Detail from book cover of Censorship Overruled: An alternative history of 1918, by John Ellison
Censorship Overruled: An alternative history of 1918, by John Ellison
Author: John Ellison. Review by Christine Hayes
John Ellison’s short book opens at the beginning of 1918, when there was much discontent over food shortages and prices in Britain. There were many calls for peace, stimulated by Russia’s socialist revolution in 1917. It concentrates on the following eleven months, January to November, with Britain centre-stage.
The author outlines two purposes in writing his book. The first is to give the reader a fuller picture of Britain at that time. Secondly, Ellison writes to acknowledge and highlight the extraordinary contribution and experience of the determined anti-war minority. In examining this, he ‘overrules’ the ‘ubiquitous censorship’ of the period. He attempts to stand alongside those who suffered from the war, and from opposition to it.
In his introduction, he outlines the world events leading up to the war, such as the ‘Triple Entente’ between Britain, France and Russia, facing Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary. All these countries, save Russia, were colonising Africa. Then, in June 1914, expansionist-minded Serbian nationalists assassinated the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. Things spiralled as other countries sought formed alliances.
Ellison shows how influential newspapers were, owned by powerful financiers who favoured empire and promoted the war. This was an important if informal part of the censorship apparatus. When the US entered the war in 1917, it criminalised anti-war publicity. Meanwhile, Sylvia Pankhurst, Keir Hardie and others were pleading for resistance to the war – there were major rallies against it. Late in 1918, David Lloyd George (whose life obsession had been to be with the political elite) began exploring the possibility of negotiating peace terms. Separately, Labour leaders were also questioning of the war’s continuance. Meanwhile, longstanding opponents continued to agitate.
Few histories of world war one have given such prominence to the actions and arguments of its opponents. Ellison draws attention to the inspiring example of those driven by socialist, ethical and religious beliefs, including one determined member of the Society of Friends, Violet Tillard, who was at the heart of the No Conscription Fellowship. ‘Tilly’ was imprisoned for refusing to give information about the Fellowship’s printer to a police inspector. Ellison looks at these Defence of the Realm Act prosecutions, and police removing printing machinery. He finds bogus accusations of ‘enemies within’ and conspiracy fantasies.
He also covers the other forms of suppression, from formal press censorship to mail censorship, to self-censorship by war correspondents and newspaper editors. Had the Manchester Guardian not self-censored, the words spoken by Lloyd George to its owner editor would have blown away his government’s credibility. Lloyd George conceded that the censors ‘would not pass the truth’. ‘If the people really knew [the truth]’, he said, ‘the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know and can’t know.’
