Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
EIT Week 16- The General Strike of 1926 (Social Order maintained? (Labour…
EIT Week 16- The General Strike of 1926
The Butcher's Bill
Total dead- 16 million
Total wounded- 21 million
Total casualties- 37 million
British Empire- 900,000 killed
Germany- 2 million
France- 1.4 million
Russia- 2.2 million
Western Front- cockpit of Europe
Britain
1917- Imperial War Graves Commission Established
1918-1938- Cemetery Building Programme
By 1927- 500 cemeteries had been built (mainly in France and Belgium)
Largest post-1918 war cemetery- Tyne Cot (Belgium)- 12,000 burials
Key features of all cemeteries- Cross of Sacrifice; Stone of Remembrance; uniform headstones
1921- Royal British Legion founded
1928- Royal British Legion Pilgrimage to the Western Front
War Memorials
France
French Ossuary Memorial, Verdun
Monuments aux Morts
Germany
Cult of the War Dead
Veterans' Groups
Britain- Industrial Unrest
- trade union membership increases loads by 1919- wave of strikes 1919-21- demobilisation riots- police strikes in Liverpool and London- government feared something akin to Russian Revolution
France- Industrial Unrest
- 3926 strikes led by CGT- Conservatives feared 'German' bolshevism- Communists and Socialists split
Representation of the People Act- Feb 1918
1918 Education Act- free and compulsory schooling to 14
1919 Housing Act- subsidies for building 210,000 rent-controlled houses
1924 Housing Act- by 1933, local authorities built 500,000 council homes for rent
Use of volunteers and propaganda
Middle-class volunteers- army veterans, students- also used to break strikes
French Civic Unions in 1920
France, 1920- ‘an infinitesimal minority’ wanted revolution
Britain, 1920s- communist party wins 1% of the vote (Tories win 38%)
The General Strike 1926
- begins with dispute in coal industry- industry not modernised- mine owners proposed wage cuts- Miners Unions' opposed these- short-term subsidy for miners- Samuel Commission recommended modernisation- both sides rejected proposals- Baldwin government stockpiled coal supplies- Trades Union Congress called General Strike- soldiers used to protect stockpiles of coal and food- BBC placed under pressure to support government- caused bitterness between the classes rather than between strikes and police and troops
Social Order maintained?
Labour won seats in local government elections from 1927 and won the general election in 1929
There was sympathy for miners and criticism of the government
Miners saw they wages cut, but other industries didn’t
Results of the strike weren’t so clear
1927- government made ‘sympathy strikes’ illegal- union members have to opt-in to Labour Party subsidy whereas it had been automatic in the past
TUC lost half a million members
Miners went back to work in November 1926 for lower pay and shorter hours
TUC called off the General Strike on 11 May as victory looked unlikely
TUC spent £4 million of its £12 million strike fund in 12 days