The problem of war aims and the Treaty of Versailles

John Callaghan walks the reader through the various debates and contradictions seen in the Labour movement prior to the end of hostilities, as well as the dilemmas soon posed by the march of events thereafter. Along the way, he discusses Labour’s reactions to the diplomatic path pursued by Edward Grey in the summer of 1914, the subsequent impact of the Union of Democratic Control, and then Labour’s relationship with the Lloyd George government and Wilsonianism abroad. Callaghan also includes vital discussion of the continuation of hostilities beyond 11 November 1918. Here his article may be of particular use to those considering Labour’s later attitudes to colonialism and the League of Nations too.

Living through war, waging peace: comparing Mary Macarthur and Sylvia Pankhurst

Deborah Thom compares two central figures who were organisers of women during the war: Mary Macarthur and Sylvia Pankhurst. The contrast between them shows some of the problems of historical naturalism assuming that either socialist or feminist is a unitary category. Three main contrasts emerge by comparing their wartime agitation – the question of the state, the role of independent women’s organisation and the idea of what is the legitimate sphere of political action for labouring women.

Irish Labour and the ‘Co-operative Commonwealth’ in the era of the First World War

Mulholland walks us through the divergent beliefs and tactics of collectivised unskilled urbanised labour in Ireland, and the craft based cooperative tradition. His analysis then turns to the question of a ‘Cooperate Commonwealth’, its potential organisation, and the role of labour during the struggle for independence. Throughout we see the distinctly Irish dimension to the debate over collectivism versus the cooperative.

A stronghold of liberalism? The north-east Lancashire cotton weaving districts and the First World War

Jack Southern’s chapter explores the impact of the outbreak of war on the weaving districts of north-east Lancashire, with particular reference to Burnley, the ‘world’s weaving centre’, where 40% of male labour and 76% of female labour worked in the cotton industry.

Labour and socialism during the First World War in Bristol and Northampton

In his chapter on the broad labour movements in Bristol and Northampton, Matthew Kidd invites us to re-think our assumptions about the First World War changing everything concerning British capitalism. Piloting wider discussions surrounding the concordats between labour and capital, and indeed between men and women, through the prism of these two local case studies, Kidd provides a valuable discussion of British political culture during the conflict. Refining the work of Patrick Joyce amongst others, Kidd explores questions of class and the degree to which the war changed the way workers conceptualised the world around them.

Peace, but not at any price: British socialists’ calls for peace on the eve of the First World War

Moving beyond simplistic assumptions of a pro-cuts to defence spending ILP (and their allies) and a jingoistic, verging on pro-war Labour right, Morris invites us to reconsider how the common goal of peace could be pursued through seemingly divergent means. On the one side stood those who viewed military spending as inevitably leading to war – why improve one’s military, after all, not to use it – but on the other emerged a ‘patriotic Labour’ who urged Britain not to remain defenceless in the face of German aggression

Russia’s war and revolutions as seen by Morgan Philips Price and Arthur Henderson

Davis recounts how 1917 served as a formative moment in the development of two influential left-leaning voices, and by extension, the Labour Party itself. Through analysing the then liberal journalist Morgan Phillips Price – later to join Labour and, from 1929, serve as an MP – and Arthur Henderson, then Labour leader and a member of the Lloyd George Cabinet, we gain a new perspective on Labour’s shifting sands. Charting the shift such men made from being uncomfortable opposing the Liberals to, by 1918, being willing to back Clause IV and all the nationalising elements there within, Davis reconfigures the Russian Revolution as a significant influence in the development of the British Labour Party.

Charlie Chaplin’s war: a British radical in tumultuous times

Carr’s chapter builds on his recent biography of the filmmaker Charlie Chaplin, who rose to become the most famous man in cinema, and one of the famous in the world, all told. British born Chaplin would view the war from the comfortable surroundings of Los Angeles, California, but he would be profoundly shaped by its developments. This essay teases out his reaction to the conflict, and the controversy his reluctance to serve at the front generated. It then moves on to discuss how the conflict affected his own left wing politics, which were always of a radical nature but did not universally subscribe to the increasing consensus that the big state was a force for good.

‘Industrial unionism for women’: Ellen Wilkinson and the unionisation of shop workers, 1915–18

Perry’s chapter focuses on another important woman organiser, Ellen Wilkinson. Best known as a leading figure in the 1936 Jarrow March and as Education Secretary under Attlee’s government, her First World War organising has largely been forgotten. But as national organiser for the Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees, Wilkinson had particular responsibility for recruiting new female entrants into the workforce. She fought for ‘substituted’ female labour (replacement on grounds of equivalent skills and hence justifying equal pay for equal work) as opposed to ‘dilution’ (replacing skilled labour with less skilled, and hence less pay).

‘One of the most revolutionary proposals that has ever been put before the House’: the passage of the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918

Mari Takayanagi’s chapter examines the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act of November 1918 whose significance has been largely overlooked, all attention centring on the Act earlier that year which gave women over thirty (with a small property qualification) the right to vote. Takayanagi convincingly argues that the Act’s radicalism and contribution to gender equality needs greater recognition.