Conscription

Conscription, also called draft, is when a government forces people to enlist in the army or other military service. Usually, only men are conscripted, but in some countries such as Israel, Norway and Sweden, women are as well. A soldier who has been drafted to serve in the army is called a conscript.

Conscription may or may not be compulsory. If compulsory, it may be resisted. Usually, exceptions are allowed. Since men in their late teens and twenties are the main objective, conscription clashes with higher education, and exceptions may be allowed.

The first large, modern conscript army was the French Grand Army after the French Revolution. Conscription soon became a common way of making up the armies. Almost all of the powerful armies in the world except United Kingdom were conscript armies, but during the World Wars, even the British Army used mostly conscripts.

Conscription was introduced in August 1916 in New Zealand during the First World War because the number of men needed to be recruited had not been met.