The Impact of War on Scottish Society

The Impact of War on Scottish Society

1. Recruitment

   • Reasons
     • adventure/excitement
     • anti-German propaganda
     • patriotism
     • peer pressure
     • Pals Battalions
       • Hearts of Midlothian Football Club
         • McCrae's Battalion (16th Royal Scots)
       • discouraged once impact on communities became clear
     • fear of unemployment/pressured by employers
     • over by Christmas
     • guilt (white feather)
     • protect family
     • martial tradition
       • kilts distinguishable
   • British Expeditionary Force too small
     • approx. 100,000 men
     • Kitchener asked for volunteers
       • 19 - 35
       • by the end of Aug. 1914 20,000 men from Glasgow alone

2. Conscription

   • Jan 1916
     • single men 18 - 41
     • exemptions
       • essential wartime employment
       • medically unfit
       • religious ministers
       • conscientious objectors
       • married men
         • extended to them in may 1916
   • in 1918 age raised to 51
   • volunteers not enough to keep up with casualties

3. Conscientious Objectors

   • Alternatives
     • non - combatant roles
       • stretcher bearer etc.
   • Absolutists
     • refused to fight at all
       • anger over wasted labour in jail
         • military camps
           • Dyce, near Aberdeen
             • 250 men
             • appalling conditions
               • hard labour in a granite quarry, poor living conditions
             • one man died from pneumonia
   • Reasons
     • pacifists
     • political
       • Germany was not their enemy
     • religous
       • Quakers, Jehovah Witnesses etc.
   • The No - Conscription Fellowship
     • believed that it was a violation of civil liberties
   • military tribunals

4. Women

   • Dr Elsie Inglis set up field hospitals
   • International Congress of Women in Hague
     • Chrystal Macmillan
       • marked the foundation of the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom - still exists today
   • Munitions Factory in Gretna
     • 9000 women worked there
   • worked as long as 12 hour shifts in some factories in Glasgow
   • Rent Strikes
     • refused to pay increased rent
     • government intervened
       • rate fixed at 1914 rate unless properties were improved

5. DORA

   • no photos of military bases
     • spying
   • beer watered down
     • pub hours regulated
       • needed everyone to help war effort
         • no drunks
   • church bells don't ring
     • no fireworks
       • could be signalling
   • not allowed to give bread to horses or chickens
     • rationing
   • Gov. could take over any factory
     • war effort munitions etc.
   • censorship
     • moral & spies
   • no binoculars
     • spying
   • no trespassing on railway lines
     • essential for transporting stuff around Britian
       • could try and sabotage

6. Remembrance & Commemoration

   • monuments everywhere
     • Hearts, Haymarket Edinburgh
   • memorial museum
     • Edinburgh Castle
       • Scots wanted own memorial
         • officially opened in 1928
   • minutes silence began in Nov. 1919
   • poetry - John Buchan et al
   • many returned injured, physically & mentally