Chapter two
Dora stands for The Defence of the Realm Act; it was introduced by the British Government in August 1914. This gave the Government a lot of power; they could choose what the public heard or read, imprison people without trial, take over the economic resources for the war effort and place numerous restrictions on a citizen’s life.
The Government wanted the people to think that the war was going well, they did not want anyone finding out about all the losses that had happened on the western front, so to make sure no one heard about it the government: could not talk about Navel or military matters in a public place, newspapers could only report good things about the British army and bad things about the Germans and free speech also became a victim of DORA.
When the men had to leave to join the army, the women had to take all the men’s jobs, to keep Britain going. Most of the women got jobs as: Nurses, teacher, drove ambulances and some even became policewomen. But most of them went to work at munitions factories, the reason for this is that some women wanted to help there: Husband, brothers or sons, there is another reason why women went to the munition factories is that the pay that you get was better than all the other jobs.
Munition factories made a lot of things for the men in the army: Clothes, food supplies and the most dangerous thing they made was ammo and bombs. The munition factories were not as good as they sounded the chemicals of the bombs were every harmful to your health.
In Britain the women decided that they wanted to help the men, so they decided to make a women’s land army, they decided to dothis as in Britain they only had 6 weeks of food left in Britain as the Germans were bombing the English food supplies. The women’s land army was were they worked on farms, to produce food for the shops and people in Britain, this is also why rationing was introduced.
When the men went off to the war, the women decided that they wanted to play football. They took to the pitch to keep football fans’ spirits high while Britain’s men were off at war. There was one women team that was very successful, the Blyth Spartans Munitionettes from Northumberland played more beautifully than all the others.
Their star centre-forward was Bella Raey, the daughter of a local coal miner, who scored 133 goals in one season, and even went on to play for England.
The highlight of the female football calendar was a knock-out tournament called the Munitionettes Cup, held in 1918, which attracted 30 teams.
The Blyth Spartans were the eventual winners, beating Bolckow-Vaughan of Middleborough at Acrosome Park in front of a crowd of 22,000. Bella Reay scored a hat-trick.
Taught to play by naval ratings on a local beach, the Blyth Spartans remained unbeaten throughout their two-year existence.
But despite the women being almost as popular on the pitch as the men had been before the war, when the boys returned home, the munition factories closed and the teams disbanded.
Several women tried to continue to play, but in 1921, the FA banned women’s football at their grounds – bringing to an end a colorful chapter in women’s sport which has long been overlooked.
During World War 1 Britain declared a Blockade of Germany responded with its own U-boat Campaign (World War I) to sink ships carrying military equipment or food to Britain. Food becoming more important as the war continued, especially after the declaration of unlimited U-boat warfare. In about two years, the United Kingdom had just six weeks’ food left and, therefore, had to ration its food supplies. Rationing started at the end of 1917 with sugar and butter remaining on ration until 1920.
The United Kingdom imported 20 million long tons (20 Mt) of food per year (70%), including more than 50% of its meat, 70% of its cheese and sugar, nearly 80% of fruits and about 70% of cereals and fats. The civilian population was about 50 million It was one of the principal strategies of the Germans to attack shipping bound for Britain, restricting British industry and potentially starving the nation into submission.