100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-04-17/register/bill-through-commons-6mwsd2pjv

April 17, 1918

Bill through Commons

The Military Service Bill was read a third time in the House of Commons by 301 votes to 103. The Prime Minister and Mr Barnes, the representative of Labour in the War Cabinet, pledged the Government to do everything in their power to secure the passing of the Home Rule Bill into law. In an encouraging speech the Prime Minister told the House that he had just seen a general returned from the front, who said that General Plumer, facing great odds, was quite confident. “We have lost territory,” he said, “but nothing vital.” That was the view not merely of our generals, but of General Foch: he was sorry to say that the enemy had inflicted heavy losses; but they were nothing to the losses he had sustained. If the Allies stood together, not giving way to fear or panic, they would win through.

Before the Irish clause was reached, on the invitation of the Government, the House struck out the section extending the obligation to military service to ministers of religion. Mr Denman regretted the decision to refuse to accept some hundreds of Grade 1 men for service, and declared that it would excite no good feeling towards the Churches among the laity. Mr Pringle asserted that the real reason was a revolt among the Nonconformist ministers in Wales. Sir George Cave explained that the Government had taken this course because the inclusion of clergymen would curtail religious ministrations and would only make a slight addition to our manpower.
Mr Dillon opened the Irish debate with the assertion that no power on earth had a moral right to conscript a single Irishman resident in Ireland except a body representing the Irish nation. He warned the Government that they were embarking on a course which might have consequences as far-reaching as the treatment of the American colonies.
Mr Barnes, speaking as a lifelong Home-Ruler, asked Irishmen not to cry out before they were hurt. He exhorted them to reflect that, if the war were to be lost because of Ireland, Home Rule would not be settled in this generation.
The Prime Minister made it clear once more that Home Rule was not offered as a bargain, and told the Nationalists frankly that if they were to reject the Bill that would be their responsibility. The House retained the Irish clause by 296 votes to 123.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-04-18/register/a-deliberate-withdrawal-2brcrf3jr

april 18, 1918

A deliberate withdrawal

We have fallen back from our positions in the Passchendaele area, where we have given the enemy most of the ground won in last year’s Flanders fighting. This retirement was compelled by the changed situation in the area of the Messines Ridge. We here have known that the retirement was in progress, but obviously it would have been indiscreet to report it. It must be unpleasant to give up ground which has been won at the cost of gallant lives, but it cannot be too often repeated that local gains have little significance in this gigantic struggle. The Germans now have the blasted shell-hole area behind them over which to bring their troops and transport, and from experience we know what that means.
The whole country below Meteren is one German cemetery, except that the dead are still unburied, and one hears of machine-gun barrels having to be again and again renewed as, day after day, Germans continued to come on over open ground. Under our terrific shell fire others besides the actual combatants in the fighting line have been tested to the uttermost. The gallantry of our transport in bringing up ammunition could not have been surpassed. Runners and stretcher-bearers, as always, have shown perfect heroism, and officers of the Army Medical Corps have worked indefatigably under fire. Great credit, too, is given to a certain detachment of Cyclists.

This failure of the main attack has cost the Germans very dear. We hear of battalions being reduced to less than 50 per cent of their strength, and of one regiment, the Second Grenadiers, which lost five battalion commanders in three days, and of single companies being reduced from 120 to 30 men by our artillery before they got into the fighting line. Our guns and aeroplanes have wrought such havoc that there are roads heaped with wrecked transport and dead horses.
The weather along the battle front continues dull, but the wind has changed to westerly and it is milder. There has been no rain, beyond light showers, for eight days, and under the prevailing easterly wind the ground has dried a good deal. Visibility today was fairly good, and the aeroplanes were very active. I hear that the enemy has wrecked the tower of Albert Church, with the famous leaning figure of the Virgin.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/service-act-passed-in-ten-days-hcr6m0jb8

April 19, 1918

Service Act passed in ten days

The Military Service Bill received the Royal Assent last night, and became the law of the land within ten days of its introduction. Passed by Parliament in a great military emergency, the Act was put forward by the Government as the last manpower measure of the war. It completes the structure of compulsory military service which Mr Asquith began in January, 1916.
The first Service Act, passed at that time to fulfil the famous pledge to the married men who had attested under the Derby scheme, confined the obligation to single men up to 40 years of age in Great Britain. The second Act, passed in May of the same year, extended the obligation to married men up to 40 years of age in Great Britain, and strengthened the first Act in other ways. In the interval there have been other Acts, including one passed last year for a review of exceptions and another passed only three months ago to enable the Government to take into their own hands the whole question of the exemption of men on an occupational basis.

The new Act confers a large number of new powers on the Government, and is an earnest of the determination of Parliament and the country to make all possible sacrifices for the common cause. It extends the military age to 50 years and in a national emergency to 55 years; brings Ireland within the ambit of compulsory service; gives the Government power to make “clean cuts” by age, and remodels the tribunal system. It is the most drastic and comprehensive measure for national defence ever passed by the Imperial Parliament.
The clause in the Act of May, 1916 excepting from military service “any person who has been a prisoner of war, captured or interned by the enemy and has been released or exchanged”, is to cease to have effect. It is, however, provided that the change shall be without prejudice to any undertaking, recognized by the Government and for the time being in force, that any released or exchanged prisoner of war shall not serve in his Majesty’s Forces during the present war.
Any person making a false statement with a view to preventing or postponing the calling-up of himself or any other person, or for any medical examination, is to be liable to six months’ imprisonment.