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Reading list

Conscription - Australia

Further online resources

Conscription

Henry Albinski, Politics and foreign policy in Australia: The impact of Vietnam and conscription (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1970). [Uses the public issues of Vietnam and conscription to examine the interplay between external affairs and domestic policies in Australia. Includes chapter notes]

John Barrett, Falling in: Australians and “boy conscription 1911-15” (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1979). [Using historical research and the memories of 267 trainees, this book argues that most Australians accepted compulsory training in the half-century to Vietnam. Bibliography and endnotes]

Bill White, Conscientious Objectors' Defence Committee, Federal Pacifist Council of Australia, We resist because - : statements of conscientious non-compliers with military conscription (Sydney: Federal Pacifist Council of Australia; Bill White's Conscientious Objector's Defence Committee, 1970). [Personal testimonies of 11 young men, who chose to disobey call up notices for Vietnam]

Robert Engwerda, Conscription: Australia during World War I (Melbourne: Education Centre, State Library of Victoria. 1993). [Newspaper articles and documents from the F.J. Riley Collection concerning the 1916 and 1917 referendums on conscription. Also gives discussion points]

P.T. Findlay, Protest politics and psychological warfare; the communist role in the Anti-Vietnam War and anti-conscription movement in Australia (Melbourne: Hawthorn Press, 1968). [Also, includes the involvement of the Australian Labour Party and the National Liberation Front in the student driven protest movement]

John Fletcher, Conscription Under Camouflage: an account of compulsory military training in Australasia down to the outbreak of the Great War (Glenelg: J.F. Hills, 1919). [Written in early 1915 and gives the case against compulsory military training in Australia]

Roy Forward (ed.), Conscription in Australia (Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 1968). [Fifteen separate, mostly academic, contributions giving varied opinions on compulsory military service in Australia]

Leslie Jauncey, The Story of Conscription in Australia (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1935). [A study of the development of the anti-conscription movement during the First World War]

K. J. Kenafick, Maurice Blackburn and the No-conscription campaign in the Second World War (Melbourne: A. Maller, 1949). [Outlines the work of the ‘No Conscription Campaign’ and the involvement of the Communist Party]

J. M. Main, Conscription: The Australian debate, 1901-1970 (North Melbourne: Cassell Australia, 1970). [Includes selected secondary sources]

Darcy McGaurr, Conscription and Australian Military Capability (Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1971). [This paper focuses on a post-Vietnam situation and is concerned with the cost and effectiveness of conscription. Appendix: The Supply of Volunteer Military Personnel: A Hypothesis]

D. H. Newman, The Socialist Case for Conscription (Melbourne: Speciality Press, 1916). [Also includes booklets: ‘General Plan of Campaign for Reinforcing the Australian Imperial Force’; ‘The “No” vote and its bearings’; ‘Instructions for the guidance of enlisting officers at approved military recruiting depots’; ‘Will they never come? The call to the sporting men’; ‘For Queensland’s honour’]

B. Oliver, Peacemongers: Conscientious objectors to military service in Australia, 1911-1945 (Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1997). [Focuses on the conscientious objector to military service or training. Also examines the establishment and maintenance of legislation which enforced compulsory military training, methods of policing the scheme, and the social and political impact of protest. Bibliography includes published and unpublished sources]

Bob Scates, Draftmen go free: a history of the anti-conscription movement in Australia (Richmond, Vic: B. Scates, 1988). [Individual stories of draft resistance, of the underground network, the protests, the organisation, the internal struggles and debates are told. Bibliography and chapter endnotes]

F. B. Smith, The Conscription Plebiscites in Australia, 1916-17 (Melbourne: Victorian Historical Society, 1974). [Pamphlet discussing the 1916-1917 plebiscites which divided the Australian people. Includes a guide to further reading]

Thomas Tanner, Compulsory citizen soldiers (Sydney: Alternative Publishing Co-operative, 1980). [Discusses why conscription for military service was introduced in 1911. Appendix: Statistics on naval strengths in the Pacific, 1914. Extensive references and bibliography]

N.W. Wallis, Those nashos!: a brief account of the national service in Australia: we served! (Norman Park: Noel Wallis, 1994). [A personal account of national service during the 1950’s]

Glenn Withers, Conscription, necessity and justice: the case for an all volunteer army (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1915). [Presents an argument against conscription within a moral and economic framework]