Home front

From ArticleWorld

The Home Front is a casual expression used to represent the ‘stay back home’ population of a country whose armed forces have gone to war. Earlier the home front generally consisting of young children, old men and women – since most of its able bodied men had gone to war – did their utmost to support their men and practically existed as appendages of its military. So much so that the view that home front was just a component of it’s more active executive branch, the military, helped in coining the term – teeth and tail.

Home front in history

Although the term home front was not coined before World War II the importance of home front had long been recognized. However, the phrase became popular when President Franklin Roosevelt, in one of his speeches, praised the civilians at home and said that theirs was no mean contribution towards the winning of the war and called them civilians who were facing a front at home.

During the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars the British manufacturing services were able to support the oppositions, in their war against France because of its better industrial growth as compared to France. America’s civil war is another example of where the better equipped factories of its Northern states were able to overcome the might of its Southern generals.

Modern warfare

In today’s wars the two terms have more or less merged to give a very blurred view of the traditional home front. The fighting teeth of the modern army depend on no uncertain terms on its stay-at-home tail. With the factories producing war material required at the front and industries manufacturing technologies that go beyond the civilian needs, the home front has changed drastically. Indeed, the noncombatants become attractive bombing targets for opposing armies with both armies carrying out carnage against the home front.