Peace

1. Peace

2. 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.

3. 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?

4. 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

5. London 1914 • An imperial capital • Centre of the telegraph networks of the world • Underground: Northern, Central, Piccadilly, Bakerloo; Motorised busses; Trams • 7.2 million

6. 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

7. What is a just war?

13. World War 1 • 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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”

20. 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:

21. 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

22. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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.

27. Three groups against the war • Pacifists • Socialists: its caused by capitalist imperialism • Feminists: it is caused by patriarchy • “Leaders without followers”

28. 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

29. 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.”

30. British Socialist Party • Calls for immediate end to the war • Only 6,435 members

31. 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.”

32. 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

33. 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

34. 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

35. 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

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

37. 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

38. 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

39. 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.