ABSTRACT
Edward VII died on 6 May 1910: Britain entered the First World War on 4 August 1914. These four years were a time of social and political crisis in Great Britain and Ireland - a crisis with several aspects and phases, and with a persistence which led even some unexcitable and intelligent contemporaries to fear the outbreak of revolution. The bitter 'peers versus people' confrontation did not end until the defeat of the diehard peers in August 1911. And the passing of the Parliament Act was accompanied in its last stages by the Agadir crisis with Germany. The Parliament Act paved the way for the introduction in April 1912 of the third Irish Home Rule Bill, which the Liberals were bound to sponsor since their parliamentary majority now depended upon Irish support. Under the Parliament Act procedure, despite inevitable rejection by the Lords, Home Rule was likely to pass in 1914. But Protestant Ulstermen refused to accept inclusion in a united self-governing Ireland, and they showed themselves ready to take up arms in the name of 'loyalty'. The suffragettes - whose cry of 'votes for women' had been building up with increasing stridency since 1903 - were employing ever more violent methods. And while some women were restless, many more men organized in trade unions as never before - were venturing upon a sequence of bitter strikes.
