Images of Manliness: The Portrayal of Soldiers and Conscientious Objectors in the Great War
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| DOI | 10.1177/09646639030123003 |
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
| Author | Lois Bibbings |
| Subject Matter | Journal Article |
THE PORTRAYAL OF SOLDIERS
AND CONSCIENTIOUS
OBJECTORS IN THE GREAT WAR
LOIS BIBBINGS
School of Law, University of Bristol, UK
ABSTRACT
This article analyses constructions of English manhood during the First World War.
As such, it focuses upon cultural representations of masculinity rather the lived
experiences of particular men. Such portrayals can have great social power when they
gain a widespread cultural currency – not least in the impact they can have upon the
lives of individuals. The central purpose is to consider the depiction of the conscien-
tious objector to military service. Once conscription was introduced, objectors
became a legally recognized category of men and special statutory provision was made
for those who were deemed to be ‘genuine’. Despite the legitimacy that this might
have granted, all objectors (whether recognized as genuine or not), along with those
who defended their stance, came to be despised and rejected as deviant. Their story,
as presented here, is a study of the construction and contestation of deviance (in terms
of both gender and Englishness), yet in this version of the deviant the role of law is
a relatively minor one.
INTRODUCTION
THISARTICLEpresents a brief social history of deviance and dissent
focusing upon cultural representations of masculinity during the
Great War. It forms part of a wider and long-term study of conscien-
tious objectors to military service (COs or conchies) in this conflict which I
began as a legal project in 1989.1 In the present text, while the social takes a
prominent place, the legal takes a more minor one. Given the title of the
journal in which these words appear, this apparent lack may appear odd to
some. However, it is hoped that the text reinforces the benefits for sociolegal
scholars of venturing far beyond the relative security of what is familiar. In
SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 0964 6639 (200309) 12:3 Copyright © 2003
SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi,
www.sagepublications.com
Vol. 12(3), 335–358; 034850
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SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 12(3)
the present case, a social history perspective allows for a richer analysis of
the role of law in constructing objectors. By shifting the focus from law and
criminology it also provides a useful starting point for a study of deviance.
In this respect, perhaps the approach has more in common with sociologies
of deviance (e.g. Box 1971/1981; Cohen, 1972) than with more crime-centred
scholarship. Beyond this, analysing the portrayal or, indeed, treatment of
COs suggests that proponents of a functionalist critique of criminal law (see
Lacey, 1988: ch. 5) might sensibly conclude that the legitimate boundaries of
their enquiries may extend not merely into the realm of ostensibly civil
dispute resolution, but also into the minutiae of social, cultural and economic
interaction (see further Bibbings, 1995).
Gender is also a major concern of this article. Despite some continuing
resistance from defenders of the canon of subject orthodoxy, the study of
gender has successfully infiltrated, if not the mainstream, then the border-
lands of a range of academic disciplines. This genre of scholarship can also
bring new layers of analysis and reconceptions of established subjects as John
Tosh (1994), in calling for historians to ‘take masculinity seriously’, argues.
In the present article a gendered approach to deviance and its construction
and contestation seeks to revisit the fertile terrain of the 1914–18 war and re-
examine the way in which COs were depicted.
The field of historical studies scholarship on English men and the Great
War has traditionally focused primarily upon men as political players or
combatants with little regard to gender. Moreover, work on soldiers tended
to concentrate upon volunteers and their experiences, hence largely obscur-
ing the civilian and conscript man’s stories (let alone women’s stories). Yet,
during the war the majority of men were not in the military (see for example,
Tate, 1995: 5) and over half of the 5 million men enlisted in Britain during
the war were compelled to do so (Statistics of the Military Effort, 1922: 364).
In recent years, (gender) scholars have begun to address these gaps. For
example, Ilana R. Bet-Al’s (1991, 1998) work on the writings of conscripts
has sought to open up an area of study and to shift our knowledge about the
conflict. Similarly, Joanna Bourke’s (1996) work has focused upon the impact
of the Great War upon the male body and George Mosse (e.g. 1990) has
explored masculinity, sexuality and war. Such work on war and men is of
particular significance given its subversive potential to infiltrate the
traditional heartland of historiography and demonstrate that gender is
inherent in all aspects of social, political and cultural life (see Tosh, 1994:
179–80). This article, by examining wartime versions of maledom, seeks to
further this project.
Moreover, although the conchies of this period have been studied before,2
such work has not yet examined COs as men. This is perhaps a remarkable
omission, given the wealth of material on the unmanliness of these men, the
well-known fears about the male of the species in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, and the fact that war itself was then (and is still) largely (but by no
means entirely) constructed as being about men. In addition, during these
years of conflict, efforts to influence popular thinking about manhood
BIBBINGS: IMAGES OF MANLINESS
337
became more focused, more deliberate and, in some instances perhaps, more
desperate. The analysis of such crisis management can provide insights into
the portrayal of supposedly deviant men and women in other periods. It is
also in such attempts to depict the despised and rejected that much can be
discerned about the revered and accepted. Indeed, tensions or inconsisten-
cies within (or resonances between) constructions of the deviant and the
exemplary can reveal much about contemporary concerns.
Wartime is often characterized by crude dichotomies and stark reversals in
attitudes, as the extremes of a national emergency tend to lead to rapid shifts
in and the polarization of conceptions and attitudes. Unsurprisingly, then,
the First World War brought with it reconstructions of manliness that drew
upon preexisting clusters of ideas about men. The binary examined here was
a pivotal one in this period: that of the military man versus the conscientious
objector (CO) to military service. Depictions of the objector and the soldier
are described, discussed and disrupted using some portrayals of these men in
political, social, cultural and legal sources. While the central concern is there-
fore an examination of an intramasculine opposition, images of femininity
are also recognized to be an important part of the currency in which the
deployment of representations of masculinity trades. In the current context,
for example, soldiers were often depicted as both the antithesis and the
defenders of a largely defenceless female population, while COs tended to be
portrayed as feminized men or even as ‘unmen’ (see below).
During the conflict, soldiering soon came to be represented as the only
way to be truly male and this was reinforced by the recounting of tales of
heroism, while stories of less noble acts were often suppressed. During
voluntary recruitment men had to desire the rewards of soldiering; once
military conscription was introduced, support for compulsion needed to be
maintained. Thus, the way in which different men were portrayed and
perceived was often viewed as crucial to the successful pursuit of the conflict
and the preservation of national unity. In this context, the stakes were high.
Indeed, the government even (covertly) approached well-known poets and
novelists to write literary propaganda. Many of the artists working with the
Secret War Propaganda Bureau sought not only to depict the war as just,
necessary and glorious but also focused on presenting different ‘types’ of
men, celebrating the exemplary while marginalizing or castigating the deviant
(see Buitenhuis, 1987/1989; Roberts, 1996: 54–67).
In this context, the way in which COs were depicted became crucial to
both pro-war propagandists and to objectors who sought to flood the
country with their own propaganda. In part, the official view seemed to
centre upon fears that, if objectors attracted widespread sympathy or
support, the legitimacy of military compulsion and, indeed, of the war effort
might have been undermined (for example, see Dicey, 1918). In contrast, for
opponents of the war and/or compulsion there was often a desire not only
to defend their stance and to persuade others of the rightness of their views
but also to assert their identity as men. Thus, COs and their supporters
became involved in what was, in part, a gendered propaganda war.
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SOCIAL & LEGAL STUDIES 12(3)
SETTING THE SCENE: RECRUITMENT AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF
MANHOOD
From the outbreak of war in August 1914 until early 1916 the sole method
of recruitment in England was one of voluntarism (Manual of Military Law,
1914: ch. IX). Initially, those who signed up to serve were volunteers, and
they signed up in huge numbers. Two and a half million men and boys
enlisted in the first 16 months of the war (General Annual Reports of the
British Army, 1921: 9). Most notably, working men came forward, despite
some evidence of the unpopularity of the military as a career for the lower
classes in the years prior to the Great War. Indeed, in 1898 H. O. Arnold-
Foster (Secretary of State for War...
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