conscription (WW1)

• British introduced conscription?


  1916
• British use of conscription?

  When war broke out in August 1914 there was a huge wave of volunteers, by Christmas of 1914 there had been hundreds of thousands of British volunteers (which was important because Britain did not introduce conscription until 1916). In January 1916 Britain passed the Military Service Act, this imposed conscription on all single men aged between 18-41. A second act was passed in May 1916 which extended the conscription to married men. Within a year over 1.1 million men had enlisted. 46% of British recruits were conscripts, 54% were volunteers
• Impact on nature?


  Tactics had to change – the large, citizen armies were not trained to perform complex tactics. Many of them had a short period of basic training – usually just 6 weeks. This led to the use of mass frontal assaults (eg. Somme 1916). The size of armies contributed to a prolonged conflict – it was impossible to inflict a decisive defeat on the enemy because of the sheer size of manpower at their disposal.
• Impact on outcome?


  Britain’s successful use of conscription allowed them to sustain the war effort and gradually wear down the German forces. Battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele were costly, but the British

  could replace their losses more effectively than the Germans