In an editorial on Armistice day, the New Zealand Herald wrote the following nonsense.
“When it was announced at 3pm on August 5th, 1914, that the fledging nation of New Zealand was going to war on the other side of the world, patriotic young men cheered and rushed to sign up and do their duty”.
That passage is hogwash and reflects the sad decline in print media standards. A mere three decades back when our newspapers had informed back-room staff, it could never have been published.
Here are the facts.
What was noteworthy about young men’s response in both Australia and New Zealand in 1914, was that they were subject to the first ever polls conducted in both countries, in this case as to their motives for volunteering. And in both countries they overwhelmingly declared that they viewed signing up as an opportunity to “travel and see the world”. Patriotism never came into it.
If that sounds odd bear in mind that in 1914 both Australia and New Zealand, compared to today, were very simple economies.
18 year olds were living lives of long hours manual labour drudgery and almost certainly had never been more than a mile or so from their homes, and then rarely. So too back then the proportion of our population living in rural districts and toiling on farms was possibly a hundred times greater than today with the current relentless growth of large cities, attractive for their superior life-styles and variety of employment opportunities.
But far from seeing the world they found themselves living a hellish existence in trenches.
When word of this nightmare reality reached home, by 1916 despite white feathering, young men sensibly refused to enlist. There was talk of conscription but thanks to the trade unions in concert with the Catholic church, this was successfully resisted.
Mindful of that history, the advent of the 2nd World War, despite being a more virtuous mission, saw our governments take no chances and immediately introduced compulsory conscription.
16 Comments
The irony of all this is; Trump who so many liberals despise, HATES war. Trumps OK with assassinations as per his last term……but not war.
Stupid Biden and the Democrats deep state have sent long range missiles into Russia and Trump has to clean that mess up too……. UNBELIEVABLE. Peter G
I very much doubt Trump will stop the slaughter in Giza, and likely will endorse Israel dragging the region into a war with Iran. You sycophantic adoration of Trump like most of his cult like followers will green light Putin’s ambitions into the remainder of the ex-Soviet Republics. Churchill and Thatcher both knew only way stop some one like Putin is to stand toe to toe with them. I will take my history lessons from them not a rapist coward.
Russia has been sending long range missies into Ukraine for 3000 days. History tells us appeasing tyrants does not work, “you don’t negotiate with a tiger, when your head is in his jaws” Churchill in response to peaceniks in his cabinet wanting to do a deal with Nazi Germany. Likewise going into a negotiation as a mediator with a god complex does not tend to go well.
Yep. He hated war so much he dodged the Vietnam draft four times.
A medical practitioner chap who rented space in one of Fed Trump’s buildings produced a letter advising that poor Donald suffered from ‘bone spurs’.
He made a miraculous recovery though, being back on the golf course in pretty rapid fashion, and without a limp, and has managed two or three rounds of golf each week over the past five decades or so.
But that’s modern medicine for you, I suppose.
And a profound THANK YOU to all of them!
Just imagine what compulsory conscription would do today….with females wanting equal rights
As for large cities delivering a superior lifestyle, thats very much up for debate…what they do offer potentially is superior wages (for the few), theatre restaurants and improved health care (if you can afford it), but with that comes higher living costs…
Farmers did best during covid and the depression years…
You might want to recheck some of those facts.
In NZ, some men did refuse to enlist as frontline conditions became better understood, but volunteering for military service grew rather than shrank over 1915-1916 – twice as many volunteered in 1916 than in 1915. The issue was that enlistment requirements grew still faster and required a regular stream of recruits rather than the bursts of enlistment that came with the volunteer system.
Secondly, conscription was introduced in NZ (in mid-1916). While militant labour denounced it, most unions accepted it as a means to ensure all classes did their share. Catholic authorities in NZ also supported conscription in principle, though there was a massive controversy around whether their clergy would be given exemption status or not.
Ultimately, three quarters of NZ soldiers in WW1 were volunteers and those who enlisted after May 1915 (when reports from Gallipoli started coming home) had some understanding that the War was deadly. For whatever reasons, masses continued to enlist – 20,000 NZ men volunteered in 1918.
Thank you for putting fact on paper
upon turning 18 i recieved papers from the Finnish army, that i was to report for my military service. i wrote back that i was a NZ citizen which put an end to it. However, at 31 one i had a change of heart, free trip to finland, the wife gets housed in pensioner housing and recives 2 times the finnsh pension to make ends meet and some one from the governemnt would come round to help with the language, while i perfrom soldier duties during the week then home for the weekend, i would get one round trip back to NZ during my service, and 20 round finland rail passes, i too saw a free world trip with some extra goodies thrown in.
my dad and the other expat men laughed at my idea, “you dont kow what your getting your self into” , any way storey ends there , being past the max age of conscription , 30.
NZ did bring in conscription in 1916 with the Military Service Act coming into force on August 1st.(Eldred-Grigg’s The Great Wrong War, p229). but Bob’s point about going to war as an adventure to see the world is correct. Same thing happened in 1939 and 1950. The Govt. in 1950 could only afford the manpower for an artillery regiment but it had enough volunteers for an infantry battalion!
That comes as a shock. Both of my Grandfathers volunteered for service in WW1 and survived it, obviously. While they would never talk of their experiences one came out with the Military medal for bravery in the face of enemy fire. That Grandfather had travelled out from Ireland, stayed and worked in Australia for a couple of years then came to New Zealand. I can’t imagine he joined up to see the world frankly. As well as that he was in his 20’s, an Irish citizen still and was in the first wave in 1915 so wouldn’t have been conscripted. Too late now to ask him of course.
New Zealand introduced conscription in August 1916 with the passage of the Military Serice Act.
My grandfather, C.C. Taylor “Jack”, wrote a fascinating memoir titled, “ a kiwi soldier’s notes of personal experiences prior to and while in service with the New Zealand rifle brigade during the Great War. 1914-1918”.
I have my own copy, but there are other copies held at the Alexander Turnbull library and three other libraries in New Zealand.
So I just opened my copy to reread about his motives for enlisting.
Page twenty six starts with, “ I was conscious of the fact that our way of life was threatened by a picklehaubered, goose-stepping and powerfully armed nation and something had to be done to keep it in the clear.
To resist the threat was not something I wanted others to do.”
He felt it was his duty to enlist, but was sure he would be declined because he had just spent fourteen months in the Christchurch sanatorium with tuberculosis, but at the age of eighteen he passed his medical and spent the next four years of his life fighting Germans in the trenches of France.
If you want to read a cynical, first hand account of a brave young kiwi man’s experience, then I highly recommend this 180 page memoir, transcribed from handwritten notes and published by my uncle in 2004.
I wish to set the record straight regarding the location of my grandfather’s WW1 memoir.
The National library of New Zealand has just informed me that the only library that holds a copy is Christchurch City Libraries.
Come now and see the world.
Reality – tank commander instructed to move forward and in front of him a mass of wounded NZ and Aussie soldiers. The tanks moved forward. True story
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