Great Britain

Great Britain was with its Empire the most powerful of the major belligerents, the most politically and socially stable, and the best able to endure the strains of the war. Its great naval, financial and diplomatic strengths were critical to the Allied victory. Its unprecedented creation of a mass army was a major strain, and victory required progressive government involvement in economic and social matters. The immediate effect of the war was to slightly flatten the country���s social structure, but other effects are disputed. In political and military terms Great Britain was a substantial winner from the war, and except in relation to the United States it emerged stronger than before