From the archive: The fortunes of war
Janet Scott continues her series on the Friend and the first world war and writes about developments as Christmas 1917 drew near
In November 1917 the Friends’ Ambulance Unit (FAU) celebrated its third anniversary at Dunkirk. The First British Ambulance Unit for Italy, meanwhile, having completed its second year of service in August, was caught up in the Italian offensive. Two members of the Unit, Geoffrey Young and William Sessions, were wounded and both suffered leg amputations.
In its 9 November edition, the Friend reported that the work of the FAU was being carried on under exceptional difficulty because of frequent bombardments. The Unit warmly appreciated the sympathy and understanding of Friends. In the same edition, following grave events on the Italian front, the Friend gave details of news that would have been received with much relief:
All members First British Ambulance for Italy safe. Unit retiring to Mantua to reform. Have saved sixteen ambulance cars. Most of equipment and personal kit lost.
In Eastern Europe there were significant changes that were to affect the course of the war and events long after it. The Friend on 28 December reported that in Russia:
…the influence of the returned pacifist exile Lenin was growing, and he became leader of the Bolshevik group, which by a coup d’état early in November secured the reins of power. From that time effort has been concentrated by the Revolutionary Government on negotiations towards peace, without success as far as concerns the Allies… but with practical response from the Central Powers.
These developments were followed by an armistice and negotiations for peace. In the Middle East the Allied forces advanced into Palestine. The Friend, also on 28 December, quoted details of the Balfour Declaration. Writing to the influential Jewish peer Walter Rothschild, on 2 November, Arthur Balfour, the foreign secretary, said:
I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf His Majesty’s Government the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, which have been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet: ‘His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing will be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.’
Martial law
On 7 November Gaza was taken by British forces under the command of general Edmund Allenby. On 9 November, as a mark of respect, he made an official entry into Jerusalem on foot. The Friend on 28 December said that his proclamation of martial law:
…was marked by that liberal spirit of tolerance (observed also on the taking of Baghdad) which we are glad to associate with the thought of the best British institutions.
Edmund Allenby was quoted, in the Friend, as saying:
‘It is my desire that every person should pursue his lawful business without fear of interruption. Furthermore, since your city is regarded with affection by the adherents of three of the great religions of mankind, and its soil has been consecrated by the prayers and pilgrimages of multitudes of devout people of these three religions …therefore do I make known to you that every sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest, or customary place of prayer, of whatsoever form of the three religions, will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faiths they are sacred.’
The report in the Friend continued:
Remembering the blight which Turkish rule has cast over the lands where it has dominated, we cannot do other than rejoice in the prospect of a more healthy system of government, though we hope, in the day of settlement, such arrangements will be made as will prevent any future rankling sense of wrong in the minds of the superseded.
Prisons and prisoners
On 9 November the Friend reported on a conference on attitudes to criminals and on the opening address by A Barratt Brown, where he spoke on what he had learned:
His whole thinking had been revolutionised on the question of the treatment of criminals, and that we were learning that our Peace testimony led us much further than we expected. It was the duty of the Society of Friends to uphold and declare the underlying principles rather than develop the actual details of prison reform. He thought that our ideas of crime were based on class distinctions, and we designated as crime those sins to which we of the middle-class were least prone. Some of the greatest offenders against society were much more likely to get into the House of Lords than prison…
When in Pentonville last year, it was suddenly and clearly brought home to him that if people had not believed in crucifying thieves, Christ would never have been crucified. If it were not our way to imprison ‘common felons’, we should never have imprisoned COs [conscientious objectors]. We need to reverse all our thinking; we need to care most for the bottom dog, the rotter. The tragedy of the penal system is not its effect on the COs but on those who most need our care. Punishment has the worst effect on those who are usually regarded as deserving of it. We all seem to be converging towards a realisation that all men, though not equal, are equally worth while.
A Barratt Brown also commented on prison warders. Their economic position was poor. They were enslaved and spied on. He said they were, in fact, perpetual prisoners.
The Emergency Committee for Helping Aliens was concerned with the wellbeing of those imprisoned in internment camps. On 16 November the Friend described how the Isle of Man, formerly associated chiefly with holidays and jollity, had become:
…for many thousands, a name that will ever be burdened with memories of dark days and heavy troubles. The native population has had its sorrows of the war, daily increasing, and in addition hard times through loss of business. And a new population, half as large as the old, has arrived, all men, cut off from their homes and their occupations, and flung together, behind barbed wire and bayonets, forgotten victims of the unreason of war.
Even the members of our staff in the island, who are privileged to lend a hand to some among this vast and miscellaneous crowd, feel often the loneliness of the distant place and the heavy sense of oppression that falls so much more weightily upon those who now begin their fourth long winter of internment.
Aliens’ wives and families
As Christmas approached the Emergency Committee considered what it could best do for those imprisoned by hostility and poverty. The Friend’s 5 October edition said:
As we find that Friends are already beginning to think of helping us to make this fourth Christmas a little less sad for our poor people, we want to let them know in good time that we have given careful thought to the subject, so as to try to discover the best way to do so this year… considering their great difficulty in getting sufficient food for the families, it will be best to make definite extra money grants for food in good time before Christmas, so that the mothers may have the interest and pleasure of laying them out themselves. We therefore propose to concentrate on this, and not ourselves to arrange for any Christmas parties, or to dispense toys and other gifts.
We do not wish, however, to discourage others from arranging hospitality, knowing how much this remembrance has meant to our people in past years. It is only because we feel bound to concentrate on the necessaries of life that we have come to this decision. Our funds are now so low as to cause us anxiety, and even the extra gifts proposed for food can only be carried out if Friends will come once more to our help.
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