High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The United Kingdom was one of the Allied Powers during World War I (1914–1918), and developed as a nation throughout the war in order to further its goal of defeating the Central Powers (the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria). The country`s armed forces were reorganised—the war marked the creation of the Royal Air Force, for example—and increased in size because of the introduction of forced conscription for the first time in the country`s history. At the outbreak of war, patriotic feelings spread throughout the country, and it has been argued that many of the class barriers of Edwardian England were diminished during the period.