Conscientious Objectors In Field Punishment

The Great War has witnessed destruction at a calamitous rate were humanity seemed to have faded away. The Great War for the first two years has attested to a great loss of lives. Despite the huge causalities the war didn’t seem it was going to be over soon nor did it seem any peace agreements were going to take place. Generals from various nations across the globe were sending their troops to fight for a war that seemed endless, and at the same time the morale of soldiers was going down. The loss of so many soldiers has pushed militaries to start conscription and this is where the conscientious objectors started raising their voice. The resource utilized in this paper is the documentary Field Punishment no. 1.; a documentary that truly captures
These courage’s people rose their voices at a time the world was busy at annihilating each other. Conscientious objectors were degraded and humiliated by number of people but they never gave in. Additionally, Conscientious objectors weren’t men who were afraid of picking up the gun and fighting, they were in fact the boldest of men who stood a stand against war at a time no one was willing to. The author will discuss the true heroism portrayed by the Conscientious objectors, and how they stood to their ground through extremely harsh treatments to prove that this Great War was to support capitalism and was truly only benefitting the powerful
The government started using propaganda to tell its people to sign up for the army and conscription soon followed to become mandatory. Some people were fired up to stand by their nation and fight while others knew that fighting wasn’t the only solution to end this misery. The movie Field punishment showcased some of the latter group of people who knew war couldn’t lead to peace. Archibald Baxter, Mark Briggs and their twelve other friends who were courageous Conscientious objectors were secretly sent from their home country New Zealand over to the Western Front to fight by their country. This brave group of brave men truly portrayed heroism by deciding not to fight. They were tortured, separated and humiliated by not only their fellow soldiers but also by Generals. They were often given a field punishment which was a type of punishment that involved the subject being tied to a pole for hours to an extend the person hands would turn black due to lack of circulation. This punishment continued during the harsh winters too. Conscientious objectors were starting to be seen as less humans and more as war criminals or even at times cowards because they decided to restrain from war. These men weren’t even close to being cowards because they were the only ones that had their sanity by standing up against war. Everyone else was blinded by patriotism, nationalism