The Call to Arms: Enlisting or Resisting

Stories of Geelong: Enlisting and Resisting

Welcome to Stories of Geelong, where we uncover the histories that shaped our community.

In this episode, we revisit our November 2025 Society meeting, where Dr Bart Ziino of Deakin University explored a rarely told side of the Great War. His talk, Enlisting and Resisting: Why Did Australian Men Decline to Enlist in the Great War?, challenged us to look beyond the familiar stories of those who served, and to consider the equally powerful narratives of those who stayed behind.

From farmers facing ruin, to sons bound by duty to their families, to workers questioning the fairness of sacrifice, these stories remind us that enlistment was never a simple choice. As Dr Ziino observed, it was a “hierarchy of sacrifice,” where men and their families weighed risk, responsibility, and consequence in the shadow of war.

By highlighting these voices, Dr Ziino invites us to reconsider courage in all its dimensions. The men who resisted the call were not shirking duty; they were navigating a fraught emotional and moral landscape, balancing obligations to family, livelihood, and conscience. Their choices reveal a nation wrestling with sacrifice in many forms, and remind us that the Great War was not only about those who marched away, but also about those who stayed.