Abstract:
One historian has written that the Great War changed New Zealand more than any other events1 It is a difficult proposition to substantiate, but this thesis provides some evidence. It is, in effect, a study of New Zealand during the Great War. Few aspects of the nation's wartime experience are excluded. The focus of the thesis is on conscription because that system became the symbolic and practical pivot of New Zealand's war effort. Part One of the thesis aims to determine the reasons why and document the process by which conscription was introduced. Part Two seeks to describe and discuss the impact of conscription once it was applied. Each part is separately introduced and concluded. Overall, the thesis seeks to show how New Zealand responded to war,' and was changed by it. In the process it should illuminate the nature of New Zealand politics and society in the early twentieth century.