Although the ALP had a majority in both houses of parliament, Labor parliamentarians were certain to split on the issue. To the already febrile mix of the conscription debate was added Protestant-Catholic sectarianism. The yes case exhorted women to fulfil their traditional biological role as wives and mothers and provide husbands and sons as a sacrifice to the nation. At the beginning of the First World War, Australian law required all young Australian men to participate in national service within Australia only if Australia came under direct attack. Even so, the margin was slight and it was thought that the majority for yes came from men in camps in Britain and on transports rather than those at the front. They accepted the British command’s view that there was no other way of supplying the AIF with the reinforcements it needed. In 1965 a group of concerned Australian women formed the anti-conscription organisation Save Our Sons, which was established in Sydney, with other branches later formed in Wollongong, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Newcastle and Adelaide. Conscription (compulsory military service for young men) has been a contentious issue throughout Australian history. Joan Beaumont, Australian National University. As many had predicted, the conscription debate split the ALP at federal and state levels, consigning it to the political wilderness federally for the next decade. Conscription in Australia - WikiMili, The Free Encyclopedia Compulsory military service had been part of Australian life before the declaration of war in 1914. Come and see why. Conscription has been a contentious issue in Australia from the time of Federation in 1901. The 1917 Russian revolution helped end the war on the Eastern Front but the conflict dragged on until late in 1918. Each side held huge mass rallies, with crowds numbering up to 100,000 in Sydney. The ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) government faced profound political difficulties in responding to this demand. Mainstream and conservative women's organisations, like the National Council of Women or the Australian Women's National League, supported conscription, distributing leaflets and organising meetings for the pro-conscription cause. Small rural towns were riven apart by the public naming of families who had, or had not, sent their sons to the war. In the end, after a hastily improvised campaign to sway their vote, there was a small majority for yes. Compulsory military service for duty within Australia was revived in 1939, shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.10554. This obliged soldiers in the Citizen Military Force (CMF) to serve in this region, known as the South–West Pacific Area. Trove includes major Australian metropolitan and regional newspapers. Dominated by the trade unions, but not limited to them, the anti-conscription groups also spoke the language of loyalty and equality of sacrifice. All of this public contestation became deeply personalized and bitter in communities where everyone knew each other. In 1917, voluntary recruitment continued to fall below the levels needed to replace the losses on the Western Front. Conscription in Australia, or mandatory military service also known as national service, has a controversial history dating back to the first years of nationhood. Eighteen-year-old men were required to undertake 176 days of … White Australia, a core value of the young Australian nation, would be at risk. It has become clear that rotating the troops sent to Timor is going to be difficult for an Army of less than 24 000 Regulars, as Australia's is today. Although such schemes were usually politically popular, people were always divided on the issue of conscripts fighting in wars outside Australia’s shores. Volunteer; Citizenship; Sectarianism; Censorship; Labour; Trade Unions; Women, "It's Our Flag", Australian recruiting poster, Australia has Promised Britain 50,000 More Men, poster, An Australian soldier carries a wounded comrade, Gallipoli, 1915, "Boys Come Over Here You're Wanted", poster, Which picture...?, Australian recruitment poster. 10 am to 5 pm daily (except Christmas Day), Get your ticket to visit: awm.gov.au/visit, Copyright Secondly, the fact that the AIF remained an all-volunteer force fuelled the development, from 1916 on, of the mythic representation of the Australian soldier as the citizen in arms. Your generous donation will be used to ensure the memory of our Defence Forces and what they have done for us, and what they continue to do for our freedom remains – today and into the future. However, with some important exceptions, Australians voted in ways that reflected their class, religion and gender, with class perhaps being the dominant variable. Throughout 1916 Australia had experienced problems meeting the troop supply commitments it had made to the British Government. This scheme was abolished by the Labor Government after its election in October 1929. Class was a strong influence, with the working classes and trade unionists largely voting no and the middle classes, yes. [4] However, none of these variables were exclusive. The case for conscription was generally championed by the political and social elites, including the leadership of the Protestant churches, the majority of the press, business leaders and the conservative Liberal Party (the federal opposition). The legislation for compulsory military training was introduced in 1909 by Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, and was passed into law in 1911. The first was that post-war Australian remained divided not only along sectarian lines but between those who had volunteered and those who had not. The competence for which he was renowned was a testament to, and affirmation of, the values and lifestyle of Australian society: a society which, in the writings of one of the key exponents of the legend, Charles Bean (1879-1968) was egalitarian, relatively classless and shaped by the experience of living in the Australian rural districts, or "the bush". International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. At this time, Hughes was the leader of … New South Wales was most strongly against. Shortly after Federation, the Defence Acts of 1903 and 1904 provided that men between 18 and 60 should be liable for service in time of war, but limited the obligation to service within the Commonwealth and Commonwealth territories. Their religious leaders were also, with few exceptions, Irish by birth or training. Beginning in September 1915, a Universal Service League, modelled on the British National Service League, demanded that the federal government modify the Defence Act to permit conscription for overseas service. Under the Defence Act of 1903, Australia’s small regular army could not be deployed overseas. While the Act gave the government the power to conscript citizens for the purpose of home defence, legislation did not allow soldiers to be conscripted for overseas service. Conscription. Military service should not be a matter of individual choice. All the arguments for and against conscription were rehearsed again, but the tone was more strident, irrational and hysterical. Middle class leaders of organizations such as the Australian Women’s National League, the National Council of Women and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union spoke from public podiums and organized petitions. The volunteer became the superior citizen, entitled not just to honour but to benefits such as preferential employment, medical care and soldier settlement land schemes. Conscription is certainly a quick means of raising large numbers of troops. It is most often used in the specific sense of government policies that require citizens to serve in the armed forces. Draft resisters were released from jail and pending prosecutions were dropped. Even more alarming than the eugenics effect would be the vulnerability of Australia to external threats. Our collection contains a wealth of material to help you research and find your connection with the wartime experiences of the brave men and women who served in Australia’s military forces. The supreme duty which a democrat owed to his country was to fight for it. The enemy was a brutal one whose atrocities in Belgium continued to be given prominence in the Australian press. Those born in Britain tended to vote yes, a fact that may help account for the stronger yes vote in Western Australia where the proportion of the population born in Europe was higher than the national average. The Act established the government’s right to conscript men for the purpose of self-defence in the event of war. 54-72. Australia has already contributed a substantial number of men through its volunteer system, especially considering the size of the nation. Conscription was the most divisive issue in Australian politics during the First World War. Blessed with a commanding public persona, and a capacity for acerbic wit and oratory, he would become a source of profound aggravation to Hughes and the loyalists. It was the third such scheme to have existed in Australia since Federation. The issue of conscription, however, would not go away. Yet even in "loyal" Western Australia the no vote increased. 198, 206. The Australian Imperial Force (AIF), raised after the outbreak of war in August 1914, was a volunteer force. Although willing to support voluntary enlistment, Ryan opposed conscription as an abuse of government power. While he supported Australia’s involvement in the war and the need for reinforcements, he believed men should not be forced to enlist – and was the only state leader at the time to say so openly. If only volunteers, who were assumed to be the fittest, the most virile, and the most morally sound of the male population, were willing to die, the race might become degenerate. So Hughes felt he had no option but to put the question to a popular vote again. Its dominant figure, William Morris "Billy" Hughes (1862-1952), who was Attorney General (1914-1915) and Prime Minister (1915-1923), had no personal objection to the principle of compulsion. Sensitive to the concerns of his laity, Mannix played to the longstanding sense of Catholic marginalization in Australian society and the class identity of his working-class parishioners, who were in no mood for compromise after the ruthless crushing of a general strike between August and October 1917. Socialist women also became regular speakers at public gatherings, although behind the scenes they continued to bear most of the traditionally female duties. George Foster Pearce and the Foundations of Australian Defence, Melbourne 2011, p. 108. The general patterns of voting seemed to have been similar to 1916 but the no margin was slightly larger. In 1964 compulsory National Service was introduced under the National Service Act. The government of prime minister Alfred Deakin and other non-Labor governments had introduced a form of conscriptionfor boys from 12 to 14 years of age and for youths from 18 to 20 years of age between 1905 and 1909. Like the yes case, the opponents of conscription also invoked the discourse of civil liberties, claiming that it was a violation of democracy to force men to fight and kill against their will. However, stories of lost campaigns and war horrors, coupled with increasing casualty rates saw recruitment levels decline. A Cliometric Re-Appraisal, in: Historical Studies 20/78 (1982), pp. Conscription in Australia, or mandatory military service also known as national service, has a controversial history dating back to the first years of nationhood. So too was gender, birthplace and religion. Rather they were "disloyal", stigmatized with insinuations of treason, treachery and support for Germany. Arguments in favour of Conscription included: - It was Australia's duty to … Prime Minister Billy Hughes made two attempts to introduce conscription: two conscription referenda were held in … Fitzhardinge, L.F.: William Morris Hughes. Gibson, P.M.: The Conscription Issue in South Australia, 1916-1917, in: University Studies in History 4 (1963), p. 70; Jauncey, Leslie C.: The Story of Conscription in Australia, London 1935, pp. They also used both song and humour very effectively. The result was no, but only by a margin of 72,456 votes or 3.2 percent of the valid votes cast. So Hughes decided to put the issue to the Australian people, believing that with a public mandate he could neutralize the opposition of at least some of his critics. By early October 1916, however, it appeared that a majority of soldiers in France might vote no. Not surprisingly, given some very public confrontations between Ryan and Hughes, Queensland’s no vote rose by 22,000. Conscription before the Second World War One of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new Commonwealth government after Federation was the Defence Act 1903, which provided for the raising of an Australian army. The Defence Act 1903 was one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new Commonwealth Government. Those who opposed conscription were not nationalists with a different understanding of Australia’s interests. "In 1911 there were approximately 350,000 boys of an age (10–17 years) to register … Victoria joined New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia in voting no. The introduction of conscription illustrates the main purpose of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The number of enlistments in 1914 and early 1915 more than cov… The soldiers of the AIF, whose votes were so important to the legitimacy of the government’s case, again voted yes. The first conscript to die in Vietnam, Errol Noack, was a South Australian. 38-46. Leading this hybrid party, he won the federal election of May 1917 on a "Win the War" ticket. We recognise their continuing connection to land, sea and waters. December 5, 1972 was the day conscription ended in Australia. Conscription, World War I, 1914-1918 Support for World War I was high in 1914; vast numbers of men enlisted to serve in the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF). Use this login for Shop items, and image, film, sound reproductions, Fact sheet: Universal military training in Australia, 1911–29. is licensed under: CC by-NC-ND 3.0 Germany - Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works. The Catholic laity, it seems, largely opposed conscription, though whether this was because of their class, ethnicity or religion has been much debated. The Australian War Memorial was voted the number one landmark in Australia by travellers in the 2016 Trip Advisor awards. Equality of sacrifice was an argument rooted partly in the agony of bereavement and loss: why should my son, father or husband die while yours lives? All the Australians who fought in World War I were volunteers. The Australian War Memorial acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia. Hughes was so sure that the soldiers, with whom he felt a strong rapport, would vote yes that he scheduled their polling day more than a week before the main vote. Opponents of conscription challenged the accuracy of official estimates of the number of reinforcements needed to replace the AIF losses. … The conscription issues and the war itself caused social division in reaction to the Vietnam War.. Then in 1964 conscription was brought in for the Vietnam War. This was a powerful argument, highlighting the contradiction at the heart of any democratic state, which both enshrines individual freedom but requires for its survival that its citizens be willing to die in its defence. There was to be no conscription for service overseas, but instead, in a bill passed in February 1943 by the Curtin Labor Government, "Australia" was defined in such a way as to include New Guinea and the adjacent islands. If conscription had’ve been introduced these figures would no … The AIF’s support for conscription, progressively released during the campaign, would then set an example for Australians at home. In two referenda, in October 1916 and December 1917, the Australian electorate narrowly rejected the introduction of conscription, after bitter debates that split the governing Australian Labor Party and profoundly divided the population. Australia currently has no conscription. "[1] The advocates of conscription also argued that the burden of the war must be shared equitably. The one conclusion we can reach with confidence is that, after a debate of intense complexity and passion, each Australian cast his or her vote in a way that was personal and idiosyncratic. The conscription issue in Australia Unlike the other countries engaged in World War I, conscription was not introduced in Australia. [5] Moreover, Hughes had promised in the May 1917 elections to refer conscription back to the people if the strategic situation deteriorated.The referendum proposal in 1917 was more modest than in 1916, but the debates it triggered were even more bitter and divisive. The Universal Service Scheme was the first system of compulsory military service in Australia. Australian War Memorial, Canberra. 2020 Using the War Precautions Act, the Hughes government stifled dissent through heavy censorship of the media and the partisan repression of public meetings. Groups such as the Campaign for Peace in Vietnam campaigned vigorously against conscription, and thousands joined protest marches in Adelaide. By the time the conscription campaign ended, the state of Queensland politics was so volatile that Hughes, who was bombarded with an egg during one rally at Warwick near Brisbane, thought (with some exaggeration) that the state was "ripe for revolution."[6]. In contrast to 1916, the no case was championed, in Melbourne particularly, by a Catholic priest, Archbishop Daniel Mannix (1864-1963). They included the Industrial Workers of the World(IWW), also known as the Wobblies, a socialist group originating in America (Chicago) but established in Australia from 1907. Australia currently only has provision for conscription during times of war. During 1916 and 1917, two bitter and divisive referendums were conducted on the issue of conscription at the height of WWI. On 28 October 1916, Australians finally voted. If Britain were defeated in Europe, the Royal Navy lost its dominance in the Pacific, and Australia had only weaklings to defend it, who would contain the threat of Germany and Japan in the region? The conscription ‘lottery’ In November 1964, the Australian Government led by Prime Minister Robert Menzies introduced a scheme of selective conscription known as national service. Beaumont, Joan: Conscription (Australia) , in: 1914-1918-online. One cohort whose vote was of particular significance was the AIF itself. Home; Books; Journals; Theses; Pugh's Almanac; Government Gazette; book Conscription in Australia; Edited by Forward, Roy, Reece, Bob. The expeditionary force which the Australian government offered to Britain in August 1914 was composed only of volunteers, since earlier legislation forbade the deployment of conscripts overseas. Some 21 percent of the Australian population was Catholic;[2] most of them were working class and of Irish extraction. The defeat of the referendum meant conscription was dead as a policy option. Divided on the issue themselves, they declared that conscription was a secular rather than a moral issue, which parishioners should resolve in terms of their individual consciences. Many Catholics had been aggrieved by the withdrawal of state aid to non-government schools in the late 19th century. Notably this violence often targeted women, as did the propaganda of both sides. Physical violence and crude disruptive tactics became common on both sides. The Defence Act 1903 was one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new Commonwealth Government. While the Act gave the government the power to conscript citizens for the purpose of home defence, legislation did not allow soldiers to be conscripted for overseas service. Many Australians were opposed to involvement in the Vietnam War and even more objected to the use of conscripts there. The scheme was introduced under the National Service Act 1964 and was designed to … Withers, Glen: The 1916-1917 Conscription Referenda. These large organisations were joined by smaller, but well-organised radical groups, many of which also opposed the war itself. In two referendums (1916,1917), Prime Minister Billy Hughes offered Australians the chance to vote for conscription . But it was also a debate about the obligations of citizenship. In the valorising narrative that became known as the Anzac "legend", the "digger", or common soldier, became the embodiment of civic values. During World War 2, the right of free speech and the right not to serve outside the country that was present during World War 1 was removed. It was clear that the vote against conscription had not been a vote against the war. Their Irish extraction also made many Catholics naturally distrustful of the imperial history of Britain that so entranced the Anglo-Australian loyalists. It was a long campaign of eight weeks, during which public order disintegrated. An Australian Labor Party government instituted a system of compulsory military training for all males aged between 12 and 26 from 1 January 1911. From 1965 to 1972, 15,381 national servicemen served in the Vietnam War, with 200 killed and 1,279 wounded. New Zealand, too, passed legislation in May 1916 conscripting non-Maori males. 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