As there were too few volunteers to fill the ranks, the
Military Service Act 1916 was introduced in January 1916, with compulsory conscription for the first time in Britain's history. Every unmarried man and childless widower between 18 and 41 was offered three choices: • Enlist at once. • Attest at once under Derby's system. • Or on 2 March 1916 be automatically deemed to have enlisted. In May 1916 the Military Service Act 1916 (Session 2) extended conscription to married men, and in April 1918 the Military Service Act 1918 raised the upper age to 50 (or 56 if need arose). Ireland was excluded due to the 1916 Easter Uprising, yet many Irish men still volunteered to enlist. Thousands marched from London's East End to Trafalgar Square, where they listened to speeches from
Sylvia Pankhurst and a Glasgow councillor who reported that engineers had come out on strike along the Clyde. The event ended in violence when a group of soldiers and sailors charged the crowd, ripped their banners and threw dye in their faces. Some of the assailants were arrested, but Bow Street magistrates let them off with nominal fines and a warning to "leave these idiots alone in future". As Arthur Henderson had warned, compulsion was unpopular, by July 1916, 93,000 (30%) of those called up for military service had failed to appear (in reality they had little chance of escape, although a lucky few were hidden by sympathisers) and 748,587 had claimed an exemption – the men, or their employers, could appeal to a civilian
military service tribunal in their district on the grounds of work of national importance, business or domestic hardship, medical unfitness or
conscientious objection. Dealing with these cases filled the judicial courts, although the standards of appeal tribunals were dubious: in York a case was determined in an average of eleven minutes, while two minutes was typical at Paddington, London. In addition to those objecting to enlisting, there were 1,433,827 already starred as being in a war occupation, ill or already discharged from service due to illness; enforced conscription ultimately failed to satisfy government demand for lives. Although it has been the focus of the tribunals' image since the war, only two percent of those appealing were conscientious objectors. Around 7,000 of them were granted non-combatant duties, while a further 3,000 ended up in special work camps. 6,000 were imprisoned. Forty-two were sent to France to potentially face a firing squad. Thirty five were formally sentenced to death, but immediately reprieved, with ten years penal servitude substituted. Many of those appealing were given some kind of exemption, usually temporary (between a few weeks and six months) or conditional on their situation at work or home remaining serious enough to warrant their staying at home. In October 1916 1.12 million men held tribunal exemption or had cases pending, by May 1917 this had fallen to 780,000 exempt and 110,000 pending. At this point 1.8 million men were exempted, more men than were serving overseas with the British Army. Some men were exempted on the condition that they joined the
Volunteer Training Corps for part-time training and home defence duties; by February 1918, 101,000 men had been directed to the Corps by the tribunals. A newspaper report on 17 February 1916 listed five sample appeals for exemption from conscription, and their results. In 1917 the Commons passed a bill to give the vote to all males over 21 (and to some women over 30), but it did not become law until passed as the
Representation of the People Act 1918 on 6 February 1918. In the same month occupational exemptions were withdrawn for men 18 to 23; in October 1918 there were 2,574,860 men in reserved occupations. Men aged 18½ were sent to the fronts starting in March 1918, violating a pledge to keep them safe until 19. There were also problems with men's suitability for active service. The healthy manpower was simply not there – recruits were sorted into three classes, A, B, and C, in order of fitness for front-line service. In 1918, 75 percent were classed as A, some B men also had to be sent into the trenches. The upper limit on the number of men conscripted is usually calculated by assuming that all recruits after 1 March 1916 were conscripts: 1,542,807 men, 43.7% of those who served in the Army during the war. However, Derby had enlisted 318,553 single men in Special Reserve B, who were called up in spring 1916, which reduces the conscripted to 37%. The married men who had attested in the Derby plan are harder to categorize because they were not called up from the Reserve but swept up with the rest. It seems that somewhat less than 35% of the men in the army were compelled to serve. ==Ireland==