Why was conscription started in Britain?

Britain was the only army in 1914 that was made up entirely of volunteers! Every other country used conscription to swell its armies. Conscription meant that young men had no choice but to join the armed forces for some time.

There they were trained and when they returned to civilian life after two years they remained in the reserves. As ‘reservists’ they could be called up in an emergency. In August 1914 these reservists were being called up to swell all the armies of Europe apart from Britain.

However before the war the British parliament had debated four times about the issue of conscription. Supporters of conscription argued that young men had a duty above all else to defend their country. When the voluntary recruitment rate seemed to falter after the initial rush in the late summer of 1914, the calls to introduce conscription became louder.

What was done to resist conscription?

In 1914 Clifford Allan and Fenner Broackway started an organisation called the No Conscription Fellowship. By early 1915 a Glasgow branch of the NCF had been formed. Later that same year the NCF had spread across Scotland. The ILP was also against conscription and both organisations were jointly condemned in the popular newspapers as cowardly and undermining Britain’s war effort.

In Scotland it has been claimed that almost 70% of all objectors were members of the ILP In Jan 1916, the Military Service Act of 1916 brought in conscription for single men from nineteen to forty years old. In May 1916 conscription was extended to married men and by 1918, men up to the age of fifty were being conscripted.

The Military Service Act of 1916 made allowances for certain men to be exempt (excused) from military service. Apart from men who were physically or mentally unfit for service, there were three main categories that would allow men to be exempt from conscription.

The first category exempted men involved in work of national importance to the war effort. Many coal miners, for example, were excused military service.

The second category exempted men if their service in the armed forces would cause ‘serious hardship owing to his exceptional financial or business obligations or domestic position’.

The third category included young men who refused to fight on grounds of their conscience. These ‘conscientious objectors’, or ‘conchies’ for short, claimed exemptions on grounds of their political or religious beliefs.

What happened to Conscientious objectors? Conscientious objectors were taken to a military tribunal. These tribunals were like military courts and made up from local people, such as businessmen, landowners or shopkeepers, and also included one representative from the military.

The objections of the ‘conchies’ were listened to, usually very sympathetically, and a decision was taken as to whether or not to accept the reasons for conscientious objections

The intention of the tribunal was to conscript as many men as possible into the armed forces so the reasons of the conchies were usually rejected.

About 16,000 men across the UK refused to fight! Most of these men were pacifists who believed that it was wrong to kill another human being. Such conscientious objectors were provided with alternatives to armed service.

Around 7,000 conscientious objectors agreed to perform non-combat duties, often as stretcher bearers on the front line. However more than 1,500 pacifists refused all military service.

They argued their role within the war effort would release other soldiers into combat roles so they would be fighting ‘by proxy’. These ‘absolutists’ opposed undertaking any work whatsoever that helped Britain’s war effort. As a result, absolutists were usually imprisoned.

There were many ‘alternativists’ who were prepared to take on civilian work but not supervised by the military. Many Scottish socialists took this choice rather than go to prison, arguing that inside prison their message would not be heard.

Across the UK 5,970 conscientious objectors were court-martialled and sent to prison.

Conditions were very harsh! At least 73 conchies died because of the treatment they received.

Religious groups were divided over the issue of conchies. The big church groups supported the war effort and it was difficult for individual Church leaders to speak out in parishes suffering the losses of their young men.

When the war ended the whole issue of the increase in the powers of the state over its citizens was far from over. In particular the ILP campaigned for the repeal of the Military Service Act and the release of all the conscientious objectors from prison. In May 1919, the longest serving prisoners began to be released and by the August the last conchies were released.

Many returned to civilian life to find their families often shunned them, employers refused to offer jobs and parliament tried to deny those who had refused non- combat service the right to vote for five years. Compulsory military conscription was finally abolished in Dec 1920.

Throughout the war the ILP had remained consistently opposed to the conflict and by 1918 many thousands of ordinary Scots had listened to the ILP’s anti-war message. On the other hand, it is important to remember that compared to the millions who were directly involved in the war effort, the pacifists and war resisters were a tiny group of people; less than half of 1% of the population.