How the local media shamed male readers into fighting in WW1

Reporting what happened in World War One won’t make a difference unless we also take time to reflect, writes Glen Poole.

I spotted a fascinating article in my local newspaper this week, revealing how the paper had done it’s bit for the war effort in 1914 by shaming its male readers into signing up.

The article interested me for two reasons. Firstly it added to my understanding of the great web of social pressure that pushed men into the “protect and provide” mode of masculinity a century ago. In particular, it highlighted the role that employers played in pressurising their young male staff to die for king and country, a factor I hadn’t previously considered.

Secondly, it provided evidence of the way local newspapers shamed their male readers into sacrificing their lives and it did so with no sense of guilt, regret or reflection. In a section dedicated to showing today’s readers what the local media was talking about 100 years ago, the paper proudly declared:

“Sussex men were being castigated for any unwillingness to sign up……The Argus reported an appeal for the Sussex battalion of Lord Kitchener’s expeditionary force of 100,000 men was short of soldiers. Our reporter said the response from the county had not been sufficient, that our men were “lagging behind” and were in danger of reflecting badly on the honour of Sussex.”

Taking pride in shaming men

That’s right, the newspaper told its young male readers that they were bringing shame on their county by failing to join the slaughter of the First World War and appealed to all local men under 30 to enlist.

Furthermore, the paper gave its backing to local companies who were openly dismissing young male workers who failed to put themselves in line to kill and be killed, describing the businesses who sacked these young men as “patriotic employers”.

The paper gave the example of a local tailor who responded to the initial article “by questioning why shop assistants and clerks with “no outlook” were hanging around the streets after hours rather than enlisting”. Taking the matter into his own hands, the tailor told the paper that he “approached two assistants in his employment who were under 30 and left them under no illusions that he would have no need for their service unless they attempted to enlist”.

And that was it. No reflection, no regret, no shame (or justification even) for the newspaper’s role in shaming its young male readers into overcoming the most base, individual, human instinct—to survive—and to sacrifice their potential futures to the horrors of industrial warfare in the name of the greater good.

The silence is deafening

Unwritten, between the casual lines of nostalgia that mark the violent deaths of young men in their millions one hundred years ago, is a huge, collective, silent shrug that whispers “what else could we do?”

It’s understandable. How can any individual make sense of the mass killing of global war? But this little question, the simple, childlike question “Why?” is so overwhelmingly ponderous, there is a danger we will avoid it altogether and simply report the centenary of World War One without reflection.

I don’t pretend to have the answer to this question. When I reflect on World War One, I simply count my blessings that I wasn’t born a man at a time when I would be required to either fight for my country or face the consequences of objection. I don’t have an answer to the question “Why?” but I will keep asking this question throughout the centenary of World War One.

Maybe the conscientious objectors in my local area didn’t dare to go to war, but they did dare to question it and when they asked themselves “Why?” they should enlist for the Sussex Battalion, they could come up with no acceptable answer.

As we look back on 1914 and consider the experiences of the men and boys who faced the fears of fighting (and the men and boys who faced the shame of not fighting), we owe it to each and every one of them to keep asking the question: “Why? Why? Why?”

—Photo credit: Flickr/Jenny Downing

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http://antimisandry.com/articles/white-feathers-lest-we-forget-240.html?referrerid=2062 Douglas

At a time when most suffragettes had stopped trying to get the vote for wealthy women (thereby damaging the movement to get votes for everyone) and had taken up with the White Feather Campaign the media joined in the war on men. So successful was the social pressure that the first conscripts in 1915 were not for the army but for essential services such as mining and munitions, who were running out of the skilled men needed to maintain the war effort.

History rarely mentions those people forced to work at a specific job for fixed pay and long hours yet today we would count them as slaves or even ‘trafficked persons’ since some were forced to work away from home. They too, were included in the shaming tactics of the suffragettes and of the media, though they could do nothing about it.
- Nigel
  
  This is a very good point. Men are specifically excluded from the international convention on slavery and forced labour (from the 1930s) . This was and is so that Governments can conscript men. As you point out this conscription can go much wider than serving in front line forces. It remains in force in international law that men can be enslaved by their governments. It is probably one of the few remaining directly discriminatory laws. In the United states and a number of European countries the exercise of certain constitutional rights remains conditional on registration for possible drafts, even in those countries have ended forms of national service due to the expense.
Sean Murray Rothbard

The fact that conscription, or any war, has been the biggest and most costly example of governmental use of gender discrimination against its citizens, is ignored completely by the education system, the media, or any dialogue that I have seen to take place outside of men’s rights aware discussion. Yet the lack of female suffrage, which in the uk was remedied just a few years after the universal enfranchisement of men, is the most well known example not to mention the one most exploited for sympathy and leverage.
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CitymanMichael

I believe the question of war goes very deep. I have never read anything which explains why wars happen. Wars have always happened & will almost certainly always happen.
I am reminded of Professor Pinker’s video examining violence in history. It turns out that even with the mass slaughter of the 2 world wars, the 19th century was extremely passive with less than 1% of men dying by violence – in pre-history it is estimated that as many as 60% of men died by the hand of another man. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcIL_JFmBtk

I am tending to believe that wars and more generally deaths of men by other men are caused by biology, simply because there appears to be no other explanation. So, should we be looking more deeply at the reason for the Somme, et al?
- Groan
  
  When an undergraduate I recall a Professor (himself an Ukrainian who had fled the Stalinist purges) noting the absence of a “Sociology of War” . Given the dramatic effects of wars on people and society Prof. Shanin thought it impossible to understand “society” without understanding war and conflict and vice versa. As illustrated here “volunteering” to serve was not just an individual choice. Indeed it was only the sheer numbers killed and wounded that propelled Britain to introduce conscription, in effect forced labour, in a society that had until then relied on “professional” services and voluntary militias(usually toffs). War as a social phenomena is a curious “black hole”. We frequently look into the results but not the thing itself. As if to investigate and analyse is to some how approve.
  As war plays a huge part in historical male experience in effect if we largely ignore it.
  One of the very welcome peculiarities of WW1 commemorations is the revelation of the human stories and small stories as above that open up the understanding of men’s experiences.
Vincent McGovern

The concept throughout history and society that men are disposable, most do their duty to either King, Queen and or country, before nation states arrived to their tribe, clan or family means that discriminatory laws will always exist against men. Ironically in an age of alleged enhanced equality there has probably never been such systematic institutional discrimination against men in the UK and especially in the myriad agencies propping up the family courts as now. And what does todays press focus on where the genders are concerned, domestic violence by men against women and the (alleged) benefits of patriarchy. The more things change the more they stay the same.

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