The Assault: Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-TimeWile, Frederic William
History
The Assault: Germany Before the Outbreak and England in War-Time
Wile, Frederic William
World War, 1914-1918
Britain’s volunteers had done nobly. But they manifestly did not do
enough. Mighty as was their response, Britons must yet come, or be
brought, forward in their millions if the Empire was to be saved. The
specter of Conscription became more of a tangible reality from day to
day. Voluntaryism had received a fair and a long and patient trial. It
accomplished far more, probably, than its most sanguine supporters hoped
for. It outstripped any record approximated by Lincoln in our Civil
War, but now, like him, England was plainly compelled to resort to more
heroic measures if the overthrow of Germany was to be anything more than
a pious aspiration. "Mahanism" had given Britannia control of the sea,
but "Moltkeism" was still unbeaten on the Continent.
[Illustration: Soldiers in the making--11th Battalion cook-house.]
Now Organized Labor revolted afresh. It would not hear of the
"Prussianization" of England by Conscription. It had already
"surrendered" its "industrial liberty." It did not propose to part with
whatever vestige of "personal freedom" remained. It pilloried
Conscription as "Compulsion" and, as brazenly as they dared, certain
leaders threatened any Government which essayed to fasten it upon the
"British Democracy" with political ruin for itself and gory revolution
for the country. The Conscriptionists were accused of wanting, instead
of an army of volunteer freemen, "a servile, cheap and sweated army."
They aspired to "something which would imperil the civic basis of
British liberty and degrade the nation." Conscription was "desired for
the war and for after the war, in order that its advocates might better
be able to promote their Imperialistic schemes abroad and their class
vanity and political interests at home." In the midst of a war to
"crush militarism," it was now plotted to impose that monster on
Englishmen themselves. Shrieked Bruce Glasier, for example, a paladin of
the Socialist-Labor phalanx:
"Compulsion, especially with regard to personal service, to one’s choice
of occupation and way of life, is of the essence of slavery and
oppression. Nothing but actual extremity of life and death ought to
justify us in resorting to it even temporarily. No such extremity has
arisen, or is, happily, likely to arise. The voluntary principle has
not failed either in the Army or any other profession. What has failed,
what does fail, is the political policy and administration of the
Government.
"_Since the days of Feudal slavery in Great Britain no man or woman,
except he be a criminal, a lunatic, or a pauper, has been compelled
personally to serve any master or Government, or engage in any
occupation or task by legal compulsion_.
"Shall we allow the old-world tyranny to return?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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