Outside Ireland, all UK citizens were now soldiers, precluded from call-up only by gender, age, physical fitness or occupation. This video explores the story of conscription from its origins before the First World War, through National Service and beyond.
Download the accompanying resource pack, which contains further details about some of the images featured in the video. Experience some of the ways civilians were pressured to enlist during the First World War. Will you choose to hold out or opt in? Analyse recruitment posters from the Museum's collection and multimedia recreations of First World War parliamentary debates to explore the history of Army recruitment and conscription.
The outbreak of war in August was greeted with enthusiasm in Britain. But to meet its commitment to its allies, the nation would have to expand its small professional army and make it ready for war as quickly as possible. The Somme offensive was one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War.
But it provided the Army with a tough lesson in how to fight a large-scale modern war. National Service, a standardised form of peacetime conscription, was introduced in for all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and Thoroughly enjoyed it. Some young men wanted to join the army for adventure and excitement. Unions tended to be anti-conscription, because they feared their jobs would be taken by foreign labour or women.
Being anti-conscription was not the same as being anti-war: some of the men already at the front, themselves volunteers, were anti-conscription, because they did not want to fight alongside men who did not want to be there. They considered it could affect their morale and ability to fight cohesively.
Other people, often women, were against war itself. An Anti-Conscription League was formed and the Women's Peace Army, a movement driven by the indomitable Vida Goldstein , mounted a fierce campaign against the war and conscription. Outspoken Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix , was also vehement in his opposition to the war and to conscription.
However, many Catholics raised in Australia supported conscription and the war. You can search for materials on conscription on the State Library catalogue. Type the word conscription in the search box and click Search. When the list of results appears, you can make your search more specific: click on the Resource type, for example books, pictures or manuscripts, and you can limit by Creation date, that is, the year of publication.
The following websites provide information on the conscription referenda:. Have a look at the Old Heritage Building website which discusses the contentious conscription issue, with photographs and conscription pamphlets.
It also discusses the famous personalities involved on both sides of the issue. The Australian War Memorial encyclopedia briefly covers many topics including conscription, with references you can follow up. Historic newspapers and magazines written during World War I provide a rich resource on the conscription debate. They reveal the thoughts and feelings of different people at the time, as well as factual material and propaganda.
Trove gives you scanned images of many old Australian newspapers published before, during and after the World War I years. You can search a particular newspaper or search all the newspapers using a keyword topic such as conscription.
You can choose to browse the issues. Go to the Trove newspapers page to see the titles. You can click on the title of the newspaper you want and type a term in the search box at the top right of the page.
Click on the box "Limit to issues of this title. The British Government was now forced to consider introducing conscription, a move that ran entirely against the liberal traditions of British life.
In the first few months of the Military Service Act was passed by the British Government, rendering all fit males of military age liable for call up. Appeals against military service were generally based on either religious or political conviction. Across the British Isles some 16, men claimed Conscientious Objection. The vast majority did so on religious grounds. Only a minority were political opponents of the war, and they generally received harsher treatment.
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