To end all wars

I was expecting a straightforward history of World War I. What I got was a powerful, extremely moving account of the war that paid special attention to the anti-war movement. Do not read this book unless you want to get angry - angry at warmongers, angry at heartless leaders, angry at propagandists, angry at a world gone mad. I seldom cry when I read a book. I may get angry or annoyed or even laugh, but I can't remember the last time I cried when I read a book. By the time I got to the end of "To End All Wars," I was crying.

Most books on World War I either chronicle the battles, or detail the lives of famous soldiers like Robert Graves or Siegfried Sassoon. This is the first book I have come across that tells you about the people who were anti-war - Sylvia Pankhurst, suffragette and anti-war activist; Keir Hardie, a Labour politician; Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and later winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature; John S Clarke, lion tamer, politician, poet, and newspaper editor; Stephen Hobhouse, prison reformer and religious writer, and his cousin, Emily Hobhouse, welfare activist and humanitarian; Charlotte Despard, suffragette and humanitarian; and the Wheeldon family - Alice and her children Hettie, Winnie, and Willie, all of whom would pay a price for their opposition to the war.

While the UK was fighting a war with Germany, it was also fighting a war against its own citizens. A perfect example of this is the treatment of the Wheeldon family. Alex Gordon (real name: William Rickard) arrived at the Wheeldon home, claiming to be a conscientious objector (CO) on the run. Alice confided in him her worries about her son Willie, who had gone into hiding to avoid being drafted. Gordon introduced her to "Comrade Bert," another supposed draft evader. In reality, he was Gordon's boss, Herbert Wood. The two men sprang a trap on the naive Wheeldons, who were then subjected to a show trial. Their crime? Supposedly plotting the murders of Prime Minister David Lloyd George and a member of the War Cabinet. The Attorney General, F E Smith, personally conducted the prosecution. Gordon was not called as a witness so he could not be cross-examined. In the end, Alice, Winnie, and Winnie's husband Alfred Mason were convicted. Alfred was sentenced to seven years in prison and Winnie to five. Alice was sentenced to 10 years. Hettie was acquitted.

In the end, Alice only served a few months in prison. Lloyd George had her released after a few months, probably because he did not want her to become a martyr. However, her health was permanently damaged and she died in the influence pandemic less than two years later. Hettie married, had a baby that did not survive, and died of a burst appendix in 1920. Winnie and Alfred emigrated to Australia. Willie emigrated to the fledgling Soviet Union, where he married and became a citizen. During Stalin's purges, Willie was arrested, sentenced to death, and shot on Christmas Day 1937.

There are serious doubts about the Wheeldons' case, but I won't go into them here. Unfortunately, what happened to them was typical of the fate of anti-war activists and draft dodgers in the UK during World War I. Stephen Hobhouse and Bertrand Russell were also jailed for their views. Sylvia Pankhurst was disowned by her fanatical pro-war mother and sister, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, who had started out as anti-war. John Clarke had to go on the run to avoid arrest. When Alice Wheeldon died, she was not given a gravestone - her family and friends were afraid that it would be defaced.

Mr Hochschild also tells about those who were pro-war. I was disgusted to find two of my (now ex-) favorite writers among them - John Buchan and Rudyard Kipling, who wrote propaganda for the war. I was surprised by how racist and sexist Kipling was. He even donated to a fund for a British general who ordered his men to massacre non-violent Indian protestors at Amritsar. He encouraged his only son John to enlist. Due to poor eyesight, John was repeatedly turned down, but was finally able to enlist in the Irish Guards. He was killed in the Battle of Loos in 1915. He was 18 years old. Later Rudyard Kipling wrote,

"If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied."

Supposedly, John's body was found in 1992. However, many historians argue that the identification is incorrect, and that John Kipling is still among the more than 400,000 British Empire dead from World War I whose resting place is unknown.

Charlotte Despard and her brother, John French, were opposite sides of the conflict. While she fought for peace, he was Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force for the first two years of the war. Though they were close for most of their lives, they became estranged. Even when he was dying of cancer, he refused to communicate with her.

I could go on, but I think I have made my point. "To End All Wars" concentrates primarily on the UK. However, there was similar treatment of anti-war activists and draft dodgers in other countries, including the US. If you spoke against the war or resisted the draft, you were jailed, often in appalling conditions. You were shunned by relatives and former friends. Winnie and Alfred Mason and Willie Wheeldon actually emigrated to escaped what had become an unbearable situation.

To quote the last chapter, "An Imaginary Cemetery":

“I knew that it was my business to protest, however futile protest might be,” wrote Russell decades later. “I felt that for the honour of human nature those who were not swept off their feet should show that they stood firm.” And stand firm and honor the best of human nature they did. Their battle could not be won in 1914– 1918, but it remained, and still remains, to be fought again— and again. For even a century’s worth of bloodshed after the war that was supposed to end all wars, we are painfully far from the day when most people on earth will have the wisdom to feel, as did Alice Wheeldon in her prison cell, “The world is my country.”

Highly recommended. I wish I could give it more than five stars.