POPULAR NEWSPAPERS DURING WORLD WAR I

Part 3: 1918-1919 (The Daily Express, the Daily Mirror, the News of the World, The People and The Sunday Express)

When the world descended into the First World War, a barbaric struggle of unparalleled brutality, the primary method for the dissemination of news was the popular press. The British Government realised this and exercised strict controls over reporting. However, these newspapers still have a great deal to offer historians of this period.

Many reporters followed the troops at the front and provide eye-witness reports of conflicts such as the Somme and Gallipoli. They report on the resigned bravery of the common soldier, and the attitudes of their commanders; on the efforts of the nursing corps, and the fate of prisoners of war; on the inflexible nationalist fervour of domestic politicians, and the revolutionary struggles in Russia.

Complete sets of The Daily Express, The Daily Mirror, The News of the World, The People and Sunday Express enable researchers to compare and contrast the reporting of the particular issues and events across the breadth of the popular press. In the case of The Daily Express, scholars can see the impact made on the editorial content of a newspaper by a change in ownership - as William Maxwell Beaverbrook, aged 36, acquired The Daily Express from R D Blumenfeld in 1915.

Part 3 concludes the project and covers both 1918 and 1919. The cumulative impact of Allied naval supremacy (consequently reducing Axis supplies) and the growing presence of American forces on the Western front forced the war to a conclusion. After watching Bulgaria, Turkey and Austria collapse, the Kaiser fled and peace was formalised by the armistice of 11 November 1918. Over 7 million men had been killed in the war and the economies of many of the major powers were wrecked. The Peace Treaties signed in 1919 were deliberately punitive and sowed the seeds for the Second World war twenty years later. In Britain, women were given the vote and were to enter nearly all public offices and professions and Lady Astor was the first women MP elected to take her seat in Parliament. Union power began to exert an influence as a threatened miners’ strike and a successful railway strike paved the way for labour unrest in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Violence at the General Strike in Glasgow (31 June) threatened social unrest.

These newspapers provide a mass of evidence for the social history of this period, as the popular press always sought to reflect popular culture and stay in touch with public opinion concerning the war, labour disputes, women’s right to vote and work, and the human issues of the period.