Agent of Peace (5 page)

The work was carried out in public and in private by individuals and groups, rarely by existing societies, but by new movements large and small, which arose simultaneously in many countries. The Union of Democratic Control
*
in London led the way, shortly followed by the Anti-Oorlog Rand in Holland, the Fellowship of Reconciliation in England, and the great Women’s Peace Party in America; Germans formed the Bund Neues Vaterland; a great movement of peace swept through the women of Sweden; and later the Union Mondiale de la Femme arose in Switzerland. Many other organisations, some composed of men and women, some of women only, were formed throughout the world …

Isolated individual women in various countries strove for clearer expression, and aided by Jus Suffragii, the Labour Leader, Vorwaerts, and a few kindred publications, found means to communicate with women in hostile lands. In the first month of the war Rosika Schwimmer outlined a scheme for a conference of neutrals for mediation, and went to the United States to enlist help and sympathy…. A number of prominent women signed my Letter of Christmas greeting to the Women of Germany and Austria and cordial and touching replies were received from both countries, amongst these was the Call to the Women of Europe by Lida Gustava Heymann of Germany. Socialist women meeting in Berne had issued a Peace Manifesto, widely published.

Emily continued in saying that the International Suffrage Alliance had been training women for years to work with each other. She praised Aletta Jacobs for concentrating and shaping the ‘ardent yearning’ of women of all lands for peace and justice. She talked of her wisdom and faith in sending out the ‘call’: ‘Thus the Women’s Congress unfurled the white flag of Peace and – despite ridicule, disdain, opposition, and disbelief – held it aloft before a blood-stained world.’ She pointed out that: ‘Peace is the eternal, the fundamental, the desirable. Hers is the vital principle of Love and before her outraged wrath war and its hatred must ultimately cower. Women, chief sufferers from war’s curse, must vow that it shall never again usurp control.’
14

Emily wrote Leonard a long letter on 31 August for his birthday and wondered whether he and his family would have a picnic with blackberry pasties and [clotted] cream where they were in Cornwall. Her body longed to be with them at Bude in Cornwall.
15

She told him the Dutch ladies were all very kind to her and though she had to work in the office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., they made her very comfortable:

As our Envoys are now all in America the whole responsibility is upon me here at present. The work is of exceeding interest and value and one day I think the World will own the fact … Now what we women want is peace not victory –
toute autre chose
. We want to get rid of the exploded idea of peace viz. that the Victor should dictate terms to the Vanquished. As all have some right and some wrong it is obvious that – to meet and settle it amicably is the wise and sensible plan and that it is worse than foolish to shed another drop of blood over it …

She noted that
The Spectator
had said Leonard had changed sides politically. She said she had bet him – a box of dates – years ago that he would change his stripes and now kidded that she wanted her due! But Leonard answered her by saying:

I have not changed my principles or my party … I changed my view of the character of the German Govt and its ambitions, being impelled to this change by careful observation of the facts. We get plenty of the German side of the case (at the Manchester Guardian). I should not agree with you that is a ‘dispute’ where both sides have some right and some wrong. It is in our view a deliberate attack on the nations of Europe wh we have to ward off as well as we can …
16

Leonard’s book
The World in Conflict
was now out. Emily said: ‘I do not know what the lines of your book may be, but roughly the above would be my argument if I were to venture to write.’

Emily was working hard trying to get funds for the overhead expenses of the International Committee. She mentioned this in a letter to Romberg in Berne, 1 September 1915, thanking him for a note of encouragement.
17
She attached their press release with a proposal for a Conference of Neutral Nations which should, without delay, offer continuous mediation: ‘The work of the Conference should be to formulate concrete proposals of possible terms for peace as a basis for suggestions and objections on the part of the belligerent Governments and for public discussion.’ They would continue until the belligerent themselves found sufficient common ground to meet for the final settlement of the peace treaty. It is not clear that Emily drafted the press release but it seems likely. On the notepaper Emily was listed as ‘Acting Secretary pro tem’.

On 4 October 1915 Emily wrote to Jane Addams saying they were sending by hand some copies of the Report, an early edition, without the French and German sections which were not ready. Emily said she felt they should have a German woman and a French woman either in the office or closely connected with it to deal properly and internationally with their points of view and with those languages. They had had the first news from Aletta Jacobs and were very sorry to hear that Jane was ill.
18

Meanwhile on their American trip Rosika Schwimmer had an amazing idea. Through Louis Lochner, a peace activist from Chicago who had acted as Jane Addams’ secretary at The Hague, she was in touch with Henry Ford, the beloved car manufacturer. Out of this, and subsequent meetings, Henry Ford agreed to finance a ship, which would sail to Europe on a peace mission.
19

Ford decided to sail in December on his
Peace Ship
for Scandinavia. Rosika Schwimmer and other activists would be on board. Only illness prevented Jane Addams from coming to Europe in the same way.
20

*
      Thomson said the society was started by the Quakers as a religious movement to ‘establish a world order based on love’ which forbade the waging of war and called for a life service. It exists today in Britain and the United States and was, for some time, active in Germany.

*
      A long-time and highly respected social worker and peace activist in the United States, who became a member of the Quakers.

**
    Individual women or women from mixed societies could attend by expressing support for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes and extension of suffrage to women.

*
      Chrystal Macmillan was one of the earliest women graduates from Edinburgh University, with second-class honours in moral philosophy and logic, and first-class honours in mathematics and natural philosophy. She was devoted to the cause of peace and justice for women of all classes and, when enabled in the 1920s, became a barrister to pursue these aims in the courts.

**
    In his book
All the Way
Lord Robert Cecil, Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, the minister in charge of the blockade, explained that in olden times towns were blockaded in order to prevent commerce with other places. He said: ‘This was not possible in this instance but Britain could and did interfere with Germany’s overseas trade so that supplies could not get there through neutral countries.’
9

*
      The Union of Democratic Control was formed by those who dissented from British government policy, especially MPs, 5 August 1914. Members were ardent proponents of a negotiated peace.

1
.    TNA CAB24/34
Pacifism

2
.    In
Selections from the Smuts Papers
vol. III, EH/JCS, vol. 13 p. 56

3
.    International Congress of Women Report

4
.    Correspondence with Jane Addams, Swarthmore College

5
.    Ibid.

6
.    International Congress of Women Report

7
.    TNA FO 371/2567 no. 82596

8
.    Correspondence, Swarthmore College

9
.    Cecil,
All the Way
p. 130

10
.  TNA FO371/2567 no. 1243191

11
.  German records

12
.  EH Journal vol. 1 pp. 3–8

13
.  International Congress of Women Report

14
.  Ibid.

15
.  JHB collection

16
.  Ibid.

17
.  German records

18
.  Jane Addams papers, Swarthmore College

19
.  Patterson, p. 156

20
.  Ibid. p. 165; Alice Hamilton to EH, 4 December 1915, JHB collection

E
mily said it was for personal financial reasons she had to leave Holland on 24 October 1915. Aletta Jacobs had returned from America only the day before, so they just met. The British Foreign Office, which had found out when she was due, asked for a representative from Scotland Yard to meet and interview her at Tilbury Docks. Emily said she laughed off the ‘strip search’ that she had to undergo but it must have been unnerving.
1
Scotland Yard soon lost interest in her.

Emily spent six days in London, during which time she met old friends and saw some members of the [British] Committee for Permanent Peace. These members were not pleased she had been in the office in Amsterdam.

Emily told Jane Addams on 4 November 1915 that she knew they disliked her:

 … my public self, my private self is unknown to them and objected to my name being at all prominent in this work, but I was hardly prepared for such an attitude as that wh I have encountered. All this does not matter to me privately, but my public self is affronted and I think rightly since my public actions, if they have meant anything, have meant a stand for the very principles embodied in many of our Resolutions. No other woman in England has so stood for those principles publicly and for that reason alone it has seemed to me that an association formed to propagate them should support and welcome me and not oppose my work.

But the Committee here has fallen into the hands of a clique – who were reared under the re-actionary influence of Mrs Fawcett and timidity and expediency prevail … It has been a real revelation of narrowness. I have asked them to strike my name off the list of their association – but I want you to know and to let Dr. Jacobs know that this step does not mean that I withdraw from the work. I am at your disposal and hers, as far as my limitations of bodily strength and means permit – and there is no cause to which I am more willing to devote my life. I am thankful that I am so much stronger than I have been … I realise that with this strong current against me, there may be no place that I can fill, but I can work a good deal outside …

[She was glad to be alone by the sea in a quiet spot – probably Bude, Cornwall – saying her life had been spent so much alone that long stretches of solitude had become] a necessity in which to gather strength …

[She wanted to get rid of her house in Cornwall and also her flat in Rome] One longs to possess
nothing
and so to be free for the service of humanity. Yet a woman so needs a home … One is dragged two ways …

[As a postscript] It is a real regret to me that they have elected such an unrepresentative five [The five women for the Permanent Peace Executive]. One is to be Irish, that is good, and Margaret Bondfield is splendid – but instead of three of one type all representing the NUWSS [National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies] we needed a strong brain like Vernon Lee [author, internationalist and musician] – and certainly a member of the Society of Friends – a woman of the standing of Margery Fry with broad cultivated mind and then one NUWSS would have completed it.
2

Aletta Jacobs told Jane Addams on 4 December that the British Committee did not approve of Emily being in the office and treated her in such a way that she had withdrawn as a member of the British Committee and had asked to be an international member – as had some other British women, but it would have to be discussed.
3
It was suggested, not by Aletta Jacobs, that the delay in getting their overseas mail was due to Emily being in the office. This seems unlikely.

Emily was anxious to get back to Rome. It was Sir John Simon, the Home Office chief
*
, who asked the Permit Office to provide her with the necessary permit. He told Lord Robert Cecil on 28 October 1915 that he had decided not to detain her in Britain as he had no details of her conduct in Italy ‘that would warrant such a measure. If the Italian authorities found her “presence obnoxious” it was up to them to forbid her return.’ To which Cecil replied 8 November: ‘The possibility of a woman known to have indulged in absurd and undesirable conduct in the past repeating this behaviour to the prejudice of British interests in Italy (or any other foreign country really) at a time when our relations with Italy are a matter of concern.’
4
However, the Foreign Office, who had time on their side, took no action.

On 10 December 1915 Jan Smuts wrote to Emily:

I suppose this is the saddest Christmas that Europe has seen since the Black Death devastated Europe in the Middle Ages. What is going to become of us and our civilisation. I see no sign of decided victory on either side and it is apparently going to be a process of attrition which will leave Europe broken and finished at the end … We are letting out most of the rebel prisoners and de Wet will also get the option to go, but I don’t think he will until every one is let go, which of course we cannot yet do …

[The rains were good and everything looked like a garden. The Imperial Government had offered him the command in German East Africa but he had declined, feeling the Union wasn’t quite safe at the moment] Goodbye my dear Auntie … Let me sometimes hear from you please.
5

Emily had arrived in Switzerland, via France, in the first week of December.

A somewhat sorrowful Emily wrote to Aletta Jacobs from Berne, 7 December 1915:

Dear Friend,