GUEST Colin springs up next.

Any evidence - the only way such a "promise" or "inducement" could have been made would have left some trace of it's existence - there is none.

As Lighter says between August 1914 and December 1914 1.2 million men volunteered which means that as they left their homes, work, offices, colleges, universities to go down to the recruitment centres - they had already decided to join the army - they did not need any promise or inducement.

But there again Colin that sort of reasoning relies on commonsense and logic.

Listen to Margaret MacMillan on Von Moltke the Elder who in 1890 stated that while wars between nation states and their governments always had a distinct objective and could be controlled by governments what he saw as wars of the people once started could not be controlled and would last until they had run their course - anything up to seven years in length - his other prediction came horribly true - "Woe betide whoever starts a European conflict" - The German Kaiser was the person who pressed for got his European War to set Germany on it's path to greatness as the dominant power in Europe with an instantly acquired foreign Empire carved from the åpossessions of France and Belgium.