Sir Patrick Sanders, head of the British Army, has declared that Britain will need a ‘citizens army’ in the event of war with Russia. By this he means that the British Army is too small to play its NATO role and will need to be much augmented by volunteers if the proverbial push comes to violent shove.
It is interesting that Sanders’ policy is identical to Britain’s pre-1916 Great War recruitment policy. Back then, Britain had a small professional army but relied upon volunteers to swell the ranks to meet the anticipated German invasion of France. This meant that the British government had to orchestrate a propaganda campaign to persuade young men to come forward. Many did not need prompting, but the government wished to appeal to all those eligible to fight to maximise recruitment. The reasons for going to war were presented in colourful posters, poems, newspaper articles, music hall songs and speeches made by local dignitaries, politicians and the King, George V.
First, there was the patriotic appeal for men to defend their country against a foreign aggressor. Men were reminded that they were fighting for the defence of their families, friends, neighbourhoods and towns. They were told lurid tales of German war crimes in Belgium, such as the infamous and spurious claim that German infantrymen enjoyed tossing Belgian babies into the air and catching them on the ends of their bayonets. Such a cruel enemy had to be stopped from getting into Britain. Other horrible consequences were delineated to spur on Britain’s men such as the elimination of British liberties by Prussian despots. Belgium was depicted as a victim of the German bully. Young men who refused to volunteer were handed white feathers-the symbol of cowardice-by young women. It is estimated that 2.67 million British men volunteered to fight during the Great War. Even these numbers were not enough to fight a war that rapidly caused enormous casualties and so Herbert Asquith’s government introduced the conscription of all unmarried men aged eighteen and forty-one in January 1916, and extended it to married men of the same ages in May 1916.
Unlike the generation of 1914 who were willing but sometimes physically unfit to serve, there has been much speculation as to whether Britain’s current generation of young people would be mentally fit enough to serve. Generation Z is often dismissed as a bunch of snowflakes whose psychological fragilities will render them unable to sustain combat. According to their critics, they will fold emotionally as there are no safe spaces and trigger warnings on the frontline. Whether this is fair criticism or not, there is the equally serious question of whether Generation Z would want to volunteer in the first place.
When people like Sanders talk of voluntary military service, they include young women but for the most part, they are thinking of young men. It is young males throughout the globe who bear the brunt of the front line due to their greater innate strength, aggression and endurance. Sanders is asking Britain’s young men to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to defend their society. Yet, why would they when that same society has taught them that they are inherently flawed because they are male? They have been told that they are toxic. They are demonised as potential rapists. If they are white, they have been discouraged from volunteering by the RAF, so diversity quotas can be fulfilled. As for their country, they have been educated to regard Britain as structurally and incorrigibly racist and built on the depredations of colonialism and slavery. Winston Churchill, the greatest of British war heroes, is presented to them as a genocidal lunatic. The message is plain: Britain is not worth defending and those who would be called on to defend it are trash.
So, if war does break out, expect to see insufficient numbers of young men step forward, and blame it not on the young men themselves. Instead, blame it on those who through the Media and education have shaped their attitudes such as the radical feminists who have taught young men to hate themselves, and the woke brigade who have taught them to loathe Britain. These creeds of shame have, like a slow-acting and deadly poison, been seeping into the core of British culture and young minds for years.
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Peter Harris is the author of two books, The Rage Against the Light: Why Christopher Hitchens Was Wrong (2019) and Do You Believe It? A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith (2020).
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