ABSTRACT
Promotional activities concerning recruiting in Australia during the Great War had unique salience due to the fact that voluntary recruiting was maintained throughout the conflict. The 1916 Call to Arms campaign, which has been under-examined by historians, occupies an important position in the story of voluntary recruiting, as it was the last major campaign to take place before Australia was politically divided by two failed conscription plebiscites. The campaign was both successful and unsuccessful: while it attracted the promised extra 50,000 men to join the Australian Imperial Force, the tactics employed served to alienate other potential recruits and marked the beginning of heated debates about conscription that overshadowed recruiting until the close of the war.
