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Social Impact Of Ww1 Essay

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What impact did WW1 have on the Australian home front? World War I was a global war based in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) had great involvement in the war, serving as part of the British Empire. In Australia, or the ‘Australian home front’ the war had major impact, in many aspects of the Australian society. Conscription was a social impact of WWI, ‘The Enemy Within’ was a social impact of WWI and women were a social impact of WWI. Conscription was a social impact of WWI on the Australian home front, as it heavily divided the Australian community. Unlike other countries such as England and Germany, Australia did not have conscription at the outbreak of WWI in 1914. The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) relied …show more content…

Desperate to get men to list, in December 1915 Labor Prime Minister William Hughes issued a ‘Call to Arms’ to all men aged 18 to 45: “..if you love your country, if you love your freedom, the take your place alongside your fellow Australians as the front” . Intense recruiting campaigns were also used to entice enough men to enlist. Many urged the government to introduce conscription, but Australia had a federal Labor government in power at the time, whose platform disapproved of conscription. Labor supporters thought it unfair that there be conscription of working men when there was no conscription of the wealth and privileged. In 1916, after returning from seeing the devastation on the Western Front, Hughes was convinced that Australia should introduce conscription, blatantly going against Labor policy. On the 28 October 1916 Hughes decided to hold a referendum on the issue “Are you in favor of the government having, in this grave emergency…compulsory power over citizens in regard to requiring their military service”. The proposal was narrowly defeated. Conscription split the Labor Government. Hughes, with twenty-three of his Labor supporters left the Labor party

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