Photography: 98for98: The century in photographs: today 1918

The Independent's photo-history of the 20th-century - with exclusive access to the Hulton Getty Picture Collection- rolls on to 1918. Just six weeks after the end of the Great War, for the first time women over 30 were able to vote in Britain's snap general election. Nevertheless, party managers dictated that women cast their vote as their husbands and male relatives instructed them. What's more, 17 of the 1,600 candidates were female but only one woman, a candidate for a Dublin seat, won election. As a Sinn Fein representative, however, Countess Markievicz refused to take the oath of allegiance to the King and was therefore unable to attend Parliament.

In the Middle East, the Australian liberation of Jerusalem and Palestine from the Turks was secured in October, but the world's attention was further north, on Damascus. There, Major T.E. Lawrence led the Arab rebel forces of Emir Feisal into the famous city, hastening the conclusion of the war in Arabia.

On November 11, the Great War came to an end with the formal surrender of Germany in the forest of Compiegne. Russian resolve, weakened by the chaos of the Bolshevik revolution, crumbled on the Eastern Front and the German forces redoubled their efforts in France. Encouraged by the French absorption of the German advance, though, Allied Forces deployed immeasurably improved tank and air forces in a July counter-attack and embarked on a three month rout of the enemy. After initial delirious celebration, Britain and her allies set about mourning their "lost generation". The cost of peace was put at 10 million lives, 750,000 mortalities alone from Britain.

Peace brought no relief from the world-wide epidemic of Spanish influenza. The virus, rampant in the US, claimed in excess of its 53,000 war dead by the close of 1918 and in London 2,225 deaths were reported in the third week of October alone.