by Geoffrey Churchman

Last week’s talk at the Kapiti Historic Society was by David Grant, an historian who has written books on this subject. It is very relevant right now given the reports with ample evidence, some of which WW has posted, of the ‘press-ganging’ in Ukraine by the Zelensky regime in Nato’s war against Russia. Men get snatched off the street, usually brutally, given uniforms and weapons and dispatched off to the frontline. Unsurprisingly most get killed quickly, with the exception of those smart enough to surrender to the Russians, or desert.

In World War 1 in NZ these factors didn’t apply — the completely pointless conflict was on the other side of the world and there was no NZ territory at stake; rather it was all about imperial glory — the British empire with the French, and for a short time the Russian empire, versus the German Reich, and the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires — and nothing else.

At the time NZ was a devout British Dominion and it was inevitable that the state attitude and the media would urge as many military age men as possible to go and fight the horrible huns who dared to challenge their empire. It didn’t matter that the conflict had nothing to do with NZ, or Australia or Canada either.

Initially plenty of zealots who saw it as a great adventure were enthusiastic volunteers, the problems came later when the initial volunteers got slaughtered or badly wounded and despite heavy censorship, news of the losses and to some degree, the conditions, saw recruitment fall.

In late 1915 the government conducted National Registration, a manpower census designed to find out how many eligible men in the 20 to 45 age range remained. This showed that there was a good number of men available, but a follow-up recruiting drive did not see many of them coming forward.

The government was committed to maintaining the flow of soldiers to the killing fields of the Western Front, and on 1 August 1916 the Military Service Act became law. This enabled the government to conscript any military age man between for service in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF). The government also moved to shut down resistance and punish those who resisted service in the war to make examples of those who refused to ‘do their duty’.

Conscripted men who refused military service were known as ‘conscientious objectors’, because their refusal to serve was based on their personal beliefs/consciences. About 600 men declared conscientious objections, of whom around 286 were ultimately imprisoned in New Zealand as an example to other would-be objectors (the others accepted non-combatant service or were exempt). 

The following year in July 1917, the NZ Minister of Defence, James Allen, decided on a opportunity whim to forcibly include 14 of the imprisoned objectors in the Wellington area in a troop ship to England as there was space in the hold of the Waitemata (pictured) available to do that. On arrival in England they were given “special treatment” by “Red Caps” (military police), some of whom were violent criminals released from prison for the purpose. Some of the NZers were ultimately transported to the Western Front and subjected to continuing military punishments and incarceration. These included forcing the prisoners to lift 40 lb. (18 kg) bags with their forearms only, hold them for a while and lower then again to the ground. But worse they were also tied with ropes to poles with their feet off the ground for long periods and at the front were dragged over boardwalks with cross bracing (there to provide footholds when dragging equipment.) This caused big injuries to their backs.

It was all quite horrible treatment and a clear breach of what can be considered acceptable behavior by the authorities. The specific experiences of ‘the 14’ remain among the most controversial legacies of NZ’s World War 1.

Out of a population of 1.1 million in 1914 the NZ government called up no less than 138,034 men for military service under conscription. Every man could appeal against his call-up through his local Military Service Board, which was empowered to exempt men on the grounds they worked in an essential industry, that their enlistment would cause ‘undue hardship’ to their family, or that they were a member of a pacifist religious group. During the war the boards heard between 32,445 and 43,544 appeals (depending on the source) and offered provisional exemptions to 11,343 men on the grounds of essential industry or undue hardship. Only 60 men were granted exemptions on religious grounds; another 13 rejected exemptions they were offered. Some 32,270 conscripts had been sent to military camp to serve in the NZEF by the end of the war, of whom 19,548 ultimately embarked for the Western Front.

The big issue revolves around whether the government ‘owns’ people — those who say it doesn’t reject conscription as slavery. If people reject a government’s call to serve in a war they disagree with, as we are seeing in Nato’s continuous war on Russia, then that should be their decision and respected as such. It’s no surprise that citizens of Merz’s 4th German Reich are telling him to get Stuffed in response to his conscription plans.