Are we going to be conscripted?
Talk of war with Russia has got military leaders hinting at the public being called up to serve. The issue is, we’ve been here before…
Military conscription isn’t something that has been something for people in Britain to worry about for many decades. 1960 was the last time members of the public were called up to what was known as national service. Could Britons in 2024 be asked into the armed forces? That seems to be the suggestion if military bosses can get their way.
There is a certain generation of people on social media who would be frothing at the mouth for conscription to return. They tend to be of the age where they were too young to be involved in the Second World War, but like to think they were around anyway. They share things like ‘I’m turning my clocks back to 1940 when this country had some bollocks’. And conscription is something that they, given their raging nationalism and pride, would be no doubt first in line to sign up.
The suggestion of conscription would be in the event of the UK going to war, and it would be the third time in just over a century that normal people would be called up to fight the war of the rich and powerful. This theme is a tale as old as time, and it will only keep on happening.
Conscription was first implemented in the UK during the First World War, to help supply soldiers to the war effort. Britain’s small professional army was woefully inadequate for the industrial-scale conflict that was to come, and to boost numbers conscription was introduced.
The scale of slaughter which came about during the war needed soldiers to keep it going. January 1916 saw the first British men conscripted to the army, and through the first year around 1.1 million joined up. The year would see thousands of them killed and wounded, with the Battle of the Somme being the crescendo of violence in this particular year.
By the end of the war in 1918, 2.5 million men had been conscripted. This period of conscription was ended in 1920, with the British Army keen to use the troops to keep peace in the Empire.
Wartime once again saw the need for the UK government to conscript men and, for the first time, women into the armed forces. Around 4.5 million people were conscripted during the war, and they played a key role in battles in Europe, Asia, Africa, and on the Home Front. The government and the country needed its people to step up in a time of crisis, and this is exactly what they did.
Like after the First World War, conscription was continued following the end of the Second World War. Peacetime conscription came to be known as National Service and would see men ordered to serve for 18 months- except during the Korean War (1950–53) when this extended to two years.
Between 1945 and 1963, national service personnel were commissioned around the world and on home shores. Many were sent to Germany in the immediate aftermath of the war, whilst some were involved in military operations including the war in Korea.
The return of conscription feels a way off yet, but if the worst was to happen and the UK goes to war it seems the government would at least discuss the possibility. History has shown that peacetime uses of conscription had their advantages, but the wartime necessity would likely only do what it always has- make innocent people fight the wars of the rich and powerful.
