Activities
Act 1 Conscription in cartoons
Look at the quotations page. In it you will find several examples of cartoons, for and against conscription. Choose one of the cartoons and prepare a presentation based on the cartoon. Your task is to explain
- The main point of the cartoon
- How that point is put across
- The minor details which the cartoonist has used to make his point (eg facial expressions, clothing, captions etc)
You could use a word processor or presentation software to copy and label up the cartoon as a visual aid to your presentation.
Act 2 Conscription in Canada and Australia
Work in pairs or small groups.
1 Study these two web pages, which look at the debate over conscription in Canada and Australia.
2 Now look at your work from activity 1, and the programme and the quotations. Your task is to decide whether how similar you think the debate over conscription was in Britain, compared to Australia and Canada.
Activity 3
Use the programme and the Internet or other resources to answer this question:
Was the nation in favour of conscription in 1916?
Work through the resources you have and look for evidence which supports or contradicts the view that the nation was in favour. You could use a word processor and copy the quotes from the programme into a table like this:
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Quotes or other evidence showing support for conscription |
Quotes or other evidence showing opposition to conscription |
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You could present your conclusions in one of two ways:
- A newspaper article from the time celebrating the introduction of conscription or criticising it.
- A piece of writing. You could organise it along these lines.
Introduction: The introduction of conscription in 1916 was very controversial. Whilst many people in the country supported it, others opposed it.
Support for conscription: Several groups and people supported conscription. According to the newspapers of the time, soldiers, businessmen and many other people felt it was a good idea. The evidence for this is …
Opposition to conscription: However, there was opposition to conscription as well. Some of those who opposed it were ….
We know this because of evidence like this …
You could add another paragraph explaining how far these arguments were repeated in other parts of the Empire – Canada, Australia, Ireland.
