The National Service League And Mandatory Service In Edwardian Britain

Abstract

There existed in Great Britain in the years 1900 to 1914 an energetic and well-connected movement dedicated to the implementation of mandatory military service. The most significant of its components was the National Service League, led by the septuagenarian Field-Marshal Lord Roberts. The movement was fostered by the fear and sense of failure resulting from the Boer War. While it failed in its goal of peacetime conscription, the league prepared the way for the political struggle to bring about the first modern compulsory service law in 1916. Despite support within the army, the political parties, and from advocates of "National Efficiency," the movement failed primarily because the electorate would not tolerate consideration of mandatory service. This is perhaps the most important lesson of the entire episode and one which national service enthusiasts in the modern voluntarist democracies must understand.