Military Service Act comes into force

On 10 February 1916 the British Military Service Act came into force. Two weeks earlier it had received the royal assent, and it introduced conscription in Great Britain for the first time in this war. The Act itself gave no date. It provided that it would come into operation on a day appointed by royal proclamation, not later than fourteen days after its passing. Such a proclamation was issued on 3 February, and it appointed precisely 10 February. A second, more important deadline was also counted from that day. The “appointed date”, from which unmarried men covered by the Act were to be deemed to have enlisted for the duration of the war and been transferred to the reserve, was the twenty-first day after the Act came into force, that is Thursday 2 March 1916.

Three weeks to decide

Between 10 February and 2 March bachelors of military age still had a choice, and the military authorities reminded them of it insistently. Posters put up all over the country explained that every unmarried man not excepted or exempted by the Act could enlist voluntarily at once or attest under the group system, that is Lord Derby’s scheme. If he did neither, on 2 March he would be deemed a soldier anyway. “Don’t wait until 2 March. Enlist voluntarily now,” urged one of the posters. A volunteer could still choose his regiment and arm of service. A conscript could not.

The same posters reminded men that until 2 March they could apply to the local tribunal for a certificate of exemption, and that its decision could be appealed. The Act expressly stated that until an application had been finally disposed of, the man concerned could not be called up. Applications could be made by the man himself or by someone on his behalf, for example his employer. The local tribunals, sitting in every registration district, and above them the appeal tribunals and the Central Tribunal in London, therefore began to work under growing pressure. Applications poured in from thousands of craftsmen, farmers, owners of small businesses and the sons of sole breadwinners, and also from conscientious objectors, who for the first time could invoke a conscientious objection.

The first call-ups

The army did not wait to call men up. According to the Annual Register, a proclamation was issued as early as 10 February calling up unmarried men aged 19 to 30, beginning on 2 March. Conscripts were divided into classes by year of birth: Class 1 covered those born in 1897, eighteen-year-olds who were to be called up only once they had turned 19, Class 2 those born in 1896, and so on up to Class 23, those born in 1875. The call-up of a given class was announced by a proclamation posted in prominent places. This was considered sufficient notice, although each man usually also received an individual summons. Anyone who failed to report was liable as a soldier absent without leave. Four days later, on 14 February, further proclamations called up the remaining classes of bachelors, as well as the remaining groups of unmarried volunteers attested under the Derby scheme, with a reporting date from 18 March.

The dispute over exemptions

The Act redeemed the pledge of the Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, that married men would not be called up before single men, and from the outset it gave rise to disputes over whether that pledge was being kept. In the last days of February, in the House of Commons, the former Home Secretary John Simon, an opponent of conscription, complained that the tribunals were not exempting young men who were the sole support of widowed mothers, and that recruiting officials were destroying the rejection certificates of former volunteers. On the other side, Lord Derby, who was in charge of recruiting, complained that too many bachelors were shielded from the army by work in occupations recognised as essential. Married men who had attested under the Derby scheme demanded ever more loudly that conscription should cover everyone. In May 1916 a second Military Service Act extended it to married men.