<P> Clydeside shipyards before 1914 had been the busiest in the world, turning out more than a third of the entire British output . They expanded by a third during the war, primarily to produce transports of the sort that German U-boats were busy sinking . Confident of postwar expansion, the companies borrowed heavily to expand their facilities . But after the war, employment tumbled as the yards proved too big, too expensive, and too inefficient; in any case world demand was down . The most skilled craftsmen were especially hard hit, because there were few alternative uses for their specialized skills . </P> <P> Ireland was on the verge of civil war in 1914 after Parliament voted a home rule law that was intensely opposed by the Protestants, especially those in Ulster . When the war broke out the law was suspended and Protestants gave very strong support for the war in terms of military service and industrial output . </P> <P> Occurring during Ireland's Revolutionary period, the Irish Catholic experience of the war was complex and its memory of it divisive . At the outbreak of the war, most Irish people, regardless of political affiliation, supported the war in much the same way as their British counterparts, and both nationalist and unionist leaders initially backed the British war effort . Their followers, both Catholic and Protestant, served extensively in the British forces, many in three specially raised divisions . Over 200,000 Irishmen fought in the war, in several theatres with 30,000 deaths . In 1916, Catholic supporters of Irish independence from the United Kingdom took the opportunity of the ongoing war to proclaim an Irish Republic and to defend it in an armed rebellion against British rule in Dublin . The rebellion was poorly planned and quickly suppressed . The British executed most of the prisoners which caused Catholic opinion to surge in favour of independence . Britain's intention to impose conscription in Ireland in 1918 provoked widespread resistance and as a result remained unimplemented . </P> <P> The Commonwealth nations and India all played major roles . The Asian and African colonies provided large numbers of civilian workers, as well as some soldiers . The Indian Army during World War I contributed a large number of divisions and independent brigades to the European, Mediterranean and the Middle East theatres of war . Over one million Indian troops served overseas, of whom 62,000 died and another 67,000 were wounded . </P>

A major effect of world war i on european colonies in africa was