Modern Warfare and Technology

The century that reached everybody

In 1914 Britain went to war with an army of volunteers, a machine gun that fired five hundred rounds a minute, and a public that learned of battles from censored dispatches days later. By 1945 it had conscripted men and women, lost some 60,000 civilians to bombing, and seen a single aircraft destroy a city. By 2003 it fought with satellites, guided bombs and six hundred journalists living inside its units. Two things run through the whole block and the examiners reward both: technology changed what war could do, and society changed who fought it, who paid for it and what the public was allowed to think about it. This module gives you the block with its dates and figures, then the three question shapes, and it keeps pointing back to the earlier blocks, because the best answers on this paper compare across the centuries.

Five words the examiners use

Each definition ends with a date or a figure, because a term without support earns one mark where a supported one earns two.

The first war, in order

Put these six developments of the first war and its aftermath in the order they happened.

• The first Zeppelin raid on Britain kills civilians at Great Yarmouth and King Lynn
• The Germans release chlorine gas at Ypres
• Parliament passes the Military Service Act
• The first tanks go into action at Flers on the Somme
• The Royal Air Force is formed from the army and navy flying corps
• A single aircraft destroys Hiroshima with an atomic bomb

Why conscription in 1916?

Britain had fought every war since 1660 with volunteers, and in 1914 and 1915 some 2.5 million men joined up. In January 1916 Parliament made service compulsory. Which explanation best accounts for the change?

• Volunteering had fallen away by the autumn of 1915 while the losses of trench warfare and the offensive planned for 1916 demanded far more men; the Derby Scheme of October 1915 had shown that a million single men would not come forward; and volunteering was taking skilled workers the munitions factories needed while leaving others untouched.
• Germany had always used conscription, so Britain copied it.
• Conscripts were cheaper to pay than volunteers.
• The government wanted to punish conscientious objectors.

Change and continuity: 1914 against 2003

The block is a century long, so the comparison question can reach from one end to the other. Put them side by side.

Attitudes in society

Five statements about war and the public in this block. Tap the TWO that show reporting or film changing public attitudes, as opposed to describing how war was reported.

• Under the Defence of the Realm Act of August 1914 the press could not print troop movements or casualty figures without permission.
• The Battle of the Somme, an official film released in August 1916, was seen by some twenty million people in six weeks and gave many of them their first sight of the dead and wounded.
• In 1982 fewer than thirty journalists sailed with the task force to the Falklands and no live television reached Britain from the islands.
• From 2007 the coffins of soldiers killed in Afghanistan were driven through Wootton Bassett, and the crowds that gathered turned the repatriations into a national ceremony that ministers could not ignore.
• In 2003 about six hundred reporters were embedded with British and American units in Iraq.

Recruitment across the century

Select the THREE statements that are true of recruitment in the years c1900 to the present.

• About 2.5 million men volunteered between August 1914 and January 1916, many of them in Pals battalions raised from one town or workplace.
• Single women aged twenty to thirty were conscripted from December 1941, the first time any state had conscripted women.
• National Service kept peacetime conscription going from 1949 until the last intake of 1960, at first for eighteen months and from 1950 for two years.
• Conscription was introduced on the first day of the war in 1914.
• National Service is still in force today.
• Women were barred from the armed forces until 2018.

The throughline: attitudes in society

The grade-9 note for this block asks you to trace attitudes in society across the whole period as a genuine thread, and to connect it to the Blitz. Have the thread ready with its dates: Objectors. Some 16,000 refused to fight in the first war; tribunals, prison for the absolutists, white feathers in the street. In the second war 59,192 registered and most were given farm or hospital work: the state had learned that punishing conscience made martyrs. Reporting. Censorship under the Defence of the Realm Act from 1914, then the Somme film of 1916 seen by twenty million; the Ministry of Information and Home Intelligence in the second war; tight control in the Falklands in 1982; live television from the Gulf in 1991 and embedded reporters in 2003. Each war the public saw more, and each war the state tried to shape what it saw. Fear. Zeppelins in 1915, the Blitz in 1940, and after 1945 the bomb: the Aldermaston march of 1958, the Cuban crisis of 1962, Protect and Survive in 1980 and the women at Greenham Common from 1981. The civilian became a target, and knew it. A 16-mark answer that runs this thread from 1914 to 2003 with dates is doing what the examiners describe as the top level.

Whitehall decides

Four decisions taken in London across the century. Choose what was actually done, and notice what each choice cost or won.

• May 1915. The Germans have used chlorine at Ypres and the newspapers are calling it barbarous. What does the War Office do?
• December 1915. The Derby Scheme has asked every man to attest that he will serve if called, and a million single men have not. The offensive of 1916 needs them. What do you do?
• Autumn 1941. Every man who can be called up has been, the factories are short of a million workers, and the anti-aircraft batteries need crews. What do you do?
• April 1982. The task force is sailing for the Falklands and every newspaper and broadcaster wants to send a correspondent. What does the Ministry of Defence do?

From cause to consequence

Because the losses of the trenches outran the volunteers, Britain conscripted men for the first time in _____, and the conscientious objector appeared with them. Because the aeroplane could cross the Channel, civilians became targets, about 1,400 in the first war and about _____ in the second. Because a single bomb destroyed Hiroshima, the fear of war after 1945 was a fear felt at home, which put marchers on the road to _____ in 1958. Because the state could not stop the public seeing war, it tried to shape the seeing, from the Somme film of 1916 to the _____ reporters of 2003. And because the enemy of 2003 fought with roadside bombs rather than armies, the _____ army of Britain, with all its technology, lost 179 dead in Iraq and 454 in Afghanistan.

Why the machine gun ruled

A Vickers machine gun could fire about 500 rounds a minute. A trained rifleman fired about 15 aimed rounds a minute. How many riflemen would it take to match one machine gun, to the nearest whole number?

Question 3: similarity or difference

Question 3 reads: Explain one way in which the recruitment of soldiers in 1815 was different from recruitment in 1916. It is marked one point of comparison plus detail from each period. Which answer scores all four marks?

• In 1815 the army was made up of men who had chosen to enlist, often for life and often the poorest, whom Wellington himself called the scum of the earth, whereas from January 1916 the Military Service Act made every single man of eighteen to forty-one liable to serve whether he chose to or not, with tribunals to hear those who claimed exemption.
• In 1916 conscription was introduced by the Military Service Act because volunteers had run out.
• Recruitment was very different in 1916 from 1815 because the army was much bigger.
• In both 1815 and 1916 the army needed men, and in both years it found them.

A 12-mark paragraph, marked

Question 4: Explain why the recruitment of soldiers changed in the years c1900 to the present. One reason recruitment changed was the scale of the losses on the Western Front. Britain entered the war in August 1914 with a small professional army and relied on volunteers, and by January 1916 some 2.5 million men had joined, many in Pals battalions raised from a single town. But by the autumn of 1915 the flow of volunteers had fallen away while the army was losing men faster than it could replace them, and the Derby Scheme of October 1915 showed that about a million single men of military age would not come forward. This meant that the offensive planned for 1916 could not be manned by choice, and on 27 January 1916 Parliament passed the Military Service Act, making single men of eighteen to forty-one liable to serve, and extended it to married men in May. Compulsion was the answer to attrition, and once it had been used it was used again in 1939 and kept in peacetime from 1949 to 1960. What earned the marks: a cause named in the first sentence; specific support (the 2.5 million, the Pals, the Derby Scheme, the date and terms of the Act); the link phrase this meant that; and a closing sentence that returns to the question and carries the change forward. Two more paragraphs, on the recruitment of women in 1941 and on the professional army after 1963, and the answer reaches the top level.

Write the 12-mark answer

Explain why the impact of war on civilians increased in the years c1900 to the present. You may use the following in your answer: aircraft; nuclear weapons. You must also use information of your own.

• Support that counts: a date, a raid, a figure, a law or a campaign
• Causes of your own: conscription and total war, rationing and the Defence of the Realm Act, the recruitment of women, or reporting and propaganda

Question 5: how far do you agree?

Question 5 might read: "Technology was the main reason for change in warfare in the years c1900 to the present." How far do you agree? A student has written the case FOR. Which is the strongest point to set AGAINST it?

• The changes in who fought and who was watched came from politics and society, not from machines: conscription in 1916 and 1939, women conscripted in 1941, national service ending in 1960, the treatment of objectors, and the control of the press from the Defence of the Realm Act to the Falklands, none of which a new weapon caused.
• Horses were still used in 1914.
• Roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan were low-tech.
• The Somme was fought with machine guns and artillery.