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The logic of collective sacrifice: Ireland and the British army, 1914–1918

The decision to become a soldier cannot easily be explained in terms of rational action. Soldiering in peacetime might indeed be deemed preferable to civilian unemployment, and to certain categories of ill-paid or insecure employment. But in wartime, the risks of death or incapacity would clearly outweigh the material benefits of board and lodging in the trenches, separation allowances, or widows' pensions. Even if we extend our definition of rational action to the broader pursuit of personal well-being, the rewards for participation in war seem miserly by comparison with its costs. While military service might be constructed as an adventure or a form of subsidized migration, alternative remedies for restlessness are usually available without the concomitants of extreme danger, niggling discomfort and harsh discipline. Since individual self-interest cannot plausibly explain enlistment, it is necessary to analyse the influence of group affiliations and collective pressures. These might take such forms as communal patriotism, local traditions of soldiering, or prior enlistment of comrades from one's school, club or workplace. Conversely, enlistment might be discouraged by communal 'disloyalty', or familial demand for one's services as a breadwinner. The efficacy of group pressures would in any case be constrained by flaws in mobilization, such as cumbersome procedures for enlistment or insensitive organization of military units. Such factors, unlike the effects of adventurousness or personal patriotism, are to some extent capable of historical verification. Ireland's wartime participation in the British army generated unusually rich data on the characteristics of recruits in a melodramatic setting, allowing us to assess the relative impact of imperial 'loyalism' and nationalist disaffection. Ireland's combination of highly developed social organization and economic backwardness offers a distinctive context for interpretation of the patterns of enlistment. This paper tests a series of hypotheses by comparing enlistment rates between Ireland and Britain, between provinces and counties within Ireland, between industrial groups, and between religious denominations. It demonstrates the limited explanatory power of each hypothesis, and concludes with some residual speculations.