Hello and welcome to this lesson on the impact of World War I across the British Empire.

In this unit on World War I, we've looked at the tension that was building up in Europe in the 1900s, the outbreak of war in 1914, and the events that led to it.

Also what it was like to be on the Western Front and who was fighting on the Western Front.

We've also looked at the impact of the war in Britain across the British Empire.

However, today what we're going to be focusing on is the impact of the war across the British Empire.

For this lesson, you're going to need a piece of paper and a pen.

If you don't have one, that's absolutely fine, not to worry.

Just pause the video now, go and get everything you need, and then come back and press Play when you're ready to go.

Great work.

Now you've got everything you need to get started, let's have a look at our first lesson slide.

On this lesson slide, you'll see your lesson outcome.

The lesson outcome is that you can explain the impact that World War I had on life both in Britain, and in the colonies of the British Empire.

Before we start making our way towards an assessment outcome, we're going to need some key words.

And for today we have four key words.

Total war, empire, colonial, and home rule.

It'll be a great idea for us to have a look at some definitions of these key words before we see them in the context of the lesson.

So a total war is a conflict in which countries involved are willing to make any sacrifices to achieve the victory.

This often leads to it impacting lots of different people in lots of different ways.

Hence the phrase total war.

An empire is a group of countries or provinces ruled by one person or a group of people.

The term colonial relates to a country or area under the control of another country, and occupied by settlers of that country.

And then finally, home rule is when a country is given some independence, usually in the form of their own government.

Now, let's get started on today's lesson.

Our lesson for today is broken into two parts.

In the first part of this lesson, we'll be looking at the impact of World War I, both at home in Britain and across the British Empire.

Before we start to look specifically at the impact of the war in different places, it's worth having a think about why it's called a total war in the first place.

So remember, total war is one of our key words, and that's a war in which a country is willing to make any sacrifices necessary.

And World War I is often called a total war, although historians have then asked whether this was a total war for everyone.

This then begs the question of, was the impact for different people in different places the same? Was it as significant in some places? Was it smaller in some places, did it impact more people in certain areas of the world? Did it impact all these different people in the same way? For example, did it impact them positively? Did it impact them negatively? Did it impact them for a short period of time, or a long period of time? And therefore, this has meant that historians have looked at the impact of the war in different people in different places, in order to be able to answer the question whether it was a total war for everyone involved.

And that's what we're going to be doing this lesson.

And in order to do that, we're going to start off, like I said, by looking at the impact of the war in Britain.

First, let's have a look at the impact on British troops.

You may already know that for British troops, the war was absolutely devastating.

Although there were only 700,000 men in the army in August 1914, by the end of 1918, an estimated 4,000,000 men had joined the war effort.

Many of those 4,000,000 men had fought in trenches.

This included men who had chosen to fight, but also those who had been forced as a result of conscription, which had been introduced in 1916.

Conscription, as you might know, is when men, or women, within a certain age bracket, who were considered medically fit, are instructed to join the army.

In this case, it was all men between the ages of 18 to 41.

And sometimes there were men much younger than 18, there were young boys who had lied about their age because at the time, the war had been made to seem like an exciting adventure.

So for these troops, the war had a devastating impact.

Millions of them would go to fight in conditions that were unimaginable.

However, if we look at the impact on women in Britain, the story becomes slightly more complicated.

For women, the war led to greater independence, although not immediately for all women.

This is because, as a result of the millions of women who joined the workforce to replace the men at war, previous centuries of protests demanding for change in the right to vote, were finally starting to be listened to.

By 1917, there were 4.

7 million women working in factories, as secretaries, as police officers, in the transport industry, and anywhere else they were needed.

This meant that although they still faced so much prejudice from the men who had remained on the home front, to fight and work in various industries, many people had started to listen to their demands for greater independence, like I said, these demands had been being made for centuries.

The protests had been going on for some time.

But their contributions in the war effort meant that lots of politicians were finally willing to listen.

These contributions, therefore, led to the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which gave women over 30 the right to vote, provided they had a certain amount of property.

So like I said, it did lead to huge change almost immediately after the war, but not for all women.

In this case, it was women over 30.

However, further campaigning and further protests and further demands for change led to all women over 21 gaining the vote in 1914.

Now this is a very different story from the story of the British troops that I just mentioned.

So as we can see in looking at just two different groups of people, in Britain, the war had very different impacts, but we can definitely say it was significant, that means quite important, for both of these different groups.

And finally, in thinking about the impact of the war at home, we're going to look at the impact of the war on Ireland's journey towards independence.

Now for Ireland, the war slowed their journey towards independence from Britain.

Although they had been promised home rule in 1912, remember, that's a greater level of independence usually in the form of their own government.

This promise was postponed when Britain joined the war in 1914.

Now following this, 200,000 Irish troops joined the war to fight for Britain, and 35,000 of them lost their lives.

Despite this huge contribution, home rule was not granted in 1918.

And it wasn't until 1921 the island was partitioned.

Northern Ireland gained home rule and remained part of the United Kingdom, and the Irish Free State gained dominion status.

That's a type of partial independence where you're not a formally independent nation, but you can largely rule yourself.

Now, we can see here that yes, eventually Ireland gained independence.

But in looking at the impact of the war on Ireland, we can see that the impact of the war very much delayed this journey to independence.

Home rule had been promised in 1912.

While that wasn't complete independence, we'll never know how quickly that journey might have ended in Irish independence had Britain not joined World War I, or had the war not broken out in the first place.

Before we go on to have a look at the impact of the war across the British Empire, we're going to stop for a moment, and check our understanding so far.

Which of these statements best describes the impact of World War I in Britain? Is it A, World War I only impacted the millions of men who volunteered or were conscripted to fight? Is it B, World War I led to significant changes for most British people, although the impact was different for different people? Or is it C, World War I had very little impact in Britain, as most of the fighting was done on the Western Front? I'd like you to have a think at everything we just talked about.

Pause the video, and when you think you have an answer, come back and press Play.

Excellent work, the answer is indeed B.

The statement that best describes the impact of World War I in Britain is this statement.

World War I led to significant changes for most British people, although the impact was different for different people As we just spoke about, for the British troops who fought, the war was devastating.

They had to fight, most of them in trenches, in conditions that were unimaginable and far from anything they could have anticipated.

For women, the war led to significant change.

Although for some groups of women, that change came faster than for others.

The war had a very significant impact for Ireland as well, however, in the case of Ireland, it was not as positive as for women.

It led to a delay in their journey towards independence, with home rule being promised in 1912, but only being granted to Northern Ireland in 1921, and the Irish Free State not gaining the full independence they wanted until decades later, we can say that yes, there were significant changes for most British people, but that impact was not the same for everyone.

Now let's have a look at the impact of the war across the British Empire.

By 1914, the British Empire stretched across many different parts of the world.

This meant that when Britain declared war on Germany on the 4th of August 1914, declaring their entry into World War I, many of these colonies would be impacted in very direct ways, but also in less direct ways.

One of the groups of people who would be impacted in very direct ways were the colonial troops who fought on the Western Front.

And many of these troops came from British India.

That's because of the 3 million troops that fought for Britain from different colonies across the British Empire, 1.

5 million of them came from British India.

That's because British India had the largest standing army of all of Britain's colonies, they would be crucial in their hopes of winning World War I.

Having the largest standing army meant that they had the most men ready to go to war when it broke out in 1914.

Of these 1.

5 million troops who came from British India, 130,000 of them fought on the Western Front, as we can see in this picture.

This is a photograph of British Indian troops arriving in Marseilles in 1914, ready to fight on the Western Front.

Indian troops fought in huge numbers in some of the most significant battles on the Western Front.

That includes Second Battle of Ypres, when the German army used chlorine gas for the first time, and in the Battle of the Somme, where hundreds of thousands of them lost their lives in the first few days of battle.

Now of the 1.

5 million Indian troops who would contribute to the British War effort, 74,000, lost their lives fighting for Britain across the world.

Now that's a very direct impact of the war, that was devastating.

That's a huge number of lives lost.

But also the war had an impact in different ways.

For those colonial troops that survived and returned to British India, many of them felt that Britain should grant India their independence for the huge contribution they'd made to the war.

Like Ireland, they'd expected that after making such huge contributions, in turn, they would be granted their freedom, their right to have their own government and rule themselves.

So as we can see, that the impact of the war on colonial troops on the Western Front, but also when they returned back to the colonies, was both direct, in terms of devastation of the huge number of lives lost, but also indirect, in how it changed people's ideas and led to greater demands for independence.

Now let's have a think about the impact on colonial troops on the East and West African Front.

Now you might already know, but despite successfully weakening German control in East and West Africa, the war had a catastrophic impact on the African continent.

Not just for those fighting, but also for civilians.

That's because, troops from Britain's colonies in Africa, especially the colony of Nigeria, and the Gold Coast colony, which is now modern day Ghana and Nigeria, they fought to take control of German colonies in East and West Africa.

The colony of Togoland was quickly taken in 1914, and 1000 German troops defending the colony of Cameroon fought against the British army.

At this time, the British army was made up of 3000 locally-recruited soldiers, and they fought against them until they surrendered in 1916.

That was two years of fighting.

And we do know that it was different to the Western Front, but this often resulted in many casualties.

While this was happening, the campaign to take control in German East Africa had already begun.

That lasted for the duration of the war, from 1914 to 1918.

Although after weakening German control in West Africa, the fighting in East Africa would only become more intense, as the troops that fought for Britain in West Africa moved over to East Africa in order to support the campaign there.

During the fighting in the East Africa Campaign, 105,000 troops from British colonies lost their lives.

45,000 of them were men from what is now Kenya.

In addition to this, 300,000 civilians in East Africa were killed, as the campaign was not fought in trenches away from civilians like it was on the Western Front.

So we can see here that when we were talking about the impact on colonial troops in the Western Front, we were talking about huge numbers of casualties from soldiers fighting on the battlefields.

However, when we're looking at the impact on colonial troops on the East and West African Front, we also see huge numbers of civilian deaths, because the nature of the fighting in these campaigns was different.

It was not fought in battlefields largely away from civilian areas.

In this case, we're seeing civilians being directly affected by the war.

Hence what I said earlier, that the war had a catastrophic impact on the African continent.

And finally, we're going to have a look at the impact of the war on colonial troops in East Asia.

When thinking about the impact of the war on colonial troops in East Asia, it's important to consider that for many troops, the war had resulted in them travelling thousands of miles to several different continents, which is an impact in itself.

An example of this is the thousands of Indian troops that made their way to the Western Front in 1914.

For another example is the siege that led to Japan joining the war.

And many colonial troops from across the British Empire travelling as far as East Asia to support the British war effort.

As Britain was looking to attack the German city of Qingdao in China to weaken their power in Asia, Japan saw this as an opportunity to expand their empire into China, all in the name of supporting their British ally.

In August 1914, 1500 Indian and Welsh troops landed in the Port of Qingdao to support 20,000 troops in the siege of the port.

And the siege was successful.

Japan took control of the port, and the Indian and Welsh troops were sent to fight for Britain elsewhere.

So here we can see that troops are sent to fight far beyond their colonies, sometimes in support of other British allies, but ultimately to defend the British Empire.

Now we've had a look at the impact of the war, both in Britain and across the British Empire, let's take a moment to pause, and check our understanding so far.

I would like you to decide whether the following statement is true or false.

World War I had a widespread impact across the British Empire.

Pause the video, have a think.

And when you think you have an idea, come back and press Play.

Great work, the statement is in fact true.

But we need to think about why.

Do you think that this statement is true because A, colonial troops fought at home and abroad and civilians and colonies lost their lives? Or is it true because colonial troops only fought in small local battles, although they often resulted in many deaths? Again, take a minute to think, pause the video while you do so, and then come back and press Play when you have an idea.

Great work, the answer is A.

Colonial troops fought at home and abroad, and civilians in colonies also lost their lives.

Now let's put what we've learnt so far into practise.

I would like you to complete the following table to show whether the impact is an example of the impact of World War I in Britain, or across the British Empire.

Pause the video now, give yourself about five minutes to complete this table, and then come back when you're done.

Excellent work so far, let's have a look at what your completed table should look like.

So in, 1917, 4.

7 million women were working in Britain.

This is an example of the impact of World War I in Britain.

300,000 civilians were killed in the East Africa campaign.

This is an example of the impact of World War I across the British Empire, 74,000 Indian troops lost their lives fighting for Britain.

Again, this is an example of the impact of World War I across the British Empire.

And home rule was not granted to Ireland in 1918.

Although Ireland had been colonised, and people in Ireland were fighting for independence from Imperial rule by Britain, Ireland at the time was technically still part of Britain, rather than being a colony.

That's why there's a tick in the Britain column, because this statement shows us that people within Britain were fighting for their own independence, which was postponed as a result of World War I.

Really well done in this first part of the lesson.

So far, we've looked at the impact of World War I, both at home and abroad.

You've been able to look at different examples of the impact of the war, and decide whether that shows the impact in Britain or across the British Empire.

However, what we're going to move on to now is looking at how we can best explain the impact of World War I, moving from being able to give a list of the different ways that different people were impacted, to explaining what that impact might look like.

In order to do this, we're going to need to look at some appropriate vocabulary, in order to best convey our ideas.

Here's some examples.

We might say that the war had a significant impact.

You've heard me say this already.

What that means is that it had an impact that was considered very important.

Now we should bear in mind, this doesn't necessarily mean that the impact was good or bad, but that it was an important impact.

We might also say that the war had a large-scale impact.

That means it's an impact that affects lots of different areas.

We could also say that the war had a permanent impact.

So it might have led to a change that has lasted until now.

For example, women gaining the vote.

We know that women still have the right to vote on equal terms to men.

Or we might say that the war had a revolutionary impact, an impact that results in extreme change.

Or we could say, the war was devastating.

That means that it had a destructive or damaging impact.

So these are different ways to describe the impact of the war on different people in different places.

We might choose to use one, or we might choose to use more than one, because in some places, the war might have had a devastating impact, but it was also significant.

Now let's take a moment and check our understanding of this new vocabulary.

I would like you to explain which two of the following judgements suggest that World War I had an extreme impact on women that has lasted until now.

Think about that new vocabulary that we just learnt about.

Is it A, World War I had a revolutionary impact on women in Britain? B, World War I had a large-scale impact on women in Britain? C, World War I had a permanent impact on women in Britain? Or D, World War I had a significant impact on women in Britain? Remember, you're picking two of these statements.

I'd like you to pause the video, have a think, and then come back when you've got an idea.

Great work.

We know that statements A and C suggest that World War I had an extreme impact on women that has lasted 'til now.

So a revolutionary impact is one that we could say had an extreme impact.

It led to a really big change that may not have been expected, or possible without a large event.

But we can also say that statement C suggests that World War I had an impact that has lasted 'til now, because it says that it had a permanent impact on women in Britain.

Really well done.

Let's get back to figuring out how we can best explain the impact of World War I in Britain and across the British Empire.

So to continue developing our understanding of how we can best explain the impact of World War I, we're going to look at some of our students' attempts to explain their understanding of the impact of World War I.

First we have Andeep.

Andeep said that World War I had a revolutionary impact on women in Britain.

As a result of a lack of male workers, many women joined the workforce.

This had a significant impact on women, as they gained greater independence, which contributed to some women gaining the vote in 1918.

But we also had Lucas, who said that World War I had a significant impact on women in Britain.

Lots of women worked in factories to help the British army.

Many more women felt more independent, because they'd been working during the war.

In 1918, some women gained the right to vote.

In 1928, all women over 21 gained the right to vote.

I would like you to take a moment and think which of these two students is beginning to explain the impact of World War I.

Pause the video now and give yourself a couple of minutes to reread the statements, and really think about which of these students is using the language we just spoke about to explain the impact of World War I.

When you've decided which student is beginning to explain the impact of World War I, come back and press Play.

Great work.

If you had a look at the language being used by these students, you would've seen that it's Andeep that is starting to explain the impact of World War I for women in Britain.

You can see this by the words highlighted in green.

Here, he's explaining how the war had an impact on women instead of just listing key events.

He's using phrases like "As a result.

"This had a significant impact, "which contributed to." But more importantly, in that first sentence, we can see that he said it had a revolutionary impact.

So this use of our new vocabulary, but also phrases that help us connect different bits of information to show how one led to another, rather than just listing the key events that we saw Lucas doing.

Now we've had a look at what a student explaining the impact of the war looks like, let's check our understanding with a few more examples.

I would like you to explain which of the following students is explaining the impact of the war on Indian troops.

Is it A, Izzy, who says that "In 1914, "World War I began.

"1.

5 million troops from India served Britain in the war.

"130,000 fought on the Western Front, "in the Second Battle of Ypres, "and the Battle of the Somme?" Or is it B, Jun? Who said that "1.

5 million troops fought for Britain.

"130,000 of them fought on the Western Front, 74,000 died.

"Many called for independence?" Or is it C, Sam, who says that "1.

5 million troops fought for Britain.

"As a result, 74,000 lost their lives.

"This had a huge impact on India "as many now called for independence?" Pause the video, have a think.

Take a few minutes to reread if you need to.

And when you've decided which of the following students is explaining the impact of the war, come back and press Play.

Great work, we can see that the answer is Sam.

Here we can see an excellent explanation of the impact of the war on Indian troops.

We can see phrases like "As a result, "this had a huge impact on India as," and it's those type of phrases that really help us clearly explain the impact of the war on Indian troops.

Now what I'd like you to do is to put all of what we've learnt into practise.

I would like you, firstly, to write one paragraph explaining the impact of World War I in Britain.

When you're doing this, remember to use key words, and remember to clearly explain the impact of World War I using phrases like "As a result," or "This led to," not just listing different events or different ways that people were impacted in Britain.

And finally, I would like you to use at least two examples to support your point.

Give yourself five to 10 minutes to write this paragraph, and when you're done, come back and press Play.

Absolutely excellent work so far.

I'm so impressed with all the work you've done this lesson.

Now let's have a look at what your first paragraph might have included.

"World War I had a large-scale impact in Britain "As a result of the war, "4.

7 million women were working in Britain by 1917.

"This led to greater independence for women, "and helped some women over 30 "win the right to vote in 1918, "and eventually all women over 21 in 1928.

"However, the impact was less positive in Ireland, "as it slowed the journey towards Irish independence.

"As a result of the outbreak of war in 1914, "home rule was postponed.

"Despite the contribution "of 200,000 Irish troops in the war, "home rule was still not granted in 1918 when the war ended.

"It was not until 1921, when Ireland was partitioned, "that Northern Ireland gained home rule." Now you were able to use lots of vocabulary to explain the impact of the war, through things like as a result, this led to, or despite.

Or phrases like large-scale impact, to explain the type of impact in World War I.

You've done an absolutely incredible job.

We can also see in this paragraph the use of one of our key words, home rule.

So if you use one of our key words in your paragraph, absolutely excellent work.

Now for our final practise task of today, I would like you to write another paragraph, but this time a paragraph on the impact of World War I across the British Empire.

In this paragraph, I'd like you to use key words such as empire and colonial.

I would like you again to clearly explain the impact of World War I, using phrases like as a result or this led to.

If you struggled a little bit last time, that's absolutely fine, but hopefully that model paragraph showed you how you can use that kind of language throughout your paragraph.

And lastly, just like we've just seen, I would love for you to use at least two examples to support your points.

Again, give yourself no more than 10 minutes to write the second paragraph, and come back and press Play when you're done.

Really well done.

You've now written two fantastic paragraphs on the impact of World War I, both at home in Britain and across the British Empire.

Let's have a look at what your final paragraph might have looked like.

"World War I had a devastating impact "across the British Empire.

"For Indian troops, 74,000 lost their lives in battle "as a result of 1.

5 million "serving in the British Indian Army.

"This led to some to call for Indian independence as a result of their contributions.

"For locally-recruited soldiers across Africa, "the war led to a huge number of casualties.

"105,000 colonial troops lost their lives "in the East Africa Campaign, "45,000 of them from modern-day Kenya.

"However, the war did not only have a devastating impact "on those who fought.

"The East Africa campaign also resulted "in the deaths of 300,000 civilians in East Africa, "as the battles there were not fought in trenches "away from the civilians." Absolutely fantastic work this lesson.

Now let's stop very quickly just to look at a summary of what we've learnt in this lesson.

So we've seen in this lesson that World War I had a devastating impact both in Britain and across the British Empire.

We've also seen that World War I was fought by 4,000,000 British men, and around 3,000,000 soldiers from the British Empire and former colonies.

We've also seen that as a result of the war, life in Britain changed forever, as women joined the workforce and gained greater independence.

And finally, we have seen the war slowed Ireland's journey towards independence from Britain, and eventually resulted in the partition of Ireland in 1921.

Fantastic work, I'm sure you've written some excellent paragraphs, really well done today.