Post World War 1 Era

Topic 1: Post World War 1 Era

It is a popular perception that the First World War ended on 11th of November 1918 and peace descended on Europe.

The reality is rather different, throughout Europe was a series of civil wars, with British troops engaged in conflicts in Ireland in the west, to Siberia in the east.

Within Britain itself, the years following there was a degree of civil unrest, although Lincolnshire seems to have been quite well insulated from this.

One of the biggest changes to the landscape was the construction of permanent airfields across the county and the RAF College at Cranwell. Military aviation had developed rapidly in the First World War and military thinking had evolved to consider it a permanent part of the armed forces, even if its future use was debated.

RAF Cranwell (Photo: Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire)

The hard coastal defences such as Haile Sands Fort remained in place, but were wound down, and anti-submarine booms were removed.

Haile Sands Fort in the Humber, off the Lincolnshire coast. (Photo: Abandoned Places)

The general trend for the interwar years was a slow reduction of Britain’s military establishment, both at home and overseas, with a heavy reliance on the Royal Navy for security.