Here is the Real Story of How Universal Suffrage Became Global

Without World War I, the probability is universal suffrage would be a rare thing

Wherever the Anglo world has influence, it’s a fair bet you will find a form of universal suffrage.

But here is the thing, if World War I had not happened, and Germany had never decided to become aggressive, it is highly probable that democracy of the universal suffrage kind would never have come into being, at least not on a widespread level.

This isn’t just about the fact that World War I greatly aided women in gaining voting equality with men due to working in the munitions factories, it is more than that.

If the war had not happened and we had avoided it, it is highly probable universal suffrage would not be quite so common, if it even existed anywhere.

I’m not joking about this. To understand why, you have to look at the history of democracy in the United Kingdom, the historical centre of the Anglo world, because it is from there that democracy as we know it was spread around the world.

Note: for any interested, an expanded discussion of this post is available to watch on YouTube

How democracy found its way to the United Kingdom

The history of democracy in the UK began during the heat of the Second Baron’s War — 1264–1267. The Second Baron’s War was a civil war that took place in England. On one side were a cohort of barons, on the other, the Royalists and their supporters.

The Royalists were led by King Henry III, while the barons were led by Simon de Montfort, who was the 6th Earl of Leicester.

A year into the war, so 1265, De Montfort formed the first English Parliament.

The terms of this Parliament were as follows: each borough (a borough is a self-governing town/district) had to send two representatives to the Parliament, and those representatives had to be elected.

Yes. Elected democratically.

Unfortunately for De Montfort, he was killed and brutally mutilated not long after instigating this Parliament. That was just kind of how things went when you lost back in mediaeval times.

But luckily for him and the world, even though the war was lost and his Parliament was over barely a year after it had opened, the idea of electing representatives stuck.

Yep, it seemed the people liked it and with the cat out of the box, it was hard to put it back in. This is why Henry III, even with his victory in hand, continued to call those elected by the boroughs to Parliament.

That means yes, even though De Montfort's English Parliament didn’t last long, the English Parliament minus De Montfort did. By 1295, it had even been given legislative powers, meaning it became a real Democratic legislative power.

I know, talk about being ahead of your time, and that’s not the half of it.

The people who sat in the Parliament were called Knights of the Shire, or MPs as they are called today. But they weren’t actually Knights, or at least most were not. Most were just everyday people living in the borough they represented, hence, why the British Parliament is called the House of Commons.

Do see the link, the House of Commons i.e. the House of Commoners.

That means yes, as it was a house of commoners, obviously, commoners could be elected to it. In fact, pretty much anyone could run for Parliament, pretty much anyone could vote as well.

I’m not kidding on this, male, female, rich, poor, all you really had to do was prove you were a resident of the borough where the election was being held.

Famous historian Charles Seymour even wrote, “It is probable that all free inhabitant householders voted and that the parliamentary qualification was, like that which compelled attendance in the county court, merely a ‘resiance’ or residence qualification.”

That means yes, back in 13th century England, there was basically a form of universal suffrage. Obviously, the power of the elected body was limited, but it doesn’t change the fact that voting rights were not.

The question is, what the hell went wrong?

The aristocracy, that’s who.

How the aristocracy messed up British democracy

The British aristocracy, everyone knows them, the super-rich families who owned all the land and ruled the roost across the Empire.

Here’s the thing though, what a lot of people don’t know is that they massively hampered democracy long before people think they did.

To explain, in 1429, the Electors of Knights of the Shires Act was brought into legislation, and was then further amended in 1432.

The finalised act stipulated that to run in an election and vote, you had to hold freehold land that brought in an annual rent of at least 40 shillings.

To say the least, not many people owned freehold land of that value, pretty much only the aristocracy — which was the point.

They were even blunt in this being their reasoning. To cut a long story short, the rich and powerful of the time had decided that the Parliament was not working as there was too much “confusion” in it, which probably translates to too many people with different agendas that didn’t suit theirs.

This was why the obvious solution to this “confusion” was to ban any but the aristocracy from serving in the house.

In terms of the people at the time's reaction to this, it’s hard to know. But in truth, they likely weren’t really that bothered, mainly because a nation's central leadership in the mediaeval world was nothing more than a protectorate, so they didn’t really wield great influence over people’s lives.

It makes sense why as well, the central leadership was typically many weeks' travel time away from citizens, so they could have no real influence. This is why in reality they operated more like a Mafia, where you paid them to leave you alone and to get rival mafias to leave you alone.

But then fast forward 400 years or so, and the Industrial Revolution changed that.

The Industrial Revolution turned democracy back into something the people wanted

The Industrial Revolution gave birth to the all-encompassing state that we all know today, the state that controls people’s lives.

As the UK was the first place the Industrial Revolution hit, inevitably, the UK was the first place where people started getting a state of the all-encompassing kind.

This inevitably brought democracy back to the forefront, with people increasingly demanding it, and the all-encompassing kind at that.

Who could blame them? The government was basically getting more and more power over people’s daily lives, even down to sexual practices, and yet the people had no say in that government and what they were doing, meaning the people were losing ever more control of their lives.

This is why inevitably over the next century or so democracy in the United Kingdom started to gradually be expanded more and more, and come World War I, all male householders could vote, which amounted to about 50 to 60 percent of the male population.

But yes, I know, that means it was still linked to householders. All they had done was expand it from super-rich householders to all householders. And then, what about women?

Well, in 1832 when the vote was expanded for the first time since being restricted, at the same time, they banned women from voting, even though they had been able to vote before that if they had met the criteria.

That means that yes, in 1832, Britain had created voting inequality between men and women for the first time in its history. For over 600 years there had been no legislation stopping British women from voting, meaning they legally could vote if they met the criteria. Now they could not, and by the time of World War I, that still had not been rectified.

In fact, by the time of World War I, only 5 percent of women could vote, meaning there were 10 times as many men who could, and yet only half of men could vote.

That means there were more people as a proportion of the population of England who could vote back in the 13th century than in the early 20th century, even after a century of fighting for the vote to be expanded.

But anyway, despite this, women getting voting equality with men was pretty much a certainty, it was just a matter of when. But what is not certain is whether voting rights would ever have been expanded beyond property owners along with other householders.

This is where the immense part World War I had in bringing universal suffrage to the world comes into play.

How World War I gave the world universal suffrage

Here is a crazy fact about World War I, none of the women who were conscripted into the munitions factories could vote, and nor could the vast majority of the men in the trenches.

Look at those pictures, the women in the factories, the men in the trenches. The majority were conscripted to be there, and yet the majority could not vote, meaning they had no say in whether the war should be happening or whether conscription should be happening.

Think about how that would have made those men and women feel.

Exactly, and those feelings created a hellishly dangerous situation for the British leadership. After all, the British Army was well over a million in size and was being armed by nearly a million munitionettes, yet the majority of those that made up these numbers could not vote, yet they wanted to be able to.

In fact, they wanted to be able to more than ever because they had been dragged into this war without any say.

This is one of the reasons why in 1918 the rest of men over the age of 21 finally got the right to vote, and women’s voting rights were massively expanded, though it would take until 1928 for women to get universal suffrage with men.

The point is, what if those who had not been able to vote had not been turned into arguably the most powerful military force in history?

Not just that, what if women had gained voting equality with men, but in the way planned prewar, so where all men and women who were householders or spouses of householders could vote, but no one else? What if that had happened?

Considering they would have made up the majority of the population, do you think they would ever have voted in a party promoting universal suffrage?

Exactly.

That’s how important World War I was to democracy. It gave working-class people along with all those in poverty a level of power that was unprecedented in history, and it was through that power that universal suffrage was won, and not just for the British.

To explain, it wasn’t just the British in trenches and munitions factories, it was the Empire, and so it was the Empire that won universal suffrage, which is why once the British government gave the British universal suffrage, a chain reaction began across the Anglo world — which included the British Empire at the time. That chain reaction was countries invoking universal suffrage.

Whether it be India, Canada, Australia, Nigeria, anywhere the British Empire was, they did the same thing the British government did, gave their people universal suffrage. Even the US, who had long left the Empire by this point, women gained universal suffrage in 1920, a year after the war had ended.

That’s how important the war was, and all because it gave people who had no power, the power to say I deserve to vote and have a say in all future wars.

Final words

The reality is, World War I was more than just a fight between the Allies and Central Powers, it was a fight between those who could not vote and those who could, those who could not won, their reward, democracy as we know it going global.

That’s how important their sacrifice was.

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