How were conscientious objectors treated in WW1?

As we remember the men who fought during the First World War, it is also important to remember how we treated the 16,500 conscientious objectors (or Conchies as they were sometimes known) who appealed against compulsory military service on the grounds of their moral beliefs.

At a time when young fighting men were losing their lives in droves, conscientious objectors were hugely unpopular, with over a third of them spending some of the war in prison for their beliefs. Their story and the brutal treatment that conscientious objectors received also needs to be remembered.

In the month after the start of the First World War, almost 300,000 young men in Britain enlisted. In September 1914, Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, launched a national recruitment campaign. This persuaded a further 450,000 men to enlist, but it still wasn’t enough.

In January 1916, the government passed the Military Service Act, which stated every unmarried man of military age was ‘deemed to have enlisted for the period of the war.’

There had been months of debate in Parliament over conscription; it was unpopular with Liberal and Labour MPs and even some military figures believed a man who volunteered for the army made a better soldier than one who had been forced into it.

This underlying principle prompted Prime Minister Herbert Asquith to allow a clause exempting a man from combatant service on grounds of a conscientious objection to war. The clause was both groundbreaking and controversial, with critics arguing that it gave the shirkers a cloak with which to cover their cowardice.

First World War exemption tribunals

Men who claimed military exemption appeared before tribunals which were established in every town and city throughout Britain. A tribunal consisted of up to 10 ‘upstanding’ members of the community (usually men) and a military representative to make sure no-one got away too lightly.

Around 750,000 men applied for some form of exemption between January and July 1916.

Around 750,000 men applied for some form of exemption between January and July 1916. As well as conscientious objection, they could be exempt on the grounds that they were engaging in work “in the national interest” or being educated or trained to do so; on the grounds that serious hardship would ensue owing to the man’s “exceptional financial or business obligations or domestic position”; or on the grounds of ill health. Married men were initially exempt from conscription, but in May 1916 they were called up as well.

Conscientious objectors would be asked whether their objection was religious or political (and be expected to prove their sincerity) and whether they would then accept some form of non-combatant service or work of national importance.

There were also questions designed to trick the claimant into admitting that he would resort to violence in certain circumstances; typically whether he would take up arms to prevent the violation of his sister or mother.

16,500 men applied for military exemption on the grounds of conscientious object, but just 350 were granted absolute exemptions.

16,500 men applied for exemption on the grounds of conscientious objection, but just 350 were granted absolute exemptions. Many men were willing to support the war effort in a non-combatant role with the Royal Army Medical Corps, the Friends Ambulance Unit or the army’s newly formed Non-Combatant Corps.

Absolutist conscientious objectors

However, some conscientious objectors believed that the war was fundamentally wrong and refused to support it in any capacity whatsoever – the absolutists. For the hundreds of men who took this stance, the path through the war was fraught with difficulty and uncertainty. They were arrested, handed over to the army where they refused to follow orders, were court martialled and sent to military prison for 28 days. Upon release, the whole process would begin again.

There were cases of men being stripped to their underwear and tied up in a public square for all to see.

The army was determined to put a stop to this and regularly tried to break a man’s spirit through a process of bullying, humiliation, brutality or worse. There were cases of men being stripped to their underwear and tied up in a public square for all to see; others being kicked, punched and beaten around a training ground – in the case of George Beardsworth, of Birkenhead, in full view of his wife and sister.

In May 1916, 35 conscientious objectors were secretly shipped out to France. Once there, the men were in a war zone and the implications of disobeying orders were far more frightening. The men were locked up on bread and water rations for the greater part of the day, either in solitary confinement or crammed 12 together in little more than a cage with one bucket as a latrine.

They were subjected to Field Punishment Number One, nicknamed ‘crucifixion’ because it involved fettering a man to a fixed object such as a gun-wheel with their arms outstretched and their feet barely touching the ground. This would last for two hours a day, with the remaining 22 hours in solitary confinement.

Finally, the conscientious objectors were called individually before a senior officer, issued with a simple order and warned that refusal to obey would mean court martial, the punishment for which could be death. When the men continued to refuse, they were duly sentenced to death.

The conscientious objectors were issued with a simple order... when the men continued to refuse, they were duly sentenced to death.

By this time, news of the army’s tactics had begun to filter home and a furore had erupted in Parliament. At the 11th hour the Government was forced to admit that conscientious objectors had been shipped secretly to France, where they had been unfairly subjected to extreme military discipline. The ‘Frenchmen’ as they became known were issued with the death penalty, which was immediately commuted to 10 years’ penal servitude to be served in British civilian prisons.

Alternative work for conscientious objectors

In the summer of 1916, the Government set up the Home Office Work Scheme to tackle the growing number of conscientious objectors languishing in prison. The scheme provided men with work ‘of national importance’ that did not contribute to the war. In theory, it was a positive move in the treatment of conscientious objectors; in practice it was a badly organised, poorly managed exercise.

On 8 September 1916, 19-year-old Walter Roberts, a conscientious objector who was working at the disused granite quarry of Dyce, near Aberdeen, died of pneumonia after being forced to work in damp conditions. Walter’s death caused a national outrage as the Government’s handling of conscientious objectors was once again called into question. The conditions at Dyce Quarry were considered unsuitable for human habitation and the camp was quietly closed in October 1916.

Life for conscientious objectors didn’t get any easier when the war ended. The nation concentrated on the returning heroes and it was thanks largely to Winston Churchill (who became Secretary of State for War in 1919), that the first conscientious objectors were released from prison in April 1919. Often in poor health, many struggled to find jobs as employers refused to employ conscientious objectors over ex-soldiers and also found it difficult to obtain out-of-work benefits for the same reason.