Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The economics of World War I: an overview
- 2 The pity of peace: Germany's economy at war, 1914–1918 and beyond
- 3 Austria-Hungary's economy in World War I
- 4 The Ottoman economy in World War I
- 5 Between the devil and the deep blue sea: the Dutch economy during World War I
- 6 Was the Great War a watershed? The economics of World War I in France
- 7 The United Kingdom during World War I: business as usual?
- 8 Poor Russia, poor show: mobilising a backward economy for war, 1914–1917
- 9 Italy at war, 1915–1918
- 10 Until it's over, over there: the US economy in World War I
- Index
- References
7 - The United Kingdom during World War I: business as usual?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 July 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The economics of World War I: an overview
- 2 The pity of peace: Germany's economy at war, 1914–1918 and beyond
- 3 Austria-Hungary's economy in World War I
- 4 The Ottoman economy in World War I
- 5 Between the devil and the deep blue sea: the Dutch economy during World War I
- 6 Was the Great War a watershed? The economics of World War I in France
- 7 The United Kingdom during World War I: business as usual?
- 8 Poor Russia, poor show: mobilising a backward economy for war, 1914–1917
- 9 Italy at war, 1915–1918
- 10 Until it's over, over there: the US economy in World War I
- Index
- References
Summary
Throughout the war there were two phrases which must have been repeated hundreds of times … ‘Every private interest must be subordinated to the successful prosecution of the war’ and ‘There must be as little interference as possible with the normal channels of trade’ … The real problem was to determine the exact degree of interference with normal trade channels that was necessary for the successful prosecution of the war
(Lloyd, 1924: 259).Introduction
World War I transformed the British economy in the short run and had a significant impact on growth and development in the long run. In August 1914 there was little appreciation of the sheer scale of the war effort that would be needed to defeat the Central Powers. Similarly, few could imagine the scale of the sacrifice that the country would be called upon to make, in terms of both the number of men lost on the battlefield and the drain on national finances. Some historians have questioned whether the experience can be called a ‘total war’, but from an economic perspective the term is not too misleading, even though the degree of mobilisation in World War II would turn out to be even greater (Chickering and Förster, 2000; Broadberry and Howlett, 2005). As the war lengthened in duration and the war effort expanded, the tension highlighted by Lloyd (1924) between the initial desire to continue with ‘business as usual’ and the need for co-ordinated state intervention came to the fore.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Economics of World War I , pp. 206 - 234Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
References
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Ministry of Munitions (1923) [1976], History of the Ministry of Munitions, Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester.
Statistical Abstract of the United Kingdom (various dates), London: HMSO.
War Office, (1922) [1999], Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War, 1914–1920, London: Naval and Military Press.
(1986), ‘Temporary and Permanent Government Spending in an Open Economy: Some Evidence for the United Kingdom’, Journal of Monetary Economics 17: 197–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1989), ‘War Finance and Inflation in Britain and Germany, 1914–1918’, Economic History Review 42: 222–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1985), British Food Policy during the First World War, Boston: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
(1974), ‘Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?’, Journal of Political Economy 82: 1095–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1981), ‘Output Effects of Government Purchases’, Journal of Political Economy 89: 1086–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1920), Direct and Indirect Costs of the Great World War (2nd edition), New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(1990), ‘The Emergence of Mass Unemployment: Explaining Macroeconomic Trends during the Trans-World War I Period’, Economic History Review 43: 271–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1998), ‘How did the United States and Germany Overtake Britain? A Sectoral Analysis of Comparative Productivity Levels, 1870–1990’, Journal of Economic History 58: 375–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S. N. and Howlett, P. (1998), ‘The United Kingdom: “Victory at All Costs”’, in (ed.), The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 43–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S. N. and Howlett, P.(2005), ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears: British Mobilisation for World War II’, in and (eds.), A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1939–1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).Google Scholar
(1985), Britain, America and the Sinews of Power, 1914–1918, Boston: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
(1940), The Economic History of Steelmaking, 1867–1939: A Study in Competition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
and (1943), Iron and Steel in Britain, 1870–1930: A Comparative Study of the Causes which Limited the Economic Development of the British Iron and Steel Industry between the Years 1870 and 1930, London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
and (1985), A Monetary History of the United Kingdom, 1870–1982, vol. I: Data, Sources, Methods, London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Capie, F. and Wood, G. (1994), ‘Money in the Economy’, in and (eds.), The Economic History of Britain since 1700, vol. III: 1939–1992, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 217–46.Google Scholar
and (2002), ‘Price Controls in War and Peace: A Marshallian Conclusion’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy 49: 39–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2000) (eds.), Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewey, P. (1988), ‘The New Economic Warfare and Economic Mobilization’, in (ed.), Britain and the First World War, London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
(1972), National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855–1965, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Feinstein, C. H.(1988), ‘Sources and Methods of Estimation for Domestic Reproducible Fixed Assets, Stocks and Works in Progress, Overseas Assets and Land’, in and (eds.), Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom, 1750–1920, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 259–471.Google Scholar
Ferguson, N. (2000), ‘How (Not) to Pay for the War: Traditional Finance and “Total” War’, in and (eds.), Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 409–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodhart, A. E. (1986), ‘Comment on “The Summer of 1914” ’, in and (eds.), Financial Crises and the World Banking System, London: Macmillan, pp. 117–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1919), The Iron and Steel Industry of the United Kingdom under War Conditions: A Record of the Work of the Iron and Steel Production Department of the Ministry of Munitions, London: Harrison and Sons.Google Scholar
(1977), The British Coalmining Industry, 1870–1946: A Political and Economic History, London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (1982), British Economic Growth, 1856–1973, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1984), The Economic Effects of the Two World Wars on Britain (2nd edition), London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mowery, D. (1986), ‘Industrial Research’, in and (eds.), The Decline of the British Economy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 189–222.Google Scholar
(1963), The Economics of the Wartime Shortage: A History of British Food Supplies in the Napoleonic War and in World Wars I and II, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
and (1967), The Growth of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom (2nd edition), London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
(1985), British Economic and Social Policy: Lloyd George to Margaret Thatcher, Oxford: Philip Allan.Google Scholar
(1992), The Development of the British Economy (4th edition): 1914–1990, London: Arnold.Google Scholar
(1921) Allied Shipping Control: An Experiment in International Administration, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
(1994), ‘The Cotton Industry and the British War Effort, 1914–1918’, Economic History Review 47: 601–18.Google Scholar
(1987), The History of the British Coal Industry, vol. IV: 1913–1946: The Political Economy of Decline, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Trebilcock, C. (1975), ‘War and the Failure of Industrial Mobilisation: 1899 and 1914’, in (ed.), War and Economic Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 139–64.Google Scholar
(1978), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. VIII: 1914–39, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(2000), The Management of the National Debt of the United Kingdom, 1900–32, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wrigley, C. (1982), ‘The Ministry of Munitions: An Innovatory Department’, in (ed.), The War and the State: The Transformation of British Government, 1914–1919, London: George Allen and Unwin, pp. 32–56.Google Scholar
Wrigley, C.(2000), ‘The War and the International Economy’, in (ed.), The First World War and the International Economy, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp. 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2000), Austerity in Britain. Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
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