Ordeal by Battle

by Frederick Scott Oliver

He insisted, moreover, that for years before war was declared, our great British statesmen could not have been ignorant of the European situation, either in its political or its military aspects. Such ignorance was inconceivable. They must have suspected the intentions of Germany, and they must have known the numbers of her army. England had common interests with France. Common interests, if there be a loyal understanding, involve equal sacrifices—equality of sacrifice not merely when the push comes, but in advance of the crisis, in preparation for it—a much more difficult matter. Why then had not our Government told the British people long ago what sacrifice its safety, no less than its honour, required of it to give?

I felt, after talking to my friend for some time, that although he rated our nation in some ways very highly indeed, although he was grateful for our assistance, hopeful of the future, confident that in Lord Kitchener we had found our man, nothing—nothing—not even selections from Mr. Spender's articles in the Westminster Gazette, or from Sir John Simon's speeches, or Sir John Brunner's assurances about the protection afforded by international law—could induce him to share our own enthusiasm for the voluntary system.... The triumph of the voluntary system, he cried bitterly, is a German triumph: it is the ruin of Belgium and the devastation of France.

And looking at the matter from a Frenchman's point of view, there is something to be said for his contention.

Apart from any objections which may exist to British methods of recruiting since war broke out—to their injustice, want of dignity, and generally to their demoralising effect on public opinion—there are several still more urgent questions to be considered. Have those methods been adequate? And if so, are they going to continue adequate to the end? Is there, in short, any practical need for conscription?

We do not answer these questions by insisting that, if there had been conscription in the past, we should have been in a much stronger position when war broke out; or by proving to our own satisfaction, that if we had possessed a national army, war would never have occurred. Such considerations as these are by no means done with; they are indeed still very important; but they lie rather aside from the immediate question with which we are now faced, and which, for lack of any clear guidance from those in authority, many of us have been endeavouring of late to solve by the light of our own judgment.

NEED FOR NATIONAL SERVICE

The answer which the facts supply does not seem to be in any doubt. We need conscription to bring this war to a victorious conclusion. We need conscription no less in order that we may impose terms of lasting peace. Conscription is essential to the proper organisation not only of our manhood, but also of our national resources.[[9]] Judging by the increasing size, frequency, and shrillness of recent recruiting advertisements, conscription would seem to be equally essential in order to secure the number of recruits necessary for making good the wastage of war, even in the present preliminary stage of the war. And morally, conscription is essential in order that the whole nation may realise, before it is too late, the life-or-death nature of the present struggle; in order also that other nations—our Allies as well as our enemies—may understand—what they certainly do not understand at present—that our spirit is as firm and self-sacrificing as their own.

The voluntary system has broken down long ago. It broke down on the day when the King of England declared war upon the Emperor of Germany. From that moment it was obvious that, in a prolonged war, the voluntary system could not be relied upon to give us, in an orderly and businesslike way, the numbers which we should certainly require. It was also obvious that it was just as inadequate for the purpose of introducing speed, order, and efficiency into the industrial world, as strength into our military affairs.

So far, however, most of the accredited oracles of Government have either denounced national military service as un-English, and a sin against freedom; or else they have evaded the issue, consoling their various audiences with the reflection, that it will be time enough to talk of compulsion, when it is clearly demonstrated that the voluntary system can no longer give us what we need. It seems improvident to wait until the need has been proved by the painful process of failure. The curses of many dead nations lie upon the procrastination of statesmen, who waited for breakdown to prove the necessity of sacrifice. Compulsion, like other great changes, cannot be systematised and put through in a day. It needs preparation. If the shoe begins to pinch severely in August, and we only then determine to adopt conscription, what relief can we hope to experience before the following midsummer? And in what condition of lameness may the British Empire be by then?