1916 The Military Service Act of this year meant that even male Britons as unlikely as Lytton Strachey were eligible to serve in the forces. Strachey was duly summoned to an ‘Advisory Committee’ on 7 March, where he stated his conscientious objection. It was not, he insisted, a religious objection, but ‘moral’. He firmly believed this war to be ‘profoundly evil’. The committee made no judgement, but referred his case to a tribunal at Hampstead Town Hall on 16 March. The hearing took place at 5.00pm and was public. Attending were prominent members of the Bloomsbury Group, of which Strachey was a luminary, and his sisters.
Strachey placed a ‘light blue air cushion’ on the bench before seating himself, and spread a rug across his knees. The examination then began (the following description is from Michael Holroyd, Strachey’s biographer). The military representative on the committee began by asking:
‘I understand, Mr Strachey, that you are a conscientious objector to all wars?’
‘Oh, no’, came the piercing high-pitched reply, ‘not at all. Only this one’.
‘Then tell me, Mr Strachey, what you would do if you saw a German soldier attempting to rape your sister?’
Lytton turned and forlornly regarded each of his sisters in turn. Then he confronted the Board once more and answered with gravity:
‘I should try and interpose my own body’.
Unsurprisingly, the Board were not amused, and the question of exemption was adjourned until Strachey had undergone medical examination. The doctors confirmed that he was wholly unfit.
Strachey found the experience rather thrilling. As he said: ‘For a few moments I realised what it was like to be one of the lower classes.’ It was not, however, an experience that he took any care to repeat.