. Which People’s War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Salden, Chris. “Wartime Holidays and the ‘Myth of the Blitz’.” Cultural History 2, no. 2 (May 2005).
Taylor, A.J.P. English History 1914-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Taylor, Edith. “Ambulance Driver.” WW2 People’s War. April 7, 2004. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/19/a2499519.shtml
“World War Two: Government Posters. How did Britain encourage people at home to help win the war?” The National Archives. 2008. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/education/propaganda.pdf
“WW2 People’s War: An Archive of World War Two memories- written by the public, gathered by the BBC.” BBC. February 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar
"Queen's University Archives - World War I." Queen's University Archives - Home. Web. 23 July 2010.
"World War II." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd Ed. Vol. 9. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 147-151. World History In Context. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.
"World War II in Europe." 10 June 2013. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 18 March 2014 .
“The Spirit of 1914” gives a comprehensive examination of the opinions and feelings felt during the beginning of the Great War by the German people. This monograph goes into extensive detail on the complexity of the German nation’s reactions and response to the vast, “patriotic outbursts…which many contemporaries and historians categorized as “war enthusiasm.””(2) The content of the book also centers on how German unity was portrayed. “Conservative journals claimed that these crowds spoke for public opinion…what had transformed a materialistic, egotistical German “society” into an idealistic, fraternal, national German “community.””(231)Verhey challenges the myth that all Germans wanted to go to war in 1914 by methodically explaining each of the different regions, classes, and political parties’ reactions and responses. The argument of his work comes down to how well he is able to answer the questions of:
Adams, Michael C. C. The "Best War Ever: America and World War II" Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD 1994. Bailey, Ronald H. The Home Front, U.S.A. Time-Life Publishing, Chicago, IL. 1978 Bard, Mitchell G.
World War II propaganda posters were used mainly for three reasons: to invoke public sympathy for the war cause, to help finance the war, and by encouraging people to support the war. Many t...
Pat Barker's novel Regeneration explores the effects that World War I has on the human condition and more specifically on the condition of the British people. One particular area of exploration is the detrimental presence of class distinctions within the ranks of the British military. This issue of class distinction is addressed specifically on pages 66 and 67 of the novel through a conversation between Billy Prior and Dr. Rivers. The characters' discussion reinforces Barker's theme of the injustices of these class distinctions and the harm they produce on the war front.
"World War II by the Numbers." National World War II Museum n. pag. Web. .
Morley, Joyce Anne Deane. "War Memories: Plotting the Battle of Britain." Letter. 9 Dec. 2003. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. BBC WW2 People's War. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
O'Neill, William L. World War II: A Student Companion. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
...ings by then, whose memories, fears, and enthusiasms should not be remembered." Thus, unlike the title suggests, this remarkable war memoir is not about one soldier. Instead it refers to the entire German army who were defeated by the Allies. Although the German cause was very controversial, these gentlemen bravely fought for their country. Many men died, many were mutilated, and many more had to forever live with the atrocities they encountered. At war's end, however, they were merely "forgotten" for their failure of success. And although The Forgotten Soldier is an astonishing account of the horrors of infantry warfare, it serves a much greater purpose. It allows the historian to glance into the German experience and realize they too were young men fighting because their nation called upon them, and they deserve to be remembered for such a courageous act.
Combo’s “This is England” speech quickly becomes political as he attacks the Falklands War for being a waste of proud English soldiers which upsets Shaun since his father died in that war. Combo’s speech changes as he then promises that 'Shaun can salvage something from [his father’s] sacrifice in fighting the "real war" on the streets: the battle for the England of Englishmen’ (Steans, 2013, p. 76) which essentially reduces the value of Shaun’s father’s life to a bargaining piece to convince Shaun that Combo’s idea of national identity and belonging is the only way to honour his dead father. Combo views the Falklands War as being a “phoney fucking war” (Meadows, 2006) but Meadows commented on how the war was surrounded by xenophobic British
O’Neill, William L. World War II A Student Companion. 1 ed. William H. Chafe. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Lyons, Michael J. World War II - A Short History. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education,
The debate about British Identity has been prominently featured in recent years as a public concern. The foundation of British Identity was based on the act of union in 1801 between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland that created Great Britain. Heath and Roberts describe this identity as “a relatively recent construct and was gradually superimposed on earlier national identities of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish” (2008:4). The four nations were unified mainly because of the political and economic project of the British Empire that developed a shared agenda and The Second World War which melted the distinctive differences between the constituent nations (Ward, 2004). According to Colley, the interests that unified the nations do not exist and even if they do” they are less distinctive” (1992). Although there is identification with Britishness, it is noticeable that Britons hold a stronger allegiance to their primary nation. The British Identity is decreasing as many writers suggested, and this is due to many different trends and influences such as globalization, immigration and communication (Heath and Roberts, 2008). This essay highlights some of the reasons of the decline in the British national identity and the rise of the consentient nation’s sentiment. This is approached by firstly considering the internal factors of the devolution of power to Scotland and Wales, and secondly the external factor of immigration and will analyze the relationship between age and identification with a nation.