The conservative party and the call for national service, 1937–39: Compulsion versus voluntarism

Abstract

This article considers the hitherto neglected topic of the Conservative Party and national service before Second World War. It shows that from March 1938 national service was increasingly perceived as the missing component of the rearmament programme. However these demands for national service were not concerned with recruiting a million‐men army for a continental field‐force like in the Edwardian period, but rather were concerned with preparing to resist the feared aerial ‘knock‐out’ blow.