Is it time Britain brought back national service?
We haven’t had compulsory service since the Sixties. Now schemes compelling young people to contribute to society – without ties to the military – are making a global comeback. So to promote unity and social cohesion...
Emanuel macron, the shiny new President of France, is brilliant, commanding, a little vain and – still only 40 – improbably young, though his poised and Gauloise-thin wife is 24 years his senior.
So far, so French. But macron is also the first President de la Republique never to have done national service: a predecessor, Jacques Chirac, abolished it in 1996. Which is ironic, as the sleekit macron announced in June plans to reinstate it.
The proposals are modest – a month of compulsory service for all French 16-yearolds – and largely unmilitary: a fortnight thrown together in public housing to promote a social mix, followed by two more weeks toiling for the public good in such fields as ‘defence, environment, caring, tutoring and culture,’ says education minister Jean-michel Blanquer.
There will be an optional second phase lasting three to 12 months for under 25-year-olds who ‘wish to get more committed,’ he added, and there will be ‘varied and targeted incentives’ such as university credits or funding.
It could start as early as next summer and by 2026 involve as many as 700,000 young French people. It will not be cheap – the annual cost has been put at £1.4billion – and critics already carp on the sidelines, pointing out both that during last year’s Presidential election macron unambiguously called for obligatory ‘direct experience of military life’, and that a bare month is mere tokenism.
But the idea of national Service, in some form and in principle, has much to be said for it – not least when, in Britain, there is mounting concern among employers about the poor bearing, indiscipline and inarticulacy of far too many school-leavers.
Britain has no tradition, historically, of conscription – excepting the dreadful Royal navy press gangs who preyed on Hebrideans and others two centuries ago – and it was only in 1916, at a desperate point of the Great War, that the necessary legislation was rushed through Parliament.
IT was called ‘military Service,’ fell upon all men aged between 18 and 40 – it was later raised to 51 – and married men were at first exempt. Clergy were excused till its 1920 demise and, despite most foolish threats, conscription was never imposed on Ireland.
national Service as we remember it was decreed, for obvious reasons, in 1939: all men from 18 to 41 were liable, save those in such reserved occupations as munitions work, shipbuilding and lighthouse-keeping.
unmarried women under 30 were also called up – though, if they were under 20, only with parental consent. They included our current Queen, who served for a few months in the auxiliary Territorial Service and, it is whispered, can still strip an engine.
not all men conscripted actually fought: many were rejected on medical grounds and nearly 48,000 (the ‘Bevin Boys’) chose to go down the coal mine instead. and, given the Cold War and such entanglements through the Fifties as Korea, malaya, Suez and the mau-mau, it was 1957 before the macmillan administration began to phase out national Service.
no one born after October 1st, 1939, was ever summoned and our last national Servicemen left the forces in may 1963 – though, under the Defence of the Realm acts, conscription remains on the statute book and call-up papers were quietly readied, in all local government areas, during such excitements as the Falklands and both Gulf Wars.
Few regret the passing of compulsory military service. Britain, relatively secure against invasion, has never had the tradition of an enormous standing army.
We had the Royal navy – traditionally as large as any two other navies on earth in combination – which could rapidly shift marines hither and thon for any necessary quick shooting; and army regiments which for the most part, and in gentle gendarmerie, policed the empire.
national Service, of the square-bashing, spuds-peeling lines revived in such reality TV shows as Bad lads army was extremely expensive. There were always men determined to dodge it – much police and court time was expended on rounding up deserters – and our professional forces detested it.
Raw recruits absorbed precious time and energy, mangled weapons and equipment – and, officers grumbled, it was simply not their job to babysit thousands of teenagers.
But into the 1980s most european countries had some form of national Service, not least because of the baleful threat of Soviet Communism.
Some of the more rackety states – Italy and Greece – found it a useful way of keeping unemployment figures down. Switzerland – where military service is obligatory and those found unfit for it have to pay extra tax till they turn 30 – verges on the paranoid. every Swiss male of fighting age is furnished with an assault rifle – and every major bridge is mined with explosives.
Yet it is popular: in a 2013 referendum, 73 per cent of Swiss voted against the abolition of conscription. elsewhere, it remains vital for countries particularly vulnerable to attack, such as Israel and Taiwan. Others of deep ethnic division, such as Singapore, believe it is of inherent social value. In malaysia, they declare it serves to ‘enhance unity among the multi-racial communities in the country’, ‘instil a spirit of caring and volunteerism among society’ and ‘produce an active, intelligent and confident generation’.
‘Does it work?’ asked Colonel Tim Collins rhetorically several years ago. ‘Well, for some countries national Service is a badge of honour without which it is hard to get on. In Finland, for example, employers are reluctant to hire anyone who has no national Service record.
‘Is it the answer for our army? no. Our professional armed Forces don’t want or need national Service recruits. Indeed, there is a waiting list to join some regiments.’ not for Colonel Collins, then, the
revival of Virgin Soldiers – but he fiercely believes we should reinstate National Service in a form fit for 21st century Britain, and that it would be of special benefit to floundering youngsters from unhappy backgrounds.
‘I dread to think where I’d be without the Army,’ declared such a lad in 2015, whose life – after brutal parental divorce and a dreadful bereavement – at one point threatened to take a most rackety turn.
HE added: ‘Bring back National Service – I’ve said that before. But I put my hand up, as I said to the kids today, you can make bad choices, some severe, some not so severe. Without a doubt, it does keep you out of trouble. You can make bad choices in life, but it’s how you recover from those and which path you end up taking…’
So said Prince Harry, who has now retired from the Forces and recently and happily married. But service – the training, the combat, the camaraderie – turned his life around. He found himself in a joyous sphere of anonymity and male bonding; he found things he actually excelled at, such as commanding a tank and flying combat helicopters.
And he is right, insists Colonel Collins. ‘I recall the lads of 15 or 16 who joined Gough Platoon at Ballymena. Over 18 months of training, they grew into some of the finest soldiers in the world. But great soldiers is not what the nation would want from a revived National Service. The aim would be to build better citizens, better Britons, better neighbours…’
Yet Collins is adamant everyone involved must begin with five weeks of basic military training. He says: ‘This is the time when the military takes individual recruits and forges them into a team. To become a team the recruits independently have to become “good neighbours”, wholly reliant on each other. There is no choice. The system is designed to make it impossible to cope alone… It is the bond formed in those five weeks that makes it all worthwhile.
‘Friendships can last lifetimes. It really is like becoming part of a new family. For those youngsters from dysfunctional families or those from the more sheltered migrant communities, it would be a first real taste of British society at its best; for many, their first idea of a real family that cares for and values them.’
Revived National Service, he argues, should thereafter model itself on those countries that have a civil scheme – work in the NHS, in fire and rescue, as classroom assistants in British schools or in service overseas and in developing lands.
There are instructive models overseas. Though there is little awareness of it in Britain, one of John F Kennedy’s notable achievements in his tragically brief Presidency was the establishment of the Peace Corps, ‘to promote world peace and friendship… which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower.’
Richard Nixon, his 1960 opponent, damned the plan with typical grace as a ‘cult of escapism’ and ‘a haven for draft dodgers’ – but Kennedy saw it not just as a popular alternative to military service but as a vital force, especially south of the USA, for liberal American values and against the spread of Communist insurrection.
His brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, was the first director of the Peace Corps.
VOLUNTEERS typically have a college degree and put in two years of service and, so far, more than 220,000 young Americans have participated.
Over the decades, building infrastructure, delivering health and educational services and so on, it has built up incalculable goodwill overseas – and the Peace Corps has greatly broadened the horizons of very many young people from a nation so parochial that only a third of US Congressmen hold a passport.
Nor is France the only land to abolish conscription and then have second thoughts. Sweden had obligatory military service from 1901 to 2010, and a gender-neutral scheme resumed this year, with 4,000 young people – recruited from a pool of 13,000 – serving for 12 months. There is alternative service – vapenfri tjänst – for conscientious objectors.
The increased menaces of late from Russia no doubt rattled the Swedes. But, shorn of any military element, even voices on the Left now suggest some form of National Service could do wonders for our society.
We could ‘call it citizenship training or community service’, argues Left-wing commentator Stephen Moss, ‘and it could be a useful and enlightened bridge between school and whatever comes next.
‘University is wasted on the immature, and it would be far better if people intending to go into further education spent a year or two (lengths of citizenship training could vary) working in their local hospital, the police force or some other public service.’
The benefits are obvious. Our children would enter higher education at a better age to benefit from it. The programme could impart real skills to young people of unfortunate background who might otherwise be consigned to a life of worklessness. Youth unemployment, not least, would be cut at a stroke; and much of the mounting untidiness of shabby austerity Britain cleaned up.
But, in a United Kingdom so divided, by class and income and aspiration and metropolitan disdain for ‘the provinces’, revived and indeed pasteurised National Service could be of incalculable social value – throwing together, for the first time since we fought Hitler, many thousands of young people from all manner of backgrounds.
Before the American Civil War, natural allegiance was to one’s state. When Robert E Lee spoke of ‘the country’ he meant the Commonwealth of Virginia.
After the Union’s victory, and all those years of marching and battle, American men knew they had a real, much larger country – for they had seen it.
Before that Civil War, one historian in 1988 pointed out, ‘the correct grammatical form was ‘the United States are’. From 1865, ‘it has been “the United States is”, and that is one of the Civil War’s greatest legacies. It made us an “is”.’
We need no Gettysburg here to accomplish like good, but National Service modelled on the Peace Corps, Operation Raleigh, or whatever could haul in – and together – the rising generation.
It could build a new Britain – and even save the Union itself.