Defiant Briggs refused orders till the end

On board the ship, Briggs, who had to be dragged up the gangplank, was locked in a small cabin with no open portholes until the ship left port to prevent him from jumping over the side.

This year marks a century since the end of World War I. That final year, 1918, saw major developments following the pointless and massive death toll battles of the previous year. New Zealand, with a total population of about a million people was the smallest nation of the British Empire but lost about 13,000 men. Some New Zealand communities never fully recovered from the loss of so many young men and many once thriving towns are now little more than cross roads with a large war memorial. Others became ghost towns. Over the next few weeks we will follow the fortunes of New Zealanders in what became known as the ‘‘Great War or The War to end all Wars’’. It was neither.

While the experiences of the men who volunteered or were conscripted for military service in Word War I were often horrific beyond imagination, many of those who refused to fight suffered much worse.

They were shunned by families who had sons serving in the war, particularly by those who had lost family members in the fighting.

Finding work became impossible, even with the shortage of manpower with so many men overseas. Even local authorities turned against them. The Hamilton Borough Council was outraged that the government had asked them to consider employing men who had refused war service. After a lengthy debate the council resolved to ‘‘object to providing work for those who had refused military service.’’

Those who objected to going to war could appeal to the Military Service Board and almost half of those called up appealed.

Grounds for appeal were limited to religion, family hardship, or that they were engaged in work essential to the country. Of the thousands that appealed only about 75 were successful.

Objectors who were called up but failed to appear risked a jail sentence and many simply ‘‘went bush’’ in the remote regions of Waikato or the King Country. Some even moved to Australia where conscription was not in force.

While about 100 Maori from Waikato and the Urewera region were arrested and held in custody for refusing conscription, the treatment handed out to several Pakeha men, including Waikato flax industry worker Mark Briggs, was exceptionally brutal.

Briggs had immigrated to New Zealand as a 20-year-old in 1904 and joined the Flaxmillers Trade Union soon afterwards.

By 1917 the government was struggling to get enough men into uniform and few appeals on conscientious grounds were successful. Briggs was called up in the third ballot, appealed, but it was thrown out.

Briggs refused to be examined by an army doctor and was taken by armed military police to the Trentham Military Camp just north of Wellington.

By this time Briggs had become furious at his treatment and refused to acknowledge or obey further orders and instructions, salute officers or wear a uniform and was forcibly court martialled. He was given three months in prison with hard labour.

Defence Minister James Allen decided conscientious objectors should be compelled to fight by whatever means the army could apply.

In July 1917 the Commanding Officer of Trentham Camp, Colonel H. Potter, rounded up 14 of the most determined objectors and had them carried to Wellington and dragged into the troopship HMNZS Waitemata bound for Britain and then the front lines in Europe.

On board the ship, Briggs, who had to be dragged up the gangplank, was locked in a small cabin with no open portholes until the ship left port to prevent him from jumping over the side.

Once at sea, Briggs and the others were stripped in front of a jeering crowd of soldiers and forced into military uniforms.

The commanding officer of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Britain, Brigadier General Richardson, decided to make an example of the prisoners and sent them, untrained, into the trenches near Estaples in France. Briggs however remained defiant and refused to walk, stand, salute or wear uniform but he was carried, dragged and even carried in a wheelbarrow.

The situation had, by this time become ridiculous and pointlessly cruel as it was clear such men would be more of a hindrance than a help.

Neither side knew how to back down. Eventually most of the 14 objectors succumbed to the brutal treatment and accepted non-combat roles but Briggs, Archibald Baxter (father of poet James K Baxter), Lawrence Kirwin and Henry Patton refused to submit.

In frustration and rage, Brigadier General Richardson ordered them to be given Field Punishment Number one. This meant they were tied to posts in the open with their hands bound behind their backs throughout the day without food or water.

In February 1918, Briggs, Baxter and Kirwin were carried into the trenches within the enemy’s shelling range, and each morning they were forced to walk a mile to the front line but Briggs refused.

On the first day he was carried by soldiers but on the second day military policemen tied wire around his chest and dragged him across rough ground and through the trenches, tearing his clothes and flesh. At the front line he was hauled through freezing mud. Back at camp he was refused medical treatment and for the next few weeks suffered intense agony from his injuries.

In April, Briggs was returned to E´ taples and the army finally accepted that they would have to kill him before he gave in. In June he was classified unfit for active service as he now had muscular rheumatism, and he was invalided back to New Zealand in 1919 where he refused the soldier’s wages that were offered to him.