A Land Fit for Heroes? The Treatment of WWI Veterans in Great Britain

We want to encourage people around the world to donate online to their country's veterans' charities.
These are tough times. As Remembrance Day and Veterans day comes up, because of Covid-19, collectors are unable to do face to face collections.

British Veterans of the first world war had trusted their nation when the war had started in 1914.
But after 1918, it seemed like the promise of a Land fit for heroes was not a reality.

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Credit:
Created by Daniel Turner
Script: Dejan Milivojevic
Narrator:

Chris Kane

Sources:
Cohen, Deborah. The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939. Univ. of Calif. Press, 2008.

Malone, Carolyn. A job fit for heroes? Disabled veterans, the Arts and Crafts Movement and social reconstruction in post-World War I Britain. First World War Studies, 2013 Vol. 4, No. 2, 201–217

Public Attitude Toward Ex-Servicemen After World War I
Monthly Labor Review
Vol. 57, No. 6 (DECEMBER 1943), pp. 1060-1073 (14 pages)

The Twentieth Century
By Edith Girvin

[Simplehistory]

We want to encourage people around the world to donate online to their country's veterans' charities.
These are tough times. As remembrance day and Veterans day comes up, because of Covid-19, collectors are unable to do face to face collections.

[StrumpanzerFuhrer]

Like my grandfather used to say: “Nobody loves a soldier until the enemy is at the gates”.

[Phlebz]

Governments: "You were expected to die for your country, but you survived so tough luck"

[louchy]

My Great Grandfather signed up and was sent to the front in 1916. He and all the lads on his street signed up together. He became a grenadier guard and fought at the Somme and I am not sure where else until 1917 where he inhaled gas before his sergeant managed to pull a gas mask over his face. He was given 6 months to live but lived to a grand age of 95.

He was a machine gunner so avoided the risk of having to go 'over the top' but I know he suffered too. His gun was hit twice on the opening day of the Somme offensive and the story goes that at the end of the day, he was joking around his mate and an officer walking past remarked that he must be the only man in the British Army laughing, I guess word hadn't come down of the absolute catastrophe that that day had been. I know that had also been a part of a group of men that snuck out into no mans land to retrieve a wounded soldier, for which his NCO was awarded a medal.

He experienced joblessness after the war and the indignity of being made to queue outside the labour exchange in all weathers, he caused such a ruckus there that the veterans were allowed to wait inside the building and were referred to as Mr. A small victory. He was so disgusted with the treatment that they received that he emigrated to Canada where he made a decent income in construction and returned to England a decade later, married and with a son.

Henry James Betts - Grenadier Guard. My hero.
Thanks for reading.

[Waldemarvonanhalt]

On his return home, one German soldier noted that "we were spat at by whores and deserters and had our shoulder boards torn off, by those who had never even seen a battle".

[larrytron]

One of the last surviving veterans of WWI came to my secondary school in 2008 to answer questions for my classmates, who were doing their GCSEs in history. He told my headteacher something I will never forget: "I am so grateful to have fought for a generation that is so confident and inspiring today."

Bless you and RIP Henry Allingham (6 June 1896 – 18 July 2009) 😢

[charliegreer]

My great grandfather lied about his age to join the British Army to fight in WWI. He was sent to the battlefields of Europe, where, during a gas attack, he was unfortunate enough to inhale some of the gas. He returned home after the war and grew his family. He died in 1949 due to lung disease. We never knew whether the gas he inhaled had to do with it or not. Thank you for making this video, and shedding light on these brave and under appreciated men.

[seanstrand]

Being talked down to by people who wouldn’t last a day is pretty common for those getting out, it’s honestly quite sad.

[barrywakeford]

Those we fight, aren't necessarily our enemies. Those we fight for aren't necessarily our friends.

[jimmynyarlathotep]

“We were promised homes fit for heroes, they gave us heroes fit for homes” - ‘Grandad’ Trotter, Only Fools and Horses

[charlessaint]

"Good luck, everyone."~Captain Blackadder before going over the top.

[hornyvonhornmeister]

"My brother George was at
Passchendale. Nigh on half a
million Allied troops died
there, all for five miles of
mud! I was at King’s Cross
station when his regiment came
home after the armistice. Most
of them was carried off the
train. I saw men with limbs
missing, blind men – men who
couldn’t breathe properly ‘cos
their lungs had been shot to
bits by mustard gas! While the
nation celebrated they was
hidden away in big grey
buildings, far from the public
gaze. I mean, courage like that
could put you right off your
victory dinner couldn’t it?
They promised us homes fit for
heroes, they give us heroes fit
for homes!"
- Grandad, Only fools and horses

[Jonathan]

I know a person who was hit by an IED in Afghanistan, though he did get a pension nobody bothered to give him support which ended up in him owing about over 15k in taxes. The government collector, said to him “you owe it to your country to pay taxes” (the issue he had was with short term memory so he wouldn’t know what was needed to do. That was the moment my last piece of respect for my government was lost.

[andrewkomlyev]

"I'm cast aside now that I've played my part
I lie in the street, I beg not to starve
I'm crippled, disfigured, you just look away
The war you forgot, the price I have paid"

[Just_Some_Guy_with_a_Mustache]

Could you imagine the absolute brass pair this government would have to have when WW2 comes around and they tell their countrymen "Could you do it again?"

[junotwithat]

"The elder starts wars, but it is the youth who fight for them."
-Herbert Hoover

Edit: Herbert Hoover

[-Thunder-Warrior-]

"But nobody cheered,
They just stood there and stared,
Then turned all their faces away."

[hiimryan]

Isn't it weird that people who sacrifice their lives only get a few dollars while the people that has never seen the frontline get thousands.

[jacksoyson]

Same thing in Germany, with the Freikorps and all.
People gave up four years of their lives and even parts of their body and minds, and got nothing in return.

But the Freikorps took it into a whole new level.

[octaviakustiawan]

Imagine losing a leg from a war to protect your country, only to be ignored by the public and seen as a beggar