Marriage to Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

It was expected that the new Queen would soon marry and produce an heir to the throne. Victoria was aware of the schemes of her maternal uncle Leopold of Saxe-Coburg for her to marry her first cousin Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the younger son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Louise of Saxe-Altenburg. Leopold, the widower of George IV's daughter Charlotte and now King of the Belgians, was intent on building up Coburg influence in Europe, through a series of advantageous marriages.

Although Victoria was not over keen to marry in a hurry, she was excessively fond of her "dear Uncle Leopold" who had visited her frequently as a child and had helped with her financial support. She agreed that Albert and his brother Ernest could come over to visit. She promptly fell for the "quite charming and excessively handsome" Albert, who accepted Victoria's proposal. The young couple were married on 10th May, 1840.

The marriage did not get off to a very auspicious start. The Queen's new husband was disliked in England as a foreigner and generally disapproved of, a rhyme circulating at the time 'He comes to take, for better or for worse, England's fat Queen and England's fatter purse' aptly captured the public mood. In addition to this, Albert had to cope with his wife's emotionalism and the relentless interference in their marriage of Victoria's old governess, Baroness Lehzen, whom he grew to thoroughly detest.

Victoria was reluctant to share power with her husband and it seemed that the only position she was prepared to allow him was that of blotting her signature on state papers. These teething troubles were eventually addressed when Albert, a highly intelligent young man, quickly mastered the English language and increased his influence in state affairs. The Queen came to depend on his considerable abilities and became devoted to him. To Albert's delight, the despised Lehzen was soon packed off back to Germany.

Albert's influence became considerable. He applied himself and took an abiding interest in the exploitation of child labour and in the housing conditions of the working classes. The Queen herself had little knowledge of the social problems that industrialization had created for the majority of her subjects and Albert did his utmost to draw such matters to his wife's attention.

Victorian literature

It is important to realize from the outset that the Victorian period is quite long. Victoria’s reign lasted over 63 years, longer than any other British monarch. The Victorian era lasted roughly twice as long as the Romantic period. Keeping in mind that even the relatively short Romantic period saw a wide variety of distinguishing characteristics, it is logical that much longer Victorian period includes even more variety. Below are a few of the noteworthy characteristics which appear often enough to be worth mentioning, but certainly do not encompass the entirety of the period.

The drive for social advancement frequently appears in literature. This drive may take many forms. It may be primarily financial, as in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. It may involve marrying above one’s station, as in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. It may also be intellectual or education-based. Typically, any such attempt to improve one’s social standing must be accompanied by “proper” behavior (thus helping to provide the period with its stereotype).

The period saw the rise of a highly idealized notion of what is “English” or what constitutes an “Englishman.” This notion is obviously tied very closely to the period’s models for proper behavior, and is also tied very closely to England’s imperial enterprises. Many colonists and politicians saw it as their political (and sometimes religious) duty to “help” or “civilize” native populations in colonized regions. It was thus important to have a model which provides a set of standards and codes of conduct, and the idealized notion of what is “English” often provided this model.

Later Victorian writing saw the seeds of rebellion against such idealized notions and stereotypical codes of conduct. These “proper” behaviors often served as subjects of satire; Oscar Wilde’s plays are an excellent example. The later years of the Victorian period also saw the rise of aestheticism, the “art for art’s sake” movement, which directly contradicted the social and political goals of much earlier Victorian literature. One of the fascinating ways of approaching the Victorian period is to examine the influence of these later developments on the Modernist period which follows.

Britain in World War One.

Germany nearly defeated the Allies, Britain and France, in the first few weeks of war in 1914. It had better trained soldiers, better equipment and a clear plan of attack. The French army and the small

British force were fortunate to hold back the German army at the River Marne, deep inside France. Four years of bitter fighting followed, both armies living and fighting in the trenches, which they had dug to protect their men.

in 1916 the government forced men to join the army whether they wanted to or not.

On 1 July 1916 Britain attacked German posit ions on the River Somme The invention of the tank and its use on the battlefield to break through the enemy trenches in 1917 could have changed the course of the war In the Middle East the British fought against Turkish troops in Iraq and in Palestine, and at Gallipoli, on the Dardanelles. There, too, there were many casualties, but many of them were caused by sickness and heat. It was not until 1917 that the British were really able to drive back the Turks.

At the same time popular newspapers, using large print, memorable short sentences and emotional language, encouraged the nation to hate Germany, and to want Germany's destruction.

 

34   Britain in World War Two.

The people of Britain watched anxiously as German control spread over Europe in the 1930s. But some had foreseen this dangerous situation, They believed that the reasons for German expansion could be found in the harsh peace terms forced on Germany by the Allies in 1919, and the failure to involve it in the post-war political settlement. In 1920 the Allies had created the League of Nat ions which, it was hoped, would enable nations to cooperate with ea h other. Although the League did not forbid war, its members agreed to respect and preserve the borders and territory of all other members. But in 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia), a fellow member of the League. Britain and France were anxious to win Italy's co-operation against Hitler, who was illegally rearming Germany, and therefore decided against taking action against Italy as the rules of the League required them to do. T his failure to use the

League's authority had serious results. Italy's Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, and Hitler realised that Britain and France lacked the will to make sure the standards the League demanded of its members were followed.

In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and Britain entered the war. The British felt again that they were fighting for the weaker nations of Europe, and for democracy. T hey had also heard about the

cruelty of the Nazis from Jews who had escaped to Britain.

Britain's new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, persuaded the nation that it was a victory of courage and determination at Britain's darkest hour.

Everyone in Britain expected Germany to invade, but the British air force won an important battle against German planes in the air over Britain. This, however, did not prevent the German air force from bombing the town s of Britain. Almost one and a half million people in London were made homeless by German bombing during the next few months. Once again Church ill brilliantly managed to persuade a nation "on its knees" that it would still win.

Britain could not possibly have defeated Germany without the help of its stronger allies, the Soviet Union and the United States. By 1943 the Soviet army was pushing the Germans out of the USSR, and Britain had driven German and Italian troops out of North Africa. Italy surrendered quickly following Allied landings in July 1943.

 

 3? Conservative party after World War II.

The party responded to its defeat of 1945 by accepting many of the Attlee government's welfare state reforms, while offering a distinctive Conservative edge, as set out in their policy statement Industrial Charter (1947). Until the 1970s the two parties largely agreed on foreign policy, with both supporting NATO (1949-present) and the Anglo-American alliance of the Cold War (1947-1989). Economic recovery was slow, however, and that provided the opening for a comeback.

 

3? Labour party after World War II.

At the end of the war in Europe, in May 1945, Labour resolved not to repeat the Liberals' error of 1918, and promptly withdrew from government, on trade union insistence, to contest the 1945 general election in opposition to Churchill's Conservatives. Surprising many observers, Labour won a formidable victory, winning just under 50% of the vote with a majority of 159 seats.

Clement Attlee's proved one of the most radical British governments of the 20th century, enacting Keynesian economic policies, presiding over a policy of nationalising major industries and utilities including the Bank of England, coal mining, the steel industry, electricity, gas, and inland transport (including railways, road haulage and canals). It developed and implemented the "cradle to grave" welfare state conceived by the economist William Beveridge. To this day, the party considers the 1948 creation of Britain's publicly funded National Health Service (NHS) under health minister Aneurin Bevan its proudest achievement. Attlee's government also began the process of dismantling the British Empire when it granted independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, followed by Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) the following year. At a secret meeting in January 1947, Attlee and six cabinet ministers, including Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, decided to proceed with the development of Britain's nuclear weapons programme, in opposition to the pacifist and anti-nuclear stances of a large element inside the Labour Party.

Labour went on to win the 1950 general election, but with a much reduced majority of five seats. Soon afterwards, defence became a divisive issue within the party, especially defence spending (which reached a peak of 14% of GDP in 1951 during the Korean War), straining public finances and forcing savings elsewhere. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell, introduced charges for NHS dentures and spectacles, causing Bevan, along with Harold Wilson (then President of the Board of Trade), to resign over the dilution of the principle of free treatment on which the NHS had been established.

In the 1951 general election, Labour narrowly lost to the Conservatives despite receiving the larger share of the popular vote, its highest ever vote numerically. Most of the changes introduced by the 1945–51 Labour government were accepted by the Conservatives and became part of the "post-war consensus" that lasted until the late 1970s. Food and clothing rationing, however, still in place since the war, were swiftly relaxed, then abandoned from about 1953.