Our AGM was held on 19 August at the Yorkshire Stingo Hotel in Abbotsford. Guest speaker was Dr Bart Ziino from Deakin University on the topic: Enlisting and Resisting: Why did Australian men decline to enlist in the Great War?
While more than three hundred thousand Australians volunteered to serve overseas during the Great War, even more declined to volunteer. With the numbers of enlisting men decreasing, the federal Government implemented a ‘Call to Arms’ in 1916. Men in the relevant age group were sent a form to complete, requiring a Yes or No response to the question ‘Are you willing to enlist now?’ If the answer was No, they had to state their reasons. Although there was no conscription in Australia, in bold at the bottom of the form was the statement ‘If reply is not received by due date prosecution will follow’.
Focusing on the responses of Collingwood, Abbotsford and Clifton Hill men ‘Call to Arms’, Dr Ziino’s absorbing presentation offered a rare insight into how men and their families negotiated the ever-increasing demands of the nation at war and in many cases concluded that their duty lay closer to home. Many men gave poor health as their reason, while a significant number talked of family, business, and financial obligations. Some cited conscientious reasons, others simply indicated their horror or fear of being involved in a war. Here are a few examples:
‘Wife and family to look after & household business to attend to. I am paying my furniture off & I don’t see my way clear to enlist.’
‘Promised my brother only one of us was to go. He went.’
James Cromwell of 29 Waterloo Road, a bootmaker, stated his health was not good but also ‘I am under 21 and cannot get my Parents’ consent.’
‘Afraid.’
‘Do not want to go to war’
Robert Loudon of Clifton Hill said he would enlist ‘when all single men and married men without family have gone.’
