Archibald Baxter

With the introduction of conscription under the Military Service Act 1916, Baxter and his brothers refused to register on the grounds that

all war is wrong, futile, and destructive alike to victor and vanquished.[3]

The Act did not recognise their stand, as the only grounds for a man to claim conscientious objection were:

That he was on the fourth day of August, nineteen hundred and fourteen, and has since continuously been a member of a religious body the tenets and doctrines of which religious body declare the bearing of arms and the performance of any combatant service to be contrary to Divine revelation, and also that according to his own conscientious religious belief the bearing of arms and the performance of any combatant service is unlawful by reason of being contrary to Divine revelation.[4]

This was a considerable contraction of the exemption allowed under the Defence Amendment Act 1912, which had provided under Section 65(2)

On the application of any person a Magistrate may grant to the applicant a certificate of exemption from military training and service if the Magistrate is satisfied that the applicant objects in good faith to such training and service on the ground that it is contrary to his religious belief.

The 1916 Act meant that only Christadelphians, Seventh-day Adventists, and Quakers were to be recognised as conscientious objectors. As Baxter was not a member of one of these, he could not apply for objector status. According to the Act, Baxter was automatically deemed to be a First Division Reservist.[4] The Act also required all eligible males to enroll in the Expeditionary Force Reserve or face up to 3 months imprisonment or a fine of £50. Baxter had not enrolled. Failing to enroll and being convicted of it also meant that Baxter could be immediately called up for service. Failure to report for duty became either desertion or absence without leave, offences under the Army Act.[4][5]

Baxter and two of his brothers – Alexander and John – were arrested by civilian police in mid March 1917 for failing to enroll under the Act and were first imprisoned in The Terrace Gaol, Wellington. They were subsequently transferred directly to Trentham Military Camp when their appeals as conscientious objectors were rejected. On 21 March Archibald and John Baxter and William Little, another objector, refused to put on Army uniform; Alexander Baxter refused to work. All were Court Martialed, all stating that they did not consider themselves soldiers, having never volunteered or taken the oath of allegiance. None was represented by legal counsel.[6] The four were sentenced to 84 days imprisonment with hard labour, served at both the Terrace Gaol and Mount Cook Prison.[7] At the end of their sentence they were to be sent back to Trentham Camp.[8] Back at Trentham after release, Archibald Baxter continued to refuse orders and was sentenced to 28 days detention.

Contemporary illustration of Field Punishment Number One.

In 1917 the Minister of Defence, Sir James Allen, decided that all men claiming to be conscientious objectors but not accepted as such should be sent to the Western Front.[9] Accordingly, orders were given by Colonel H R Potter, Trentham Camp Commandant, that he along with 13 other conscientious objectors – his two brothers, William Little (Hikurangi), Frederick Adin (Foxton), Garth Carsley Ballantyne (Wellington), Mark Briggs (politician), David Robert Gray (Hinds. Canterbury), Thomas Percy Harland (Roslyn, Dunedin), Lawrence Joseph Kirwan (Hokitika), Daniel Maguire (Foxton), Lewis Edward Penwright (Geeverton, Tasmania), Henry Patton (Cobden Greymouth) and Albert Ernest Sanderson (Babylori, North Wairoa)[10] – were to be shipped out. On 24 July they were embarked on the troopship Waitemata[11] en voyage to Cape Town, where a measles epidemic on board caused the ship to stop. Archibald, Jack and Sanderson and some troops were taken to hospital, and the ship was condemned by the port authorities as unfit for troops, necessitating the civilian liner Norman Castle being used to take the main military group, including the other COs, to England.[12][13]

After recovery, Archibald and the other two COs were taken on the civilian liner Llanstephan Castle, arriving at Plymouth, Devon, on 26 December. Baxter was still refusing to put on a uniform or do any work for the army. He was kept under detention at Sling Camp, Salisbury Plain, and then sent to France, Folkestone–Boulogne, and on to Étaples. British newspapers of the time reported that because he had been sent to the front he could be shot for disobeying orders.[14]

There Baxter remained under detention and continued to refuse any military involvement. He had been assigned to E Company of the 28th Reinforcements,[15] led by Captain Frederick Harold Batten, father of the aviator Jean Batten.[16] He was placed under Lt Col George Mitchell, 3rd Otago Reserve Battalion, who investigated his case, questioning him about his beliefs, but ultimately finding that he was considered a soldier by the New Zealand Government. Mitchell told Baxter that if he did not obey military orders he should expect to be punished, as determined by Mitchell. Eventually Mitchell punished Baxter with 28 days of Field Punishment No.1 at Oudredoum (near Ypres in Belgium).

A doctor examined Baxter before the punishment, and despite telling Baxter he thought he was unfit for it, spitefully passed him as fit. Because the personnel at Oudredoum would not punish him, he was moved to Mud Farm near Dickebusch (also known as Dikkebus) in West Flanders, where he was put under two hours punishment each day. Eventually he was sent to Abeele and back to Mitchell. On 5 March Mitchell ordered him up to the lines at Ypres. Provost Sergeant Booth was put in charge of Baxter and at one time punched him in the face and beat him up, Booth saying he had been ordered to do so. Baxter was placed under Captain Phillips and taken to the Otago Infantry Regiment camp. He was then returned to Booth's supervision.

At one stage Booth, on direction from a Captain Stevenson, placed Baxter by an ammunition dump being shelled by the Germans. Despite a heavy barrage, Baxter was unharmed. After further abusive treatment including starvation, he suffered a complete physical and mental breakdown, and was sent to hospital in England about May 1918.[17] According to his records, by the time he went to hospital he had been assigned to the 3rd New Zealand Entrenching Battalion.

Baxter was said to have been diagnosed as suffering from melancholia.[18] He was returned to New Zealand, but during the voyage was diagnosed as being in good mental and physical health. He arrived on 21 September 1918, and returned to his Otago farm after the war.[19][20]

The physical treatment given to Baxter can to a large extent be directly attributed to the attitudes of the Minister of Defence, Allen; the Commander of New Zealand forces based in England, Brigadiar-General Sir George Richardson, and General Godley, Commander of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces.[21] Godley gave orders that if Baxter and the others failed to comply, they were to be "summarily punished or dealt with at reinforcement camps, where they are now, and that they are not to be sent up to the front." Neither Allen nor Richardson had any such qualms and were likely to be the reason behind Baxter being taken to the front.[22]

Concern about the fate of Baxter and the others sent to France began to be raised by the Dunedin branch of the Women's International League. The Canterbury Women's Institute also wrote expressing concern. In late 1917 English Quaker and wife of the late John Ellis, Maria Rountree, wrote about trying to find the fate of the 14 objectors, only to be stonewalled by the Commander of the New Zealand forces, Richardson.[23] Harry Holland MP, citing an article in the Dominion on 21 November, deduced that the British Government had condemned the New Zealand government's sending of conscientious objectors to the front.[24][25] The paper had written, "the Imperial authorities have no wish to be troubled with men who will not fight,..". This effectively ended such deportations, but did not mean the release of those already in France.

In February 1918 the National Peace Council of New Zealand, wrote to the Minister of Defence, James Allen, expressing concern about the treatment of Baxter and the others. Of particular concern was the sending of the objectors to the front, where they could be court-martialled and shot for not fighting the enemy.[26] Harry Holland MP also took up their cases, writing to the Prime Minister and newspapers.[27]

As further news came of the inhumane way Baxter had been treated by the military, it was the subject of a Women's International League delegation to the Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, Sir James Allen in June 1918.[28] The treatment of both him and the other objectors continued to be raised after the war by Harry Holland MP and others.[29][30] In 2014 a docu-drama of his treatment entitled Field Punishment No 1 was televised.[31]

The attitude of the military of the day towards Baxter was summed up in a letter from Colonel Robert Tate, Adjutant-General, New Zealand Military Headquarters, in which he stated

Regarding Archibald Baxter ... the sympathy of many earnest people who would like to see the lot of the conscientious objector alleviated, is wasted on men [Baxter] who are in no sense conscientious but are merely defiant of all control and willing to be subject to no law but their own inclinations. ...[32]