Agent of Peace

by Jennifer Hobhouse Balme

  17. Bloemfontein Archives, Isabella Steyn Collection

  18. EH to J.C. Smuts, 29 October 14

  19. JHB collection

  20. Meintjes p. 249

  21. Jus Suffragii, 1 January 1915, p. 228

  22. JHB collection

  23. Ibid.

  3

  1915

  A fter Basil Thomson, the Scotland Yard Intelligence Chief, had investigated pacifist organisations in 1917, he felt that the Cabinet would be interested to know that the Fellowship of Reconciliation* had, among other things, suggested that: ‘Miss Emily Hobhouse should carry literature to Italy.’1 By then, Emily had become well known to Scotland Yard and carrying literature was probably against regulations.

  In any case, in March Emily decided to make her annual journey to her winter home in Rome. Whether she carried leaflets or not, she must have welcomed the opportunity to be active. She worked for pacifism in Italy, helped no doubt by influential friends.

  Before leaving she wrote to her friend Jan Smuts:

  8th March 1915 Asquith calls us ‘Sparrows twittering’; let him mock … Our work is intense; we rest not day or night. I hope in Switzerland and Italy to consolidate the women there … America has started a huge ‘Women’s Peace Party’ and with Jane Addams* as President is helping and will probably lead us …

  We believe not in narrow nationalism, but in inter-nationalism, the brotherhood of man, and we recognise no enemies; all humanity are our friends and our interests everywhere are one and the same …

  [Talking of moral rights, she said] England’s greatest opportunity came to her last August … She let it go by, and has for ever lost it. Those great moments come seldom, they can never be recalled … So I mourn …

  [She thanked Smuts for telling her about de Wet] … that you have decided to spare his life. I rejoice not merely for him, but because it would have made matters worse and worse and your own life not safe for a moment …2

  Before leaving London, Emily had attended a large women’s meeting in the Caxton Hall where it was agreed to send delegates to an International Congress of Women in The Hague, Netherlands in April. (The idea for this Congress of Women came about through the international suffrage movement, a meeting of which had been scheduled for Berlin in 1915. The Hague venue was the idea of Dr Aletta Jacobs, President of the Dutch National Society for Women Suffrage and Committee for International Affairs.**)3

  On 9 April 1915 Emily wrote from Rome to Jane Addams in America.4 Jane had agreed to chair The Hague Congress and she invited Emily as a delegate:

  My dear Miss Addams,

  Your letter of March 25th has just reached me. I feel honoured and deeply touched at your desire and that of the American delegates that I should be present at The Hague. You are right in supposing that I have from the first been associated with the movement. Since October I have worked at nothing else – for from the outbreak of war I have had it strongly in mind that Women must speak out and pave the way to stop this horrifying war by creating an atmosphere of Peacefulness and international Sisterhood.

  My whole heart and spirit are with you all at The Hague – Not to be there in body is a sore trial, but I am an invalid and in the cold north very incapacitated. Here in the warmth I can do a little, and am working amongst Italian women urging them to send written adherence (to the ideals of the Congress) even if a delegation is impossible. They are in an awkward position since their Govt is so undecided and, though personally I think it very unlikely, they fear War might be declared and they would be unable to travel back thro’ Germany. If I could have got a permit to reach The Hague thro’ Germany I would even now try to throw prudence to the winds and do so, but I fear there is not a ghost of a chance of such a favour – even if I knew how to apply. Passports, expense, lack of health all mitigate against me.

  I look forward to a powerful and moving utterance from the women assembled – and I cannot believe other than that their courage, determination, and lofty spirit will be rewarded by some very real, if unrecognized, influence upon the govts of their countries.

  May I put before you another point? I have been for years a student of the effect of war upon non-Combatants and have been collecting and want to collect a mass of evidence to shew [sic] that their Sufferings are far worse than that endured by soldiers.

  I am trying to get permission to study this on the spot for in the warm weather I can do a little even in the north. But Americans could move freely. Could any of your delegation get to East Prussia and Poland and see for themselves – A high authority here tells me 2600 little children have died of starvation in one district only of Galicia – the total must be stupendous.

  A thought has occurred to me since beginning this letter – viz that possibly the USA Ambassador here in Rome might – if I show him your letter – use his influence to get me a pass for The Hague. I will think of it.

  Meanwhile pray believe that I watch every phase of the Women’s Movement with deepest interest – but I am cut off from news by the Censorship unless it is sent me direct from Holland …

  And on 21 April 1915 she wrote that she had done all she could by trying both the American Ambassador and the German Embassy to see if she could receive a permit to go to The Hague overland but had failed.5

  The Women’s Congress

  The Congress was held in The Hague from 28 April to 1 May 1915. Twelve countries were represented. Only three women were able to get there from Britain. 180 women had applied for passports; most were turned down and the Admiralty refused passage to the rest. No French women were allowed to attend. (The final tally of representatives showed Austria 6, Belgium 5, Canada 2, Denmark 6, Germany 28, Great Britain 3, Hungary 10, Italy 1, Netherlands 1,000, Norway 12, Sweden 16, USA 47.)

  The Resolutions included: ‘a general protest against the madness and horror of war, and that peace negotiations should begin’.

  In defining the principles for permanent peace, delegates had stated that women should share all civil and political rights and responsibilities on the same terms as men; that there should be open diplomacy and democratic control over foreign policy; that there should be no transfer of territory without the consent of the inhabitants; and that there should be self-determination by all peoples. They stated they believed in disarmament, freedom of the seas, free trade; that the investments of capitalists of one nation in the resources of another should be wholly at the risk of the investor, and they urged that all nations refer future international disputes to arbitration and conciliation. These were all objectives on which Emily would have agreed.

  The Congress created an organisation for the future calling itself the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace, which was later changed to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Its headquarters was in Amsterdam and it had an executive committee consisting of a maximum of five women from each participating nation. Jane Addams was elected chair, Dr Aletta Jacobs and Rosika Schwimmer vice chairs and Chrystal Macmillan* secretary.

  On the final day Rosika Schwimmer had moved that delegates appointed by the Congress should personally present the women’s resolutions to the premiers and foreign ministers in the major European belligerent and neutral capitals and also to the President of the United States.6 This was undertaken and when Jane Addams and Aletta Jacobs were in Rome they would have met with Emily and asked her to come to Amsterdam in the summer to help with the work.

  Meanwhile, Emily’s pacifist efforts had not gone unnoticed for Sir Rennell Rodd, the British Ambassador in Rome, wrote to the British Foreign Office on 18 June 1915 to complain. In a handwritten letter he said: ‘It would much better for these people to stay at home’ and added: ‘It is Miss Emily Hobhouse I mean.’7

  While the British Foreign Office was thinking about Emily, she had moved up to Milan where she said she had ‘some long talks with their delegate, Rosa Genoni – who is gathering a band of peace workers “silently”’.

  Italy entered the war on the Allied si
de on 15 May 1915.

  Switzerland

  On 5 July 1915 Emily wrote to Jane Addams from Berne:8

  I halted here in Switzerland, whence I write, to rest on my way from Rome to join Dr. Jacobs [in Amsterdam] and have had the opportunity at Berne of talking with Germans, notably Baron Von Romberg the Minister at the German Legation. It was a great relief talking things out with him – and I wanted to tell you of it, because again from him I learnt that what has gone deepest into the German heart is our Food Blockade.**

  He reiterated that Germany would only too gladly withdraw her submarine warfare on mercantiles if we would withdraw our Food Blockade. He told me they hated it [their submarine warfare] but could find absolutely no other way of replying to it. My idea [is] that England – as a step back towards the Civilization she upholds by word – should announce her decision to withdraw the blockade, wh would ‘draw out the sting’ as nothing else would do and pave the way for better things. I told him how jealous I was that my own country should be the foremost in such a deed – but if she would not, even if pressed by President Wilson, then would not Germany take the moral lead. He replied that he thought Germany had already done so by telling America publicly that she was willing and ready to do so the day England withdrew her blockade. That of course is true, but is a dependant promise and not an act standing alone.

  Do use your eloquence in putting before yr President this thought – that he should bring pressure on England to withdraw her blockade as an act of Return to Civilization …

  [On small countries suffering through being forbidden to trade with Germany] … Is this fighting for the freedom of little nationalities? …

  [About her own movements, Emily said she felt the journey round by London to Holland so difficult that under advice she applied to Romberg for a permit to pass overland] … He was so kind and thought it possible that I was persuaded into delivering my precious passports into his hand to go to Berlin for inspection and they have not come back yet, nor any response – so I am a prisoner here till they come …

  [She was short of money and felt she was disappointing Dr. Jacobs] … Still I have used the time here by seeing many people – and getting in touch with the various Peace parties … However most of the Peace Societies don’t want peace – they want Victory. On the whole I find a marked improvement of feeling since I was here in March, a shaking of the dry bones which gives one some hope …

  Holland

  As soon as possible Emily was off to Holland. She was unable to go through Germany but went through London without too much difficulty.

  The British Foreign Office was anxious to stop her but was far too slow. It was not until 2 August they wrote to their various embassies and legations in France, Italy and Switzerland to ask them to apprehend her and send her straight back to England. It was Sir Rennell Rodd (from Rome) who told them he believed Emily was in Holland – ‘but her maid is still here so perhaps that means she will return’.10

  The clash of ideologies was inevitable. Britain was in the midst of a terrible war against a formidable enemy. Emily believed in peace, that all humanity was basically alike and she recognised no boundaries. Consequently she did not see anything wrong in talking to the German Ambassador nor in making attempts to resolve the issue.

  On 26 July 1915 Emily wrote to Ambassador Romberg from Amsterdam thanking him for sending the reports, which she had given to Lord Bryce. She said: ‘We are hard at work here – at the all-absorbing cause and we should feel rewarded if we could shorten the massacre by one day or one hour.’11

  Again we pass to the introduction of Emily’s Journal:12

  In this war I have lived amongst the peoples of England, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Belgium and France so I have had unusual means of observation. In each country the peoples are suffering and not one of them knew any ill of the people they are sent to fight against, hatred where it exists has been carefully planted and continually nourished by lies – left alone the peoples are not bellicose, understand the human feelings of other nations and if brought together make friends like soldiers in the trenches. That they should be made to go and hate, maim, and kill each other is more than pathetic; it is wicked.

  Feeling this way strongly I wanted from the first to find means to tell the peoples (Germans, Austrians and Turks etc.) that amongst us there were many who did not hate them but held the principle of internationalism politically, and brotherly love religiously. I wanted, as far as one individual may, to begin laying the foundations of international life, even while the war was in progress – to say ‘Here I come alone of my own free will into your country to bear you, even while our Governments are at war, a message of peace and Goodwill. Though alas! I am not a harbinger of Peace itself yet hope I am a harbinger of the Spirit of Peace. The first year, through ill-health, all I could do was to write a Xmas Letter of Goodwill to our Sisters in Enemy Countries and this was signed by a number of prominent women. It did not satisfy me, nor did the appeal I wrote to the ‘Friends of Humanity’ in America – more and more I felt that I must in my own person go to Germany.

  In the Spring of 1915 when in Rome I obtained an interview with Prince von Schomberg, Austrian Ambassador to the Vatican, in order to tell him my views and desire to go to Galicia to investigate the sufferings of the population there and take them relief. He was sympathetic and promised to put my request before Vienna. He did so and all was going well when war broke out between Italy and Austria breaking the correspondence, necessitating his departure from Rome, and destroying my plan.

  It was as well, for still I was not really strong enough. That summer I worked over three months in Amsterdam at the Women’s International Bureau and this brought me into touch with many international women of broad minds and sympathies.

  When passing thru’ Switzerland I had spent a week in Berne and made the acquaintance of Baron von Romberg the German Minister there. He had given me a set of the German White books to send to Lord Bryce giving the other side of the ‘Atrocity Stories’ so widely read in his Report. He was extremely grateful to me for sending them because Lord Bryce’s report had been extremely – indeed wholly one-sided though issued by a Commission of ‘Investigation’ – so-called. I may say here that Lord Bryce in writing to me admitted that he was unaware that the Germans had issued any Reports and yet they were easy to procure in any neutral nation! It was a deep regret and shame to me that Lord Bryce even after reading them all and circulating them amongst his Commission took no public steps to make known under his name and influence that there was at least another side to these stories.

  Shortly after Emily reached Amsterdam, Dr Jacobs left for America; Rosika Schwimmer and Chrystal Macmillan both decided to follow her. This left Emily to manage the office the best she could. She had to pull together the Report of the Congress for publication. She wrote the foreword for it, in which she described the beginning of the movement:13

  Foreword to Women’s Congress Report

  However silent and unseen, a movement must be wide and deep before it can find expression … From the very moment of the declaration of War … the germ of the idea, nameless and unformed, that the women of the world must come to the world’s aid, was silently and spontaneously conceived … In several countries, even belligerent – the work of peace and international fraternity received extraordinary impetus from the early days of the war.

  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: