Peace. Quiz Who was the leader of the moral force Chartists? What good idea did Fergus O’Connor set up? Why is the centre of Wimbledon not in Wimbledon.

Peace

Quiz

• Who was the leader of the moral force Chartists?

• What good idea did Fergus O’Connor set up?• Why is the centre of Wimbledon not in

Wimbledon village?• What’s the average growth of London 1801-51?• Name two arguments against universal

franchise.

Quiz

• What is swetted labour?• What the Sharpes in the 18th and 19th century?• What dock in Canary Wharf on?• Why is there a hole in the middle of the Old

Naval College at Greenwich?• What is the green belt?

The story so far

• Social movements may be successful in the short term: but do they bequeath the best to us? ACCL free trade and low regulation

• Social movements may fail at their time but they may bequeath almost universally accepted values: Chartism

• Social movements may be spit by different tactics: moral and physical force: if so they are likely to fail

London 1914

• An imperial capital• Centre of the telegraph networks of the world• Underground: Northern, Central, Piccadilly,

Bakerloo; Motorised busses; Trams• 7.2 million

Social movements for peace

• Created and supported by three groups of people:– Those who think any war is unjustified: absolute

pacifists– Those who think this war is unjustified: contextual

pacifists– Those who may think this war is justified but who

do not like the impact it has on their society: eg censorship, conscription, imprisonment without trial, war profits, rationing

What is a just war?

• German imperial expansion vs French, Russian and British imperial concerns

• Germany, Austria-Hungary, Rumania & Turkey v France, Russia, Italy, Serbia, British Empire, Belgium, Portugal, Serbia

• Seas controlled by Royal Navy: land slaughter on East, South and Western Fronts

World War 1

US Peace movements 1914-18Chatfield, Charles (1971) For Peace and Justice, Knoxville, U of T Press

• Absolute pacifists:– Liberals/progressives who see war as an old way

of solving issues– Religious pacifists: Christians and Quakers; YMCA

movement• Contextual pacifists:– Socialists– An Old World conflict not fit for the New World

US

• Fragmented into different groups• Old leadership matured in the progressive era• New leadership brought in because of the war• Hard for the liberals to work with the radical

socialists

US: Main groups

• Fellowship of Reconciliation: Christ’s way of love instead of way of war; a human society based on love is possible; Christianity is more than avoiding evil; it is building this human society

• People’s Council of America: local organisations affiliate to it; 3 million “members”

US: Opponents

• American Defence Society:– Attacks pacifist meetings; no longer possible 1917– Pacifists have to rely on print: The Masses, The

Nation, The World Tomorrow– Often refused postage under subversion act:

US: Evasion and COs

• Draft evaders: 171,000• COs: 3,989– 1,300 accepted for non combat service– 1,200 furloughed into factories or farms– 99 Quaker’s reconstruction work– 450 court-martialed and imprisoned– 225 in camps objecting to combat– 715 objecting to combat and any non combat

military service

London in the war

• Frenzied demonstrations at the start and end –lasted 3 days

• Parks and squares used for kitchen gardens• Hospitals full of wounded troops• Dance, music and cinema halls full• Bombing by Zeppelins: 700 killed and dim

lighting• 125,000 Londoners died in battle

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

• The General• “Good morning, good morning!” the General said• When we met him last week on the way to the line.• Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ‘em dead.• And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.• “He’s a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack• As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.• But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

• Written at Denmark Hill Hospital, London, 1917

• Nationalistic press• Demonisation of the enemy• No examination of the strategy or tactics in

depth - just a statement of them• Sometimes a clash of policies between

generals involve journalists: Repington and French vs Kitchener

UK Peace movementsDeGroot, Gerald J (1996) Blighty, London, Longman

• Large demonstration August 2 Trafalgar Square• August 3 Germany invades Belgium• TUC and Labour Party support the war• Arnold Bennett (1867-1931): When one sees

young men idling in the lanes on Sunday, one thinks: “why are they not at war?” All one’s pacific ideas have been disturbed. One is becoming militarist.

Three groups against the war

• Pacifists• Socialists: its caused by capitalist imperialism• Feminists: it is caused by patriarchy• “Leaders without followers”

• Union of Democratic Control:– No annexation of land without population’s

agreement– Parliament to exert control over policy: no secret

treaties– International Council for arbitration– Mutual agreement to limit armaments

• 100 branches: 10,000 members

ILP split

• Greetings to comrades in Germany over the road of the guns

• “Inflexibly resolved until victory achieved.”• “Soldiers must not be disheartened by any

discordant note at home.”

British Socialist Party

• Calls for immediate end to the war• Only 6,435 members

British section of the Women’s International League

• 50 branches: 3,687 active members• “Only free women can build up the peace

which is to be”.• Splits: Pankhursts: “The struggle against the

Kaiser is a thousand times more important than the fight for votes.”

No Conscription Fellowship

• 12,000 members: half jailed• Combination of pacifists, socialists and feminists• Supported men going before the boards.• 80% were granted some concessions• 16,100 Cos– 3,300 non combat corps– 2,400 ambulances etc– 3,964 work at home– 6,261 prison

Opponents

• Socialist National Defence Committee/British Workers League– Broke up pacifist meetings– Newspaper The British Citizen, 30,000 a week– Government mainly let newspapers and private

organisations attack the pacifist positions

• Sassoon’s letter: “this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest” –

• there is “something wrong” with “this extremely gallant officer” -- sent to a psychiatric hospital

Germany peace movement

• Social Democratic Party in Germany biggest left party, anti-capitalist, in the world 1914

• Deep social roots: party; club; cooperatives; housing; youth movement; women’s movement; trade unions; members of the Reichstag; disciplined party under democratic centralism

• Against the war early August• For the war under the banner of “against

Tsarism” when Russia declares war

Splits

• Sparticist: Rosa Luxembourg (1871-1919) and Karl Liebknecht (1871-1919) ; collapse of demonstrations (same as UK); fear of the nationalist public: contextual pacifists

Worker’s actions

• Strikes against hunger• Strikes against war production• Public demonstrations• Supression• Formation of Centraists in Social Democratic

Party against the war for tits affect on the working class: contextual pacifists

Mutiny

• Revived by the Russian Revolution• From August 1918: Navy main fleet mutiny:

elect a Soviet• Grounds for “stab in the back” theory by the

Nazis

Success of the social movements

• Overcame the isolation of those ideas in a sea of nationalist fervour

• Argued successfully for the position and recognition of Cos

• Laid the groundwork for the wider peace movements of the 1920s and 1930s

• Made the Weimar republic in Germany.