Labour battalions have been a form of
alternative service
Alternative civilian service, also called alternative services, civilian service, non-military service, and substitute service, is a form of national service performed in lieu of military conscription for various reasons, such as conscientious ...
or
unfree labour
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
in various countries in lieu of or resembling regular
military service
Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job ( volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription).
Some nations (e.g., Mexico) require ...
. In some cases they were the result of some kind of
discriminative segregation of the population, while in some others they have been a conscious choice.
Political reasons
In some countries labour battalions were created from part of population which for various reasons were not suitable for regular military service, often because this population was considered "undesirable" or "unreliable", e.g., political enemies, population of occupied territories or "lower
races".
Examples include labour battalions in the late
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
and early
Turkish Republic
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
both
during World War I and
during World War II,
labour service in Hungary during World War II
Labour service () was required of "political unreliable" and Hungarian-Jewish men in Hungary during World War II after they were prohibited from serving in the regular armed forces by passage of the Hungarian anti-Jewish laws. In Hungary, Jews co ...
, as well as labour battalions in other territories held by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and its allies (see also "
Hiwi".).
Alternative service
In some countries labour battalions are a form of
civil conscription
Civil conscription is the obligation of civilians to perform mandatory labour for the government. This kind of work has to correspond with the exceptions in international agreements, otherwise it could fall under the category of unfree labour. Th ...
instead of
military conscription
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day und ...
for people who cannot join military service for various reasons, e.g., due to bad health or being
conscientious objectors to any forms of violence, as long as they aren't considered unfit for other work.
In the British Army during the First World War, labour or pioneer battalions were initially formed in December 1914 from recruits with skilled trades or experience in manual labour, trained to fight as infantry but usually used to build trenches and carry out other manual labour. Early in 1916 these began to also include men not assessed as fit enough to fight to carry out a similar role and were sometimes also known as Infantry Works Battalions. Initially assigned to individual regiments, the existing Labour and Infantry Works battalions were grouped together in February 1917 to form the new
Labour Corps.
Until the last days of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
with obligatory military duty in the state, men deemed unfit to regular military duty but not unfit for other work, as well as many able-bodied ones, were assigned to ''
construction battalion
, colors =
, mascot = Bumblebee
, battles = Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Cape Gloucester, Los Negros, Guam, Peleliu, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima, Philippine ...
s'' (стройбаты) of the
Soviet Army
uk, Радянська армія
, image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg
, alt =
, caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army
, start_date ...
. Similar armed forces branches existed in other Eastern European countries throughout the communist period between the end of World War II and the end of the 1980s. An interesting example are the
Bulgarian Construction Troops (Строителни Войски), first established in 1920 to circumvent the limits on the size of the military imposed by the
Treaty of Neuilly-Sur-Seine
The Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine (french: Traité de Neuilly-sur-Seine) required Bulgaria to cede various territories, after Bulgaria had been one of the Central Powers defeated in World War I. The treaty was signed on 27 November 1919 at Neuilly ...
at the end of World War I. Over the years this branch became a blend of a corps of engineers and a means for some to fulfill the mandatory conscription in place during communism in the country.
References
See also
*
Bevin Boys in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
from 1943 to 1948
*
Civil conscription
Civil conscription is the obligation of civilians to perform mandatory labour for the government. This kind of work has to correspond with the exceptions in international agreements, otherwise it could fall under the category of unfree labour. Th ...
*
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...
as a public
work relief program
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the referen ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
from 1933 to 1942
*
Bausoldat in
East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
*
Hand and hitch-up services
In Austria and Germany, hand and hitch-up services (i.e. services of manual work and with hitched-up cart or more modern vehicles, german: Hand- und Spanndienste or ''Hand- und Zugdienste'') or more contemporary (mandatory) municipal services (Ger ...
*
Labour army
*
Labour camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
*
Reichsarbeitsdienst
The Reich Labour Service (''Reichsarbeitsdienst''; RAD) was a major organisation established in Nazi Germany as an agency to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy, militarise the workforce and indoctrinate it with Nazi ...
in
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
from 1933 to 1945
*
Workfare
Workfare is a governmental plan under which welfare recipients are required to accept public-service jobs or to participate in job training. Many countries around the world have adopted workfare (sometimes implemented as "work-first" policies) to ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Labour Battalion
Unfree labour
Conscription
Non-combatant military personnel