Brave enough to say no

The first world war seemed like a good idea at the time. Cheering crowds thronged deliriously through the capitals of Europe as war was declared. In England the prospect of being paid to kill foreigners started a stampede to join up. Within five weeks almost 480,000 men had volunteered, many lying about their age. An exception was Bert Brocklesby, a charismatic young Methodist in South Yorkshire who wrote on the first day of the war: ‘However many might volunteer yet I would not … God had not put me on earth to go destroying his own children.’ Brocklesby was one of the 35 ‘absolutists’ who were prepared to die rather than co-operate in any way with the war. In We Will Not Fight Will Ellsworth-Jones vividly reconstructs the dramatic story of these men whose fortitude kept alive the principle of conscientious objection which we now take for granted.

The problem posed by the absolutists was not foreseen when the Bill which effectively brought in conscription was introduced by Asquith in January 1916, expressly making conscientious objection a ground for exemption from military service. It was assumed that while CO’s might object to taking a life they would be prepared to join the army as non-combatants or do other work of ‘national importance’ which, in the well-documented case of the Bloomsburyites Duncan Grant and Bunny Garnett, meant a little light hoeing in Sussex.

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When the likes of Bert Brocklesby applied for unconditional exemption, as they were entitled to under the Act, the local tribunals simply packed them off to join the Non-Combatants Corps which was subsequently ordered to France. The absolutists persisted in their refusal to obey orders, playing into the hands of those in the army’s high command who had been looking for a way of dealing with them because it meant that the men, now technically on active service, could simply be court-martialled for disobedience and shot.