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The New Southern Cross by Claude Marquet. The 1916 Australian referendum, concerning how conscripted soldiers could be deployed, was held on 28 October 1916. It was the first non-binding Australian referendum (often referred to as a plebiscite because it did not involve a constitutional question), and contained one proposition, which was Prime Minister Billy Hughes' proposal to allow ...
There was widespread opposition to this so-called "boy conscription", [5] but the major conscription controversy began in 1916, after Prime Minister Billy Hughes had visited the war front. On his return to Australia, he declared his view that conscription was needed to supply the Australian forces with a sufficient number of soldiers.
During the course of World War 1, 38.7% of eligible Australian men enlisted for service — around 420,000 out of an eligible population of a little over 1 million. During the war, the range of men eligible to volunteer was expanded, with the initial age range of 19–38 expanded to 18–45 in June 1915.
Soldiers from the 4th Division near Chateau Wood, Ypres, in 1917. In Australia, the outbreak of World War I was greeted with considerable enthusiasm. Even before Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, the nation pledged its support alongside other states of the British Empire and almost immediately began preparations to send forces overseas to engage in the conflict.
One of the immediate effects of conscription was the biggest protest demonstration Britain had seen since the 1914 anti-war protests. [33] 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 ...
Speakers at the event were D. J. McGuire and Austin Elliott who spoke about conscription for World War I. [2] In 1917, ahead of the 1917 Australian conscription referendum, the campaign published a leaflet calling upon mothers to vote against conscription. [3] The campaign's pamphlet Wholesale Slaughter read "Maintain ‘White Australia ...
Most labor unions actively opposed conscription. Many Australians thought positively of conscription as a sign of loyalty to Britain and thought that it would also support those men who were already fighting. However, trade unions feared that their members might be replaced by cheaper foreign or female labour and opposed conscription.
The Conscription Crisis of 1918 occurred when the British Government tried to impose conscription on Ireland. Sinn Féin was publicly perceived to be the key instigator of anti-conscription feeling, and on 17 May the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , Lord French , claiming there was a treasonable plot between Sinn Féin and the Germans , ordered the ...