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What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

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Hello and welcome to the Witness Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last.

And today as part of our centenary series on the First World War

using archive recordings we tell the story of Britain's conscientious objectors and

their stand against the war.

I was a complete pacifist then, but in addition to that,

that I regarded it as an imperialist war. I had three years hard labor,

I had eight months in solitary confinement. We face the question,

now are you prepared to carry this opposition to war to the point of being

shot for your convictions?

During the First World War in 1916 for the first time in British history the government

introduced military conscription.

There were some exemptions, for example if a man's job was considered to be in the national interest.

But in Britain, unlike in other major European warring powers,

there was also an exemption on grounds of conscience, a person's religious moral or political conviction.

These conscientious objectors were often pacifists, members of Christian religious groups like the

Quakers known as Friends. Others were more political, people

...