London: Newly published documents from the First World War reveal an often overlooked side of the conflict - the stories of thousands of men who pleaded not to go and fight.
The British records, which have been placed online by the National Archives, are from hearings held during the war to rule on whether those who had applied for exemptions from military service should be allowed not to serve.
They show a variety of reasons cited for resisting conscription, including medical, family and economic grounds.
Only 577 of the 11,307 cases in the files (about 5 per cent) related to conscientious objectors - those who refused to fight on moral grounds. The majority of appeals were dismissed and many people did go on to fight.
But in some cases exemptions were granted. The files provide an insight into the impact of the First World War on families, businesses and communities far from the battlefields, and also lay bare the social tensions caused by the conflict, and the resistance of some men to serve.
The hearings were considered so sensitive that after the war, most files were destroyed.
In one case disclosed in the archives, the tribunal deciding on the case of Charles Rubens Busby, a butcher, was sent a letter signed only "a father and householder S H M" questioning why he had been allowed to keep his shop open and remain at home while "married men have had to shut up their shop and go".
The letter writer, a 68-year-old, said he had lost two sons in the fighting while Busby, 40, had made "heaps of money" and had deliberately joined a voluntary organisation to avoid being called up.
The butcher, who was described as "a proper rotter of a man" and a "rotten shirker", was accused of "bragging" about how he would not be called to fight, even taking bets on the matter.
Busby apparently lost his case and went to serve in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
Harry Harris, a 35-year-old from Wood Green, north London, applied for an exemption so he could continue to run his grocery and general store, of which he was sole proprietor. If he were made to serve, he said, he risked losing his life savings. The tribunal dismissed his case, but gave him one month to make arrangements for the business.
Others did have their exemptions granted, among them John Gordon Shallis who appealed on grounds of domestic hardship, having lost three brothers during the war.
Before the appeal was heard, a fourth had been killed. His parents, from Harlesden, also lost a son-in-law.
His mother is described as a "cripple" on his appeal form, having broken her leg, and his father was away carrying out Home Defence duties with the Territorial Force. The chairman of the panel wrote they were "of the opinion that the mother is entitled to the comfort she will obtain by the retention of this last son." Given these exceptional personal circumstances and her son's employment within the munitions industry, he was granted an exemption.
Conscription was introduced in 1916, after the numbers volunteering fell to their lowest level and efforts to encourage more to enlist failed.
The records come from the Middlesex Appeal Tribunal which, between 1916 and 1918, heard appeals from local men who had applied for exemption from compulsory military service, and had already lost their first hearing. The panels featured MPs, judges, magistrates and other leading local figures. Those who lost again could make a further appeal, to a central tribunal, in London.
The Middlesex documents are one of only two complete surviving collections of tribunal records, because - due to emotions stirred by the topic - the authorities considered the material too sensitive to retain.
In the years that followed the war, the Government issued instructions to the Local Government Boards that all tribunal material should be destroyed, except for the Middlesex Appeal records and a similar set for Lothian and Peebles in Scotland, which were to be retained as a reference, for possible future use.
The records have been published online as part of a series of projects to mark this year's centenary of the war's outbreak. Chris Barnes, records specialist at Britain's National Archives, said: "The conscription appeal records provide a different perspective of the First World War away from the battles, revealing the impact the war had on the Home Front."