A major offensive such as the much anticipated ‘Big Push’ on the Somme required both soldiers and armaments. 

In 1914 Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, began recruiting his ‘New Armies’. 

By mid-1915 new government powers under the Munitions of War Act had helped increase Britain’s industrial output.  Women were starting to be employed in factories and farms, releasing men for the armed forces.