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| Opposition to World War I | |
|---|---|
| Part ofWorld War I and theanti-war movement | |
 Protests against World War I at the 1918 Women's Peace Conference in The Hague | |
| Date | 1914–1918 |
| Location | |
| Caused by | World War I |
| Goals | End of any participation in World War I |
| Methods | Opposition |
| Resulted in |
|
Opposition to World War I was widespread during the conflict and includedsocialists, such asanarchists,syndicalists, andMarxists, as well asChristian pacifists,anti-colonial nationalists,feminists,intellectuals, and the working class. The socialist movement had declared before the war their opposition to a war which they said could only mean workers killing each other in the interests of their bosses.
Once the war was declared, most socialists andtrade unions decided to back the government of their country and support the war. For example, on 25 July 1914, the executive of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) issued an appeal to its membership to demonstrate against the coming war, only to vote on 4 August for thewar credits the German government wanted. Likewise, theFrench Socialist Party and its union, theCGT, especially afterthe assassination of the pacificistJean Jaurès, organized mass rallies and protests until the outbreak of war, but once the war began they argued that in wartime socialists should support their nations against the aggression of other nations and also voted for war credits.[1]
Groups opposed to the war included the RussianBolsheviks, theSocialist Party of America, theItalian Socialist Party, and the socialist faction led byKarl Liebknecht andRosa Luxemburg in Germany (later to become theCommunist Party of Germany). In Sweden, the socialist youth leaderZeth Höglund was jailed for his anti-war propaganda, even though Sweden did not participate in the war.
Women across the spectrum were much less supportive of the war[clarification needed] than men.[2][3] Women in church groups[clarification needed] were especially anti-war; however,women in the suffrage movement in different countries wanted to support the war effort, asking for the vote as a reward for that support. In France, women activists from both the working-class socialist women's and the middle-class suffrage movements formed their own groups to oppose the war. They were unable to coordinate their efforts because of mutual suspicion due to class and political differences. After 1915, the groups weakened and dissolved entirely as their leading militants left to work within nonfeminist organizations opposing the war.[4]
The women's suffrage movement in Britain split on the war issue. The main official groups supported the war but it was opposed by a number of prominent women's rights campaigners, includingHelena Swanwick,Margaret Ashton,Catherine Marshall,Maude Royden,Kathleen Courtney,Chrystal Macmillan,[5] andSylvia Pankhurst. It was an early coalition of women's campaigning with pacifism that led to the formation ofWomen's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915.
Although the onset of theFirst World War was generally greeted with enthusiastic patriotism across Europe, peace groups were still active in protesting the starting of the war.
In 1915, theLeague of Nations Society was formed byBritish Liberal Party leaders to promote a strong international organization that could enforce the peaceful resolution of conflict. Later that year theLeague to Enforce Peace was established in America to promote similar goals.Hamilton Holt published an editorial in his New York City weekly magazineTheIndependent called "The Way to Disarm: A Practical Proposal" on 28 September 1914. It called for an international organization to agree upon the arbitration of disputes and to guarantee the territorial integrity of its members by maintaining military forces sufficient to defeat those of any non-member. The ensuing debate among prominent internationalists modified Holt's plan to align it more closely with proposals offered in Great Britain byViscount James Bryce, a former ambassador from Britain to the U.S. These and other initiatives were pivotal in the change in attitudes that gave birth to theLeague of Nations after the war.Christian pacifists and the traditionalpeace churches such as theReligious Society of Friends (Quakers) opposed the war. Most American Pentecostal denominations were critical to the war and encouraged their members to beconscientious objectors.[6]
In the United States, some of the many groups that protested against the war were theWoman's Peace Party (which was organized in 1915 and led by noted reformerJane Addams), theAmerican Union Against Militarism, theFellowship of Reconciliation, and theAmerican Friends Service Committee.[7]Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, was another fierce advocate of pacifism, the only person to vote no to America's entrance into both World Wars.
Pope Benedict XV, elected to the papacy less than three months into WW1, made the war and its consequences the main focus of his early pontificate. In stark contrast to his predecessor,Pope Pius X,[8] five days after his election he spoke of his determination to do what he could to bring peace. His first encyclical,Ad beatissimi Apostolorum, given 1 November 1914, was concerned with this subject. Benedict XV found his abilities and unique position as a religious emissary of peace ignored by the belligerent powers. The 1915 Treaty of London between Italy and the Triple Entente included secret provisions whereby the Allies agreed with Italy to ignore papal peace moves towards the Central Powers. Consequently, the publication of Benedict's proposed seven-point Peace Note of August 1917 was roundly ignored by all parties except Austria-Hungary.[9]
Many socialist groups and movements wereantimilitarist, arguing that war by its nature was a type of governmental coercion of theworking class for the benefit of capitalist elites. However, the national parties in theSecond International increasingly supported their respective nations in war and the International was dissolved in 1916.
When the Second International, the primary international socialist organization before World War I, was founded in 1889,internationalism was one of its central tenets. "The workers have no Fatherland",Karl Marx andFriedrich Engels had declared inThe Communist Manifesto. Between 1889 and 1914 the Second International repeatedly declared its opposition to war and that "[the working class shall] do all they can to prevent the outbreak of war"[10][11]
The exact means of combating the outbreak of war was a matter of conflict within the Second International. On the far-left the radical French pacifistGustave Hervé promoted building anti-government militias and instigating mutinies in the army.[12] The center of the party, embodied by the GermanAugust Bebel and the French Jean Jaurès, were more circumspect with their preferred means. Jaurès particularly warned of the potential for a diversionary war.
Alarmed by the growth of the socialist movement, a government might attempt to create a foreign diversion rather than directly battle Social Democracy. If a war breaks out in this way between France and Germany, would we permit the French and German proletariat to murder one another on behalf of the capitalists and for their benefit without Social Democracy attempting to exert the greatest effort to stop it? If we were not to make the attempt, we would all be dishonored.[12]
These statements were in tension with others. For example, Bebel was determined "never to abandon a single piece of German soil to the foreigner". Jaurès criticized Marx and Engels' maxim that the "workers have no Fatherland" as "vain and obscure subtleties" and a "sarcastic negation of history itself".
After the repeal of the anti-socialist law in 1890 the SPD steadily gained support in the lower house of the Imperial German Parliament, the Reichstag. By 1914 it was the largest party in the Reichstag.[13] Prior to 1914, the SPD had consistently voted against all imperial military spending under the slogan "Not one man, not one farthing for the current system."[14]
During the July Crisis, it became clear that German mobilization, and therefor German war credit would be critical. A vote on war credits in the Reichstag was scheduled for 4 August, and required a simple majority to pass. This meant that a vote against war credits would only be symbolic for the SPD, unless a non-socialist party defected to their side.
On 2 August, the right faction of the German SPD met and agreed to support the upcoming war credits vote.[15] On 3 August, the full SPD parliamentary delegation met. In the party's preparatory meeting on 3 August, there were, according to SPD representativeWolfgang Heine, "vile, noisy scenes"[16] because of conflict between the right faction and Karl Liebknecht who believed that "the rejection of war loans was self-evident and unquestionable for the majority of the SPD Reichstag faction."[17] In the end, the right faction successfully swayed the center of the party. On 4 August, theReichstag, voted on war credits. Following a tradition of party discipline, the socialist delegates unanimously voted for the measures. The policy of supporting the government's war efforts became known as theBurgfrieden orcivil truce.
The socialist parties of France had split and reunited several times since the founding of the republic. At the outbreak of the July Crisis the French Section of the Worker's International (SFIO) was the most prominently anti-war party in France. Its leader, Jean Jaurès, was actively searching for allies against a European war.[18] To this end, a special congress of the Second International was planned for 9 August in Paris.[19] On 4 August, socialists also rallied behind the war in France, where socialist acquiescence became known as theunion sacrée.
In Britain, the prominent peace activistStephen Henry Hobhouse went to prison for refusing military service, citing his convictions as an "International Socialist and, a Christian"[20] On 5 August, theParliamentary Labour Party in the United Kingdom voted to support the government in the war.
After the largest socialist parties of theSecond International had voted in favor of war funding and shifted to support their national governments, organized international resistance by the socialist parties disintegrated. Reaction to these events would lead to theZimmerwald Conference, and the splitting of socialist and communist movements.
Like all the armies of mainland Europe, Austria-Hungary relied on conscription to fill its ranks. Officer recruitment, however, was voluntary. The effect of this at the start of the war was that well over a quarter of the rank and file were Slavs, while more than 75% of the officers were ethnic Germans. This was much resented. The army has been described as being "run on colonial lines" and the Slav soldiers as "disaffected". Thus conscription contributed greatly to Austria's disastrous performance on the battlefield.[21]
In 1914, thePublic SchoolsOfficers' Training Corps annual camp was held at Tidworth Pennings, nearSalisbury Plain. Head of the British Army,Lord Kitchener, was to review thecadets, but the imminence of the war prevented him. GeneralHorace Smith-Dorrien was sent instead. He surprised the two-or-three thousand cadets by declaring (in the words of Donald Christopher Smith, aBermudian cadet who was present):
that war should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing, that the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin, and that the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. In their ignorance I, and many of the Britons, felt almost ashamed of a British General who uttered such depressing and unpatriotic sentiments, but during the next four years, those of us who survived the holocaust—probably not more than one-quarter of us—learned how right the General's prognosis was and how courageous he had been to utter it.[22]
In Britain, some people resistedconscription. By 1918 several distinguished people were imprisoned for their opposition to it, including "the nation's leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize, more than half a dozen future members of Parliament, one future cabinet minister, and a former newspaper editor who was publishing a clandestine journal for his fellow inmates."[23] One of them wasBertrand Russell - a mathematician, philosopher and social critic engaged in pacifist activities, who was dismissed fromTrinity College, Cambridge, following his conviction under theDefence of the Realm Act in 1916. A later conviction resulted in six months' of imprisonment inBrixton Prison from which he was released in September 1918.
Despite the mainstream Labour Party's support for the war effort, theIndependent Labour Party was instrumental in opposing conscription through organizations such as the Non-Conscription Fellowship, while a Labour Party affiliate, theBritish Socialist Party, organized a number of unofficial strikes.Arthur Henderson resigned from the Cabinet in 1917 amid calls for party unity to be replaced byGeorge Barnes. Overall, the majority of the movement continued to support the war for the duration of the conflict, and the British Labour Party, unlike most of its equivalents on the Continent, did not split over the war.[24]
In the shipyards in and aroundGlasgow, Scotland, opposition to the war effort became a major aim during theRed Clydeside era. To mobilize the workers of Clydeside against World War I, theClyde Workers' Committee (CWC) was formed, withWillie Gallacher as its head andDavid Kirkwood its treasurer. The CWC led the campaign against the coalition government in whichDavid Lloyd George was a prominent member, and their Munitions Act, which forbade engineers from leaving the company they were employed in. The CWC negotiated with government leaders, but no agreement could be reached and consequently both Gallacher and Kirkwood were arrested and imprisoned under the Defence of the Realm Act. Anti-war activity also took place outside the workplace and on the streets in general. TheMarxistJohn Maclean andIndependent Labour Party memberJames Maxton were both jailed for their anti-war propagandizing.
In Australia two referendums in 1916 and 1917 resulted in votes against conscription, and were seen as opposition to an all-out prosecution of the war. In retaliation, the Australian government used theWar Precautions Act and theUnlawful Associations Act to arrest and prosecute anti-conscriptionists such as Tom Barker, editor ofDirect Action and many other members of theIndustrial Workers of the World. The youngJohn Curtin, at the time a member of theVictorian Socialist Party, was also arrested. Anti-conscriptionist publications were seized by government censors in police raids.[25]
Other notable opponents to Conscription included the CatholicArchbishop of MelbourneDaniel Mannix, the Queensland Labor PremierThomas Ryan,Vida Goldstein and theWomen's Peace Army. Most labor unions actively opposed conscription. Many Australians thought positively of conscription as a sign of loyalty to Britain and thought that it would also support those men who were already fighting. However, trade unions feared that their members might be replaced by cheaper foreign or female labour and opposed conscription. Some groups argued that the whole war was immoral, and it was unjust to force people to fight.[citation needed] In Australia, women had full rights to vote which was then rare.[26]
In Canada,opposition to conscription and involvement in the war centered onFrench Canadian nationalists led byHenri Bourassa. Following the1917 elections, the government implemented theMilitary Service Act 1917 that came into effect in 1918, which sparked a weekend of rioting inQuebec City between 28 March and 1 April 1918. Invoking theWar Measures Act of 1914, the federal government sent troops to restore order in the city, which opened fire on a demonstration on 1 April.[27]
Although large numbers of Irishmen had willingly joinedIrish regiments anddivisions of theNew Army at the outbreak of war in 1914,[28] the likelihood of enforced conscription created a backlash. This reaction was based particularly on the fact that, in a "dual policy", Lloyd George controversially linked implementation of theGovernment of Ireland Act 1914 ora new Home Rule Bill (as previously recommended in March by theIrish Convention) with enactment of the Military Service Bill. This had the effect of alienating bothnationalists andunionists in Ireland.[29][30][31]
The linking of conscription and Home Rule outraged the Irish nationalist parties at Westminster, including the IPP,All-for-Ireland League and others, who walked out in protest and returned to Ireland to organise opposition.[32] Despite opposition from the entireIrish Parliamentary Party (IPP), conscription for Ireland was voted through atWestminster, becoming part of the 'Military Service (No. 2) Act, 1918' (8 Geo. 5, c. 5).[33]In New Zealand, the war (particularly conscription) was opposed by theNew Zealand Socialist Party and its successor theNew Zealand Labour Party. Several members were prosecuted for sedition in 1916 and imprisoned, includingPeter Fraser,Bob Semple andPaddy Webb. Fraser was later Prime Minister of New Zealand for most ofWorld War II.
InRussia, opposition to the war was originally led by both Marxists and pacifistTolstoyans under the leadership ofValentin Bulgakov. Bulgakov's first reaction to the outbreak of war was the appeal "Wake up, all people are brothers!" which he composed on 28 September 1914.
"Our enemies are - not the Germans, and - not Russians or Frenchmen. The common enemy of us all, no matter what nationality to which we belong - is the beast within us. Nowhere is this truth so clearly confirmed, as now, when, intoxicated, and excessively proud of their false science, their foreign culture and their civilization of the machine, people of the 20th century have suddenly realized the true stage of its development: this step is no higher than that which our ancestors were at in the days ofAttila andGenghis Khan. It is infinitely sad to know that two thousand years of Christianity have passed almost without a trace upon the people.".[34]
In October, Bulgakov continued circulating the appeal, collecting signatures and posting copies which were confiscated by the Tsaristsecret police, orOkhrana. On 28 October, Bulgakov was arrested together with 27 signatories of the appeal. In November and December 1915, most defendants were released from custody on bail. A trial took place on 1 April 1916 and the defendants were acquitted. As Russia's involvement in the war continued anyway, soldiers began to establish their own revolutionary tribunals and began to execute officers en masse. After theOctober Revolution of 1917,Lenin's Bolsheviks called for unilateral armistice, but the other combatants refused, determined to fight until the bitter end. TheBolsheviks agreed a peace treaty withImperial Germany, theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk, despite its harsh conditions. They also published the secret treaties between Russia and theWestern Allies, hoping that the revelation of Allied plans for a vengeful peace would encourage international opposition to the war.
In September 1917,Russian soldiers in France began questioning why they were fighting for the French at all and mutinied.[35]
TheCentral Asian revolt started in the summer of 1916, when the Russian Empire government ended its exemption of Muslims from military service.[36]
IndustrialistHenry Ford believed that capitalism could conquer war so he organized and funded a major effort of antiwar leaders traveling to Europe in 1915 to talk to diplomats in major countries about the need for prosperity and peace.[37] Ford chartered an ocean liner and invited prominentpeace activists to join him. He hoped to create enough publicity to prompt the belligerent nations to convene a peace conference and mediate an end to the war, but the mission was widely mocked by the press, which referred to the liner as the "Ship of Fools", as well as the "Peace Ship".[38] Infighting between the activists, mockery by the press contingent aboard, and an outbreak ofinfluenza marred the voyage.[39] Four days afterOscar II arrived inNorway, a beleaguered and physically ill Ford abandoned the mission and returned to the United States.[40] The peace mission was unsuccessful, which reinforced Ford's reputation as a supporter of unusual causes.[41]
Leaders of most religious groups (except theEpiscopalians) were pacifists, as were leaders of the women's movement. A concerted effort was made by anti-war leaders, includingJane Addams,Oswald Garrison Villard,David Starr Jordan,Henry Ford,Lillian Wald, andCarrie Chapman Catt. Their goal was to convincePresident Wilson to mediate an end of the war by bringing the belligerents to the conference table. Wilson indeed made an energetic, sustained and serious effort to do so, and kept his administration neutral, but he was repeatedly rebuffed by Britain and Germany.[42] Finally in 1917 Wilson convinced some of them that to be truly anti-war they needed to support what Wilson promised would be "a war to end all wars".[43] Once war was declared, the more liberal denominations, which had influenced theSocial Gospel, called for a war for righteousness that would help uplift all mankind. The theme—an aspect ofAmerican exceptionalism—was that God had chosen America as his tool to bring redemption to the world.[44]
Leading up to 1917 and the declaration of war against Germany, thelabor unions,socialists, members of theOld Right, andpacifist groups in the United States publicly denounced participation,[45][46] the obvious motive for the 1916Preparedness Day Bombing stemming from this. WhenWoodrow Wilson ran for reelection in 1916 on the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War", he received support from these groups, although theSocialist Party of America ran its own candidate,Allan Benson. After Wilson was reelected, though, events quickly spiraled into war. TheZimmermann Telegram and resumption ofunrestricted submarine warfare by Germany provoked outrage in the U.S., and Congress declared war on 6 April. Conscription was introduced shortly thereafter, which the anti-war movement bitterly opposed. Many socialists, typified byWalter Lippmann, became enthusiastic supporters of the war. So too didSamuel Gompers and the great majority of organized labor unions. However, theIWW—"Wobblies"—gained strength by opposing the war.[47]
TheEspionage Act of 1917 was passed to prevent spying but also contained a section which criminalized inciting or attempting to incite any mutiny, desertion, or refusal of duty in the armed forces, punishable with a fine of not more than $10,000, not more than twenty years in federal prison, or both. Thousands of Wobblies and anti-war activists were prosecuted on authority of this and the Sedition Act of 1918, which tightened restrictions even more. Among the most famous wasEugene Debs, chairman of theSocialist Party of the USA for giving an anti-draft speech in Ohio. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld these prosecutions in a series of decisions.
Conscientious objectors were punished as well, most of themChristian pacifist inductees. They were placed directly in the armed forces and court-martialed, receiving draconian sentences and harsh treatment. A number of them died inAlcatraz Prison, then a military facility. Vigilante groups were formed which suppressed dissent as well, such as by rounding up draft-age men and checking if they were in possession of draft cards or not.Ben Salmon was a Catholic conscientious objector and outspoken critic ofJust War theology. During World War I, America's Roman Catholic hierarchy denounced him andThe New York Times described him as a "spy suspect." The US military (in which he was never inducted)court-martialed him for desertion and spreading propaganda, then sentenced him to death (this was later revised to 25 years hard labor).[48]
Around 300,000 American men evaded or refused conscription in World War I. Aliens such asEmma Goldman were deported, while naturalized or even native-born citizens, including Eugene Debs, lost their citizenship for their activities.Helen Keller, a socialist, andJane Addams, a pacifist, also publicly opposed the war, but neither was prosecuted, likely because they were sympathetic figures (Keller working to help fellow deaf-blind people and Addams in charity to benefit the poor). In 1919, as the soldiers came home, disturbances continued, with veterans fighting strikers, theSeattle General Strike,race riots in the South and thePalmer Raids following two anarchist bombings. After the election ofWarren G. Harding in 1920, Americans were eager to follow his campaign slogan of "Return to Normalcy." Anti-war dissidents in federal prison, such as Debs, and conscientious objectors, had their sentences commuted to time served or were pardoned on 25 December 1921. TheSedition Act was repealed in 1921, but theEspionage Act remains in force.
In many European colonies in Africa, the recruitment of the indigenous population to serve in the army or as porters met widespread opposition and resistance. In BritishNyasaland (modern-dayMalawi), the recruitment of Nyasa to serve in theEast Africa Campaign contributed to theChilembwe uprising in 1915.
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