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December 11, 2003
Conscription
Thanks to the $1 for charity for each hit over at Bojack.org I found a number of new blogs to check out. One of them has an interesting piece on the draft question in the states. This is interesting from an Australian perspective because a similar question was raised in conjunction with the issues in East Timor. The result was this report to the Australian Parliament which concludes that it wouldn't solve the problem at the time.
In WWI there were two attempts to introduce conscription (i.e. the draft) and both were defeated (narrowly). One aspect that was particularly interesting is that the troops serving overseas where primarily against the action even though they needed the reinforcements. The issue was primarily that the volunteers felt they could trust a mate who had made the choice to fight but not a bludger who had been forced to fight.
In WWII (and at various times) we have had compulsory military training but in general the draftees could only serve in a defensive role on Australian soil. This was considered a reasonable compromise. This was changed in 1943 when the prime minister of the day (who had been jailed in 1916 for opposing conscription) found a loophole in the defence act and, without a referendum, changed things so that the conscripts could be used overseas. The last version of conscription and/or national military service was ended in December 1972.
It would be an interesting study to look at how Australia managed to raise the considerable manpower required in both wars without such a system of compulsory draftees.....
Posted by Ozguru at December 11, 2003 11:12 PM
