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 ...

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.

Political reasons

Alternative service

References

See also