Recruitment was key to the government’s efforts to continue resistance. But initially conscription had been haphazard, and little had been done to explain to the wider population the significance of their participation in the war. As a result, there had been widespread desertion, as well as corruption by local officials who accepted government recruitment fees but then failed to sign up the troops as promised. In January 1938 new regulations were introduced that tried to regularize recruitment, which set monthly recruitment targets and (at least on paper) forbade forced enlistment. While
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