The First World War shook the political, economic and social systems of all the countries that participated in it. Britain and its allies had won but had paid a heavy price. The British army had lost almost a million men killed in the fighting and over 2 million wounded. Britain had spent vast sums of money on the war. For the first time, Britain had significant foreign debts to repay and it had lost markets around the world during the fighting. The psychological effects were also marked. The trauma of war and the loss of so many young men had profound consequences for postwar Britain. Public opinion would remain firmly pacifistic for the next two decades.
In 1918 Lloyd-George the prime minister tried to withdraw the British army from the continent, demobilise its troops and avoid the kind of general unrest caused by returning veterans in Germany. The coalition government also had to deal with an uprising against the British government in Ireland and to maintain its empire. The Versailles treaty had granted Britain mandates in the middle east (Iraq and Palestine) that meant that the British empire was at its largest between 1918 and 1939. Although Britain held enormous territory it was overstretched and would find it almost impossible to govern such a large area effectively.
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