Britain's Conscientious Objectors in WWI

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The first world war saw a lot of refusal towards the war effort by men which made the government afraid due to the futile and indiscriminate slaughter of the British army at the battle of the Somme in 1916 where General Haig's tactics failed to show success which resulted in Britain losing a vast majority of soldiers by 1916. Therefore the government feared that they might lose World War one as well because there a lot of casualties which needed to be replaced and many men were becoming antisocial and refused to join the war, these people were known as conscientious objector or short for C.Os. Some C.Os did not want to fight in the war but were keen to do there bit in the war, so they were willing to help out in weapon factories and go to the trenches and became stretcher bearers theses types of C.Os were known as non commandant, however some C.Os were total refused to do any type of military work these were known as the absolutists. By 1916 volunteers to join the war started drying up,as their was many reasons why men refused, being that they pacifists who isolated themselves from a type of violences, political objector who went against the idea that Germany were their enemy, and religious objector who followed the words of the bible which says “thou shell not kill” so they were against the idea of shedding blood of their own kind. Consequently, Britain introduced conscription in 1916 where the law stated that you had to severe your country in the military for a certain time period this only went for unmarried mans. But in 1916 the military services act got introduced which widened conscription to married man as well. Conscription increased the power of the British army massively which was what the Government wanted as they neede...

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... and remorse inside C.Os by presenting them a situation in which they would be questioned about the war by their children which may not happen in reality as some children's may feel the opposite and instead feel proud of the father taking a stand for what his rights. In addition to this the government are trying to put C.Os in a early negative mindset of feeling guilt and remorse for their actions so it gradually build to the day they get confronted by their children which might no even happen which compromises the reliability of the source. Being a primary interpretation is is partly useful as it deems negativity because it wants o change the mindset of C.Os to make them feel embarrassment and guilt, however the source also interprets to us how desperate and selfish government was as they just cared about winning the war and ignored C.Os moral beliefs.

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