Dundee and The Great War of 1914-1919
SCOTTISH MANPOWER IN THE GREAT WAR: VOLUNTARY RECRUITMENT
Dr Derek Young
In 1914 the manpower needs of the army coincided with the immediate short-term needs of those workers affected by the contraction of Scottish industry. The stigma of military service was cancelled out by the needs of the country. Direct appeals allowed the men to believe that they were wanted as individuals and it was only by approaching them as individuals, albeit on a mass scale, that any aversion to military service was overcome.
Recruitment in the pre-war British army was governed by the prevailing social conditions, often localised and often linked to the fluctuating fortunes of industry. As industrial unemployment rose or fell so too did the number, and more importantly the quality, of volunteers. This was well known at the time and investigated by the army in an effort to counter the reduction in recruitment numbers. The pre-war Scottish recruit was just as likely to come from the skilled artisan class as the lower unskilled casual labourers. These were men who were influenced in their decisions by economics and employment issues. It was the skilled worker, used to thinking in, and planning for, the long-term, who was willing to enlist for a minimum of four years regular service when faced with the spectre of unemployment. The unskilled and casual worker, accustomed to frequent bouts of unemployment, was not prepared for such a commitment, thinking only in the short-term, only a few weeks, or at most a few months, ahead. In pre-war Scotland recruitment was driven in the main by economic necessity.
Scotland's contribution to the pre-war British army had been gradually declining in the years running up to the First World War. While the overall annual recruitment numbers steadily reduced, Scotland's percentage within that number was also on the decline, falling from 11 per cent in 1905 to 9 per cent in 1911. While the total number of recruits for the British army fell from 34,322 in 1905 to 28,791 in 1911, giving a reduction of some 5,531 or 16 per cent, the number of Scots enlisting in the period fell from 3,842 in 1905 to 2,686 in 1911, a drop of over thirty per cent. There was a reduction in recruits from the four home countries but there were widespread differences between the countries. Recruitment from Wales dropped by 55 per cent, Scotland as we have seen by 30 per cent; Ireland by 20 per cent and the English contribution had reduced by only 12 per cent. The pre-war British army was becoming more representative of England and less of the United Kingdom. In the pre-war years Scotland had a clearly defined pattern of recruitment. While the cities produced the highest number of recruits for the regular army, it was the rural areas which produced the highest proportion of recruits relative to male population.
While the Victorian army might have been viewed as a last desperate refuge, the Boer War served to initiate a change in the public's perception of temporary military service. It created a precedent which made short-term voluntary service, in time of national crisis, socially acceptable. There was, however, still within the country at large, the social and moral stigma attached to service in the regular army. Regular soldiers were still shunned in public, they were refused access to theatres and public houses, could not travel on trains other than in third class compartments, and were frequently refused access to other forms of public transport. The link which was formed by the Boer War extended only to the Volunteer and Yeomanry regiments, the units which had provided the extra manpower for foreign service in South Africa. The perception was that of the 'civilian soldier' entering into short-term service 'with'
but not 'in' the army. For the average citizen there was something romantic, if not Arthurian, in the image of the citizenry rising to the defence of the nation. The Territorial Force, successor to the Volunteer movement, was embraced in rural Scotland as a social entity as much as a military force.
On 7 August 1914 the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, issued his appeal for the first 100,000 recruits for his new army. In Scotland this meant that each of the existing regiments would have to raise a new 'service' battalion of approximately 1,000 men. The call for a second new army came at the end of August 1914 and a third new army in the second week of September. By the end of October, when the manpower surplus had been absorbed, the number of men recruited into Scottish regiments had reached 37,000, and by the end of December 1914 had risen to 47,000. However in the same period Scotland produced some 104,392 recruits for the New Armies. This meant that some 45 per cent of Scottish recruits enlisted in units that had no direct Scottish link, in the technical branches, artillery or service corps. To put this in context, Glasgow and Hamilton, the two most industrialised recruiting areas in Scotland, with the Highland Light Infantry and the Cameronians, provided approximately 12 service battalions in 1914, some 12,000 men. In the same period they raised 48,000 recruits, providing a regional surplus of 35,000 men. It would appear that Glasgow and Hamilton alone provided enough men to fulfil the needs of Scotland's contribution to the new armies of 1914.
Locally raised battalions, or Pals battalions as they became known, were a predominantly English phenomenon. Scotland raised only 5 per cent of the total number of such battalions raised. Of the seven first line infantry battalions raised in this manner in Scotland, three were raised in Edinburgh and four in Glasgow. In Glasgow there was the 15th Highland Light Infantry, raised in the main from the employees of the Glasgow Tramways Department, the 16th Highland Light Infantry which was to a large extent made up from serving and past officers and men from the Boys' Brigade, and the 17th Highland Light Infantry which was raised and funded by the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. In Edinburgh, the 15th Royal Scots was raised by the City Council but contained large groups of men from Manchester, while the 16th Royal Scots was raised by Sir George McCrae, the City Treasurer. The battalion of 1,550 men was raised in only twelve days. Pals battalions were not a part of Scottish society. Indeed, with the exception of the 16th battalion Royal Scots, Scotland's locally raised battalions struggled to attract enough recruits to fill their needs. Unfortunately, in Scotland, the concept of the Pals battalions has reached mythological proportions. Wild claims have been constantly made as to the recruiting response to these battalions and their position within Scottish society. Over the years public expectation has been allowed to become the perceived reality. It has become more acceptable to perpetuate the myth than to pursue reality.
Major John Ewing, in his history of the war-time Royal Scots, contended that there were two distinct groups of Scottish recruits, and two distinct reasons for enlistment. The heady wine of youth scorns sober caution and young men in thousands flocked to the Colours. To them the war was mainly an adventure1. He saw the younger men as motivated by a desire for change and the opportunity for a period of excitement. However, this would not have been, on its own, enough of a stimulus, but, when combined with the loss of employment or the uncertainty of continuing wages, it served in many instances to tip the scales in favour of enlistment. The second group envisaged by Ewing was the older men with responsibilities to families:
"There were many, too, of more mature age who, stirred by a profound sense of duty, offered themselves for service. Their sacrifice was great; for they were detaching themselves from the anchorage of what had promised to be a settled
and contented life, to drift deliberately into unknown and turbulent waters. To such the war was an ordeal rather than an adventure."
A direct comparison can be made between Army recruitment and Territorial Force enlistment. Voluntary recruitment for both services covered the same period: from the outbreak of war until December 1915, when voluntary service and direct enlistment into the Territorial Force ended. In this period some 204,147 men enlisted in the army while 116,446 chose the Territorial Force as the service of choice. With a total figure for Scotland of 320,589 voluntary recruits some 63.6 per cent enlisted in the army, while 36.3 per cent enrolled in the Territorial Force. The New Armies raised sixty-three battalions in Scotland while the number of Territorial battalions increased from the pre-war figure of thirty-seven to a figure of ninety-nine. Some 61 per cent of all Scottish battalions raised in the voluntary period were Territorial, leaving 38.8 per cent for the New Armies. With the high number of Scottish army recruits and the low number of New Army battalions, at least 50 per cent of those joining the army were doing so in units that were not Scottish, and were not infantry.
Scotland was only able to provide a large, disproportionate number of recruits in the early months because there was in place a 'pool' of readily available spare bodies which could provide the necessary manpower without undue stress to the country as a whole. This pool contained the annual, natural wastage of Scottish manpower, mainly through emigration and migration, and those caught up in the collapse of Scottish industry at the outbreak of war. As such the effect on the country was not as severe as might at first be thought. There are various figures for Scotland's war dead, ranging from a low of 80,000 to a high of 147,000, which includes all those Scotsmen who were resident abroad and who fought in Commonwealth units; Australian, South African, Canadian and New Zealand. However, Scotland lost more men in the years 1910-14 through emigration and disease than to the First World War and while the suffering caused to individual families was immense the loss to Scotland the country was minimal.
During the voluntary period there was a higher percentage of recruits from Scotland than any of the other three home countries. This was not fuelled by patriotism but, initially at least, by the economic needs of Scotland's working classes, followed later by the pressure brought to bear on the middle class and those in commerce. Recruits fell into two main categories, those who were directly affected by the onset of war and those who were able to maintain 'business as usual'. Many, although deeply supportive of their country and proud of Britain's imperial power, were not prepared to enlist leaving all behind; there had to be other external pressures at work. Unemployment, short-term working, economic hardship, peer pressure, political identity, whatever the reason there were many forces pushing the new recruits. There was always some form of external force exerting an influence on the individual recruit.
Iain D. McIntosh, 2022