how important did events in the first world war play in the decision to grant votes for women
...cally changed. Emmeline Pankhurst was the leader of the campaign for woman’s suffrage. Between 1889 and 1906 Mrs Pankhurst protested peacefully, rallies would be held banners made but this was in vain. This peaceful campaign was before the war and did not get the suffragettes noticed. This campaign did not play an important part in the decision to grant women the right to vote. The campaign that got the women recognition was the more valiant protests and shocking behaviour for Edwardian women. After an unsuccessful meeting with the prime minister in 1906 Emmeline decided to use other means of protest. These included window-breaking, hunger strikes, and, in 1913, a series of arson attacks for which she was imprisoned. The most staggering of all of tactics was the Cat and Mouse Act. The Cat and Mouse Act allowed the government to release and later re-imprison suffragettes who went on hunger strike in jail. The law was the response of the Liberal government of Herbert Asquith to an embarrassing political problem. Since the suffragette movement had begun campaigning for women’s suffrage in 1903, many of those jailed for property damage and other offences committed to draw attention to their cause had continued their protests by going on hunger strike, and the government was anxious to find an alternative to the unpopular policy of force-feeding them. Under the new law any prisoner whose health was damaged by going on hunger strike could be released and then jailed again once she had recovered. Emmeline Pankhurst was jailed 11 times in succession in 1913-1914. In 1913 one dedicated suffragette publicized the cause by deliberately hurling herself to her death under the hooves of horses racing in the Derby at Epsom Downs. The act had little impact, since the suffragettes abandoned its campaign of civil disobedience as a patriotic gesture when World War I started in August 1914. This more valiant campaign certainly got the women recognition, but did not achieve the objective they had hoped for. Therefore the campaign did play an important role to some degree but the women still did not play an important enough role in the decision to grant women the vote. The women’s efforts during the First World War fin...