Opposition (politics)>Opposition\| status = \| result = *Various mutinies
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Opposition to World War I was widespread during the conflict and included socialists, anarchists, syndicalists and Marxists as well as Christian pacifists, anti-colonial nationalists, feminists, intellectuals, and the working class.The socialist movements had declared before the war their opposition to a war which they said could only mean workers killing each other in the interests of their bosses. Once the war was declared, most socialist and most of the trade union decided to back the government of their country and support the war. For example, on July 25, 1914 the executive of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) issued an appeal to its membership to demonstrate against the coming war, only to vote on August 4 for the war credits the German government wanted. Likewise the French Socialist Party and its union, the CGT, especially after the assassination of the pacificist Jean JaurÃ¨s, organized mass rallies and protests until the outbreak of war, but once the war began they argued that in wartime socialists should support their nations against the aggression of other nations and also voted for war credits.Prelude to Revolution: Class Consciousness and the First World War {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190628153509weblink |date=28 June 2019 }} by Megan TrudellGroups opposed to the war included the Russian Bolsheviks, the Socialist Party of America, the Italian Socialist Party, and the socialist faction led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany (later to become the Communist Party of Germany). In Sweden, the socialist youth leader Zeth HÃ¶glund was jailed for his anti-war propaganda, even though Sweden did not participate in the war.

Women

Women across the spectrum were much less supportive of the war{{clarify|date=May 2017|reason=This is the day}} than men.Anne Wiltsher, Most Dangerous Women: Feminist Peace Campaigners of the Great War. (Routledge, 1985).JOURNAL, Tylee, Claire M., 'Maleness run riot'â€”The great war and women's resistance to militarism., Women's Studies International Forum, 1988, 11, 3, 199â€“210, 10.1016/0277-5395(88)90135-5, 56280915, 0277-5395, Women in church groups{{clarify|date=March 2019}} were especially anti-war. However, women in the suffrage movement in different countries wanted to support the war effort, asking for the vote as a reward for that support.In France, women activists from both the working-class socialist women's and the middle-class suffrage movements formed their own groups to oppose the war. However, they were unable to coordinate their efforts because of mutual suspicion due to class and political differences. After 1915 the groups weakened and dissolved entirely as their leading militants left to work within nonfeminist organizations opposing the war.Charles Sowerwine, "Women Against the War: A Feminine Basis for Internationalism and Pacifism? Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History 6#363. (1978).The women's suffrage movement in Britain split on the war issue. The main official groups supported the war but it was opposed by a number of prominent women's rights campaigners, including Helena Swanwick, Margaret Ashton, Catherine Marshall, Maude Royden, Kathleen Courtney Chrystal Macmillan,BOOK, Wiltsher, Anne, Most dangerous women: feminist peace campaigners of the Great War, 1985, Pandora Press, London, 0863580106, 2, 1. publ., registration,weblink and Sylvia Pankhurst. It was an early coalition of women's campaigning with pacifism that led to the formation of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915.

Pacifists

File:The Deserter.jpg|alt=|thumb|right|The Deserter (1916) by Boardman Robinson Boardman RobinsonAlthough the onset of the First World War was generally greeted with enthusiastic patriotism across Europe, peace groups were still active in protesting the starting of the war. (File:Peace-Marcher.jpg|thumb|left|200x200px|A World War I-era female peace protester)In 1915 the League of Nations Society was formed by British Liberal Party leaders to promote a strong international organization that could enforce the peaceful resolution of conflict. Later that year the League to Enforce Peace was established in America to promote similar goals. Hamilton Holt published an editorial in his New York City weekly magazine the Independent called "The Way to Disarm: A Practical Proposal" on September 28, 1914. It called for an international organization to agree upon the arbitration of disputes and to guarantee the territorial integrity of its members by maintaining military forces sufficient to defeat those of any non-member. The ensuing debate among prominent internationalists modified Holt's plan to align it more closely with proposals offered in Great Britain by Viscount James Bryce, a former ambassador from Britain to the U.S. These and other initiatives were pivotal in the change in attitudes that gave birth to the League of Nations after the war.Christian pacifists and the traditional peace churches such as the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) opposed the war. Most American Pentecostal denominations were critical to the war and encouraged their members to be conscientious objectors.Beaman, Jay "Pentecostal Pacifism" 2017.In the United States, some of the many groups that protested against the war were the Woman's Peace Party (which was organized in 1915 and led by noted reformer Jane Addams), the American Union Against Militarism, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the American Friends Service Committee.weblink" title="arquivo.pt/wayback/20090628120559weblink">Chatfield, Charles, "Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy" 2002. Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, was another fierce advocate of pacifism, the only person to vote no to America's entrance into both World Wars.

Catholic Church

Pope Benedict XV, elected to the papacy less than three months into WW1, made the war and its consequences the main focus of his early pontificate. In stark contrast to his predecessor,BOOK, Aubert, Roger, History of the Church, Burns & Oates, 1981, 978-0-86012-091-9, Hubert Jedin, The Church in the industrial age, 9, London, 521, Resch, Margit, Chapter 37: The Outbreak of World War I, John Dolan, five days after his election he spoke of his determination to do what he could to bring peace. His first encyclical, Ad beatissimi Apostolorum, given 1{{nbsp}}November 1914, was concerned with this subject. Benedict XV found his abilities and unique position as a religious emissary of peace ignored by the belligerent powers. The 1915 Treaty of London between Italy and the Triple Entente included secret provisions whereby the Allies agreed with Italy to ignore papal peace moves towards the Central Powers. Consequently, the publication of Benedict's proposed seven-point Peace Note of August 1917 was roundly ignored by all parties except Austria-Hungary.WEB, 22 August 2009, Who's Who â€“ Pope Benedict XV,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20111108100222weblink">weblink 8 November 2011, 28 November 2011, firstworldwar.com,

International Socialists

Main article: Zimmerwald ConferenceMany socialist groups and movements were antimilitarist, arguing that war by its nature was a type of governmental coercion of the working class for the benefit of capitalist elites. However, the national parties in the Second International increasingly supported their respective nations in war and the International was dissolved in 1916.

Before 1914

When the Second International, the primary international socialist organization before World War I, was founded in 1889, internationalism was one of its central tenets. "The workers have no Fatherland", Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had declared in The Communist Manifesto. Between 1889 and 1914 the Second International repeatedly declared its opposition to war and that "[the working class shall] do all they can to prevent the outbreak of war"BOOK, Braunthal, Julius, History of the International: Volume 1: 1863-1914, 1967, Frederick A. Praeger, 978-1121956728, New York, 334, BOOK, Taber, Mike, Under the Socialist Banner, July 2021, Haymarket Books, 9781642594676, Chicago, 119, The exact means of combating the outbreak of war was a matter of conflict within the Second International. On the far-left the radical French pacifist Gustave HervÃ© promoted building anti-government militias and instigating mutinies in the army.BOOK, Taber, Mike, Reform, Revolution, and Opportunism, Sep 2023, Haymarket Books, 9781642599817, Chicago, 243, The center of the party, embodied by the German August Bebel and the French Jean JaurÃ¨s, were more circumspect with their preferred means. JaurÃ¨s particularly warned of the potential for a diversionary war.Alarmed by the growth of the socialist movement, a government might attempt to create a foreign diversion rather than directly battle Social Democracy. If a war breaks out in this way between France and Germany, would we permit the French and German proletariat to murder one another on behalf of the capitalists and for their benefit without Social Democracy attempting to exert the greatest effort to stop it? If we were not to make the attempt, we would all be dishonored.However, these statements were in tension with others. Bebel, for example, was determined "never to abandon a single piece of German soil to the foreigner." JaurÃ¨s criticized Marx and Engels' maxim that the "workers have no Fatherland" as "vain and obscure subtleties" and a "sarcastic negation of history itself."

Germany

After the repeal of the anti-socialist law in 1890 the SPD steadily gained support in the lower house of the Imperial German Parliament, the Reichstag. By 1914 it was the largest party in the Reichstag.BOOK, Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook, 2010, Nomos Verl.-Ges, 978-3-8329-5609-7, StÃ¶ver, Phillip, Nohlen, Dieter, Prior to 1914, the SPD had consistently voted against all imperial military spending under the slogan "Not one man, not one farthing for the current system."BOOK, Nettl, J.P., Rosa Luxemburg, 1966, Oxford University Press, 1966, 1, 127, en, (File:Karte der Reichstagswahlen 1912.svg|thumb|Map of Reichstag Delegates 1912-1919 )During the July Crisis it became clear that German mobilization, and therefor German war credit would be critical. A vote on war credits in the Reichstag was scheduled for August 4, and required a simple majority to pass. This meant that a vote against war credits would only be symbolic for the SPD, unless a non-socialist party defected to their side. After the On August 2, the right faction of the German SPD met and agreed to support the upcoming war credits vote.BOOK, Groh, Dieter, Negative Integration und revolutionÃ¤rer Attentismus: die deutsche Sozialdemokratie am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges, 1973, PropylÃ¤en, 978-3-549-07281-3, Berlin, 694, On August 3, the full SPD parliamentary delegation met. In the party's preparatory meeting on 3 August, there were, according to SPD representative Wolfgang Heine, "vile, noisy scenes"BOOK, Wohlgemuth, Heinz, Karl Liebknecht. Eine Biographie, Dietz Verlag, 1973, Berlin, 242, de, Karl Liebknecht: A Biography, because of conflict between the right faction and Karl Liebknecht who believed that "the rejection of war loans was self-evident and unquestionable for the majority of the SPD Reichstag faction."BOOK, Laschitza, Annelies, Karl Liebknecht: Eine Biographie in Dokumenten, Keller, Elke, 1982, Verl. Marxistische BlÃ¤tter, 978-3-88012-660-2, Frankfurt a.M, 214, de, Karl Liebknecht: A Biography in Documents, In the end, the right faction successfully swayed the center of the party. On August 4, the Reichstag, voted on war credits. Following a tradition of party discipline, the socialist delegates unanimously voted for the measures. The policy of supporting the government's war efforts became known as the Burgfrieden or civil truce.

France

(File:France Chambre des deputes 1914.png|left|thumb|Composition of the French Chamber of Deputies 1914-1919)The socialist parties of France had split and reunited several times since the founding of the republic. At the outbreak of the July Crisis the French Section of the Worker's International (SFIO) was the most prominently anti-war party in France. Its leader, Jean JaurÃ¨s, was actively searching for allies against a European war.BOOK, Albertini, Luigi, Origins, McMeekin, III, 94â€“95, To this end, a special congress of the Second International was planned for August 9th in Paris.BOOK, Nettl, J.P., Rosa Luxemburg, 1966, Oxford University Press, 978-1-59740--565-2, II, 602, en, On August 4th, socialists also rallied behind the war in France, where socialist acquiescence became known as the union sacrÃ©e.

Great Britain

In Britain, the prominent peace activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse went to prison for refusing military service, citing his convictions as an "International Socialist and, a Christian"Hochschild, Adam, To end all wars: a story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914â€“1918, p. 277, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, {{ISBN|0-618-75828-3}}On August 5th, the Parliamentary Labour Party in the United Kingdom voted to support the government in the war.

Collapse of International Resistance

After the largest socialist parties of the second international had voted in favor of war funding and shifted to support their national governments, organized international resistance by the socialist parties disintegrated. Reaction to these events would lead to the Zimmerwald Conference, and the splitting of socialist and communist movements.

Austria-Hungary

Like all the armies of mainland Europe, Austria-Hungary relied on conscription to fill its ranks. Officer recruitment, however, was voluntary. The effect of this at the start of the war was that well over a quarter of the rank and file were Slavs, while more than 75% of the officers were ethnic Germans. This was much resented. The army has been described as being "run on colonial lines" and the Slav soldiers as "disaffected". Thus conscription contributed greatly to Austria's disastrous performance on the battlefield.BOOK, Hastings, Max, Catastrophe: Europe goes to War 1914, Collins, 2013, 978-0-00-746764-8, London, 30, 140,

British Empire

Great Britain

In 1914, the Public Schools Officers' Training Corps annual camp was held at Tidworth Pennings, near Salisbury Plain. Head of the British Army, Lord Kitchener, was to review the cadets, but the imminence of the war prevented him. General Horace Smith-Dorrien was sent instead. He surprised the two-or-three thousand cadets by declaring (in the words of Donald Christopher Smith, a Bermudian cadet who was present):that war should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing, that the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin, and that the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. In their ignorance I, and many of the Britons, felt almost ashamed of a British General who uttered such depressing and unpatriotic sentiments, but during the next four years, those of us who survived the holocaustâ€”probably not more than one-quarter of usâ€”learned how right the General's prognosis was and how courageous he had been to utter it."Merely For the Record": The Memoirs of Donald Christopher Smith 1894â€“1980. By Donald Christopher Smith. Edited by John William Cox, Jr. Bermuda.In Britain, some people resisted conscription. By 1918 several distinguished people were imprisoned for their opposition to it, including "the nation's leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize, more than half a dozen future members of Parliament, one future cabinet minister, and a former newspaper editor who was publishing a clandestine journal for his fellow inmates."BOOK, Hochschild, Adam,weblink To End All Wars - a story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914-1918, Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, 978-0-547-75031-6, Boston, New York, xvii, Adam Hochschild, registration, One of them was Bertrand Russell - a mathematician, philosopher and social critic engaged in pacifist activities, who was dismissed from Trinity College, Cambridge, following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act in 1916. A later conviction resulted in six months' of imprisonment in Brixton Prison from which he was released in September 1918.Despite the mainstream Labour Party's support for the war effort, the Independent Labour Party was instrumental in opposing conscription through organizations such as the Non-Conscription Fellowship, while a Labour Party affiliate, the British Socialist Party, organized a number of unofficial strikes. Arthur Henderson resigned from the Cabinet in 1917 amid calls for party unity to be replaced by George Barnes. Overall, the majority of the movement continued to support the war for the duration of the conflict, and the British Labour Party, unlike most of its equivalents on the Continent, did not split over the war.David Swift, For Class and Country: the Patriotic Left and the First World War (2017)In the shipyards in and around Glasgow, Scotland, opposition to the war effort became a major aim during the Red Clydeside era. To mobilize the workers of Clydeside against World War I, the Clyde Workers' Committee (CWC) was formed, with Willie Gallacher as its head and David Kirkwood its treasurer. The CWC led the campaign against the coalitiom government in which David Lloyd George was a prominent member, and their Munitions Act, which forbade engineers from leaving the company they were employed in. The CWC negotiated with government leaders, but no agreement could be reached and consequently both Gallacher and Kirkwood were arrested and imprisoned under the Defence of the Realm Act. Anti-war activity also took place outside the workplace and on the streets in general. The Marxist John Maclean and Independent Labour Party member James Maxton were both jailed for their anti-war propagandizing.

Australia

In Australia two referendums in 1916 and 1917 resulted in votes against conscription, and were seen as opposition to an all-out prosecution of the war. In retaliation, the Australian government used the War Precautions Act and the Unlawful Associations Act to arrest and prosecute anti-conscriptionists such as Tom Barker, editor of Direct Action and many other members of the Industrial Workers of the World. The young John Curtin, at the time a member of the Victorian Socialist Party, was also arrested. Anti-conscriptionist publications were seized by government censors in police raids.Frank Cain, The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia (Melbourne: Spectrum Publications, 1993) {{ISBN|0-86786-339-0}}Other notable opponents to Conscription included the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne Daniel Mannix, the Queensland Labor Premier Thomas Ryan, Vida Goldstein and the Women's Peace Army. Most labor unions actively opposed conscription.Many Australians thought positively of conscription as a sign of loyalty to Britain and thought that it would also support those men who were already fighting. However, trade unions feared that their members might be replaced by cheaper foreign or female labour and opposed conscription. Some groups argued that the whole war was immoral, and it was unjust to force people to fight.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}} In Australia, women had full rights to vote which was then rare.NEWS,weblink Opposition to World War I, 2012-06-05, World War I, 2017-02-07, en-US,

Canada

In Canada opposition to conscription and involvement in the war centered on French Canadian nationalists led by Henri Bourassa. Following the 1917 elections, the government implemented the Military Service Act 1917 that came into effect in 1918, which sparked a weekend of rioting in Quebec City between 28 March and 1 April 1918. Invoking the War Measures Act of 1914, the federal government sent troops to restore order in the city, which opened fire on a demonstration on April 1.NEWS, 2001, The Conscription Crisis, CBC,weblink live, 14 August 2014,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140713134338weblink">weblink 13 July 2014,

Ireland

{{Excerpt|Conscription Crisis of 1918|Background|paragraphs=2-3}}

New Zealand

In New Zealand, the war (particularly conscription) was opposed by the New Zealand Socialist Party and its successor the New Zealand Labour Party. Several members were prosecuted for sedition in 1916 and imprisoned, including Peter Fraser, Bob Semple and Paddy Webb. Fraser was later Prime Minister of New Zealand for most of World War II.

France

Russia

In Russia, opposition to the war was originally led by both Marxists and pacifist Tolstoyans under the leadership of Valentin Bulgakov. Bulgakov's first reaction to the outbreak of war was the appeal "Wake up, all people are brothers!" which he composed on 28 September 1914."Our enemies are - not the Germans, and - not Russians or Frenchmen. The common enemy of us all, no matter what nationality to which we belong - is the beast within us. Nowhere is this truth so clearly confirmed, as now, when, intoxicated, and excessively proud of their false science, their foreign culture and their civilization of the machine, people of the 20th century have suddenly realized the true stage of its development: this step is no higher than that which our ancestors were at in the days of Attila and Genghis Khan. It is infinitely sad to know that two thousand years of Christianity have passed almost without a trace upon the people.".Ðœ. Ð. Ð Ð°ÑˆÐºÐ¾Ð²ÑÐºÐ°Ñ, Ð•. Ð‘. Ð Ð°ÑˆÐºÐ¾Ð²ÑÐºÐ¸Ð¹. Â«ÐœÐ¸Ð»Ñ‹Ðµ Ð±Ñ€Ð°Ñ‚ÑŒÑ Ð¸ ÑÐµÑÑ‚Ñ€Ñ‹â€¦Â» (lib.ru)File:Vladimir_Lenin_Speech_in_May_1920.jpg|thumb|Bolshevik leaders Lenin and Trotsky promised "Peace, Land and Bread" to the impoverished masses]]In October, Bulgakov continued circulating the appeal, collecting signatures and posting copies which were confiscated by the Tsarist secret police, or Okhrana. On 28 October, Bulgakov was arrested together with 27 signatories of the appeal.In November and December 1915, most defendants were released from custody on bail. A trial took place on 1 April 1916 and the defendants were acquitted.As Russia's involvement in the war continued anyway, soldiers began to establish their own revolutionary tribunals and began to execute officers en masse. After the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin's Bolsheviks called for unilateral armistice, but the other combatants refused, determined to fight until the bitter end. The Bolsheviks agreed a peace treaty with Imperial Germany, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, despite its harsh conditions. They also published the secret treaties between Russia and the Western Allies, hoping that the revelation of Allied plans for a vengeful peace would encourage international opposition to the war.

Russian forces outside Russia

In September 1917, Russian soldiers in France began questioning why they were fighting for the French at all and mutinied.{{sfn|Cockfield|1997|pp=171â€“237}}

Central Asia

The Central Asian revolt started in the summer of 1916, when the Russian Empire government ended its exemption of Muslims from military service.WEB, Soviet Union â€“ Uzbeks,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130120172328weblink">weblink 20 January 2013, 13 March 2013, Country-data.com,

United States

File:After the war a medal and maybe a job2.jpg|right|thumb|300px|After the War a Medal and Maybe a Job, antiwar cartoon by John French Sloan John French Sloan{{Further|American entry into World War I}}

Henry Ford

Industrialist Henry Ford believed that capitalism could conquer war so he organized and funded a major effort of antiwar leaders traveling to Europe in 1915 to talk to diplomats in major countries about the need for prosperity and peace.BOOK, Watts, Steven, The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century,weblink registration, 2005, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 228, 9780375407352, Ford chartered an ocean liner and invited prominent peace activists to join him. He hoped to create enough publicity to prompt the belligerent nations to convene a peace conference and mediate an end to the war, but the mission was widely mocked by the press, which referred to the liner as the "Ship of Fools" as well as the "Peace Ship".BOOK, Traxel, David, Crusader Nation: The United States in Peace and the Great War 1898-1920,weblink registration, 2006, New York, 206, 9780375410789, Infighting between the activists, mockery by the press contingent aboard, and an outbreak of influenza marred the voyage.BOOK, Watts, Steven, The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century,weblink registration, 2005, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 234, 9780375407352, Four days after Oscar II arrived in Norway, a beleaguered and physically ill Ford abandoned the mission and returned to the United States.BOOK, Watts, Steven, The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century,weblink registration, 2005, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 235, 9780375407352, The peace mission was unsuccessful, which reinforced Ford's reputation as a supporter of unusual causes.NEWS, Henry, Jim, Noble cause becomes a farce ; Peace Ship cements Henry Ford's image as a well-meaning but naive do-gooder,weblink 7 December 2012, Automotive News, June 15, 2003,

Religious groups

Leaders of most religious groups (except the Episcopalians) were pacifists, as were leaders of the women's movement. A concerted effort was made by anti-war leaders, including Jane Addams, Oswald Garrison Villard, David Starr Jordan, Henry Ford, Lillian Wald, and Carrie Chapman Catt. Their goal was to convince President Wilson to mediate an end of the war by bringing the belligerents to the conference table. Wilson indeed made an energetic, sustained and serious effort to do so, and kept his administration neutral, but he was repeatedly rebuffed by Britain and Germany.JOURNAL, David S., Patterson, Woodrow Wilson and the Mediation Movement 1914â€“1917, The Historian (journal), The Historian, 1971, 33, 4, 535â€“556, 10.1111/j.1540-6563.1971.tb01164.x, Finally in 1917 Wilson convinced some of them that to be truly anti-war they needed to support what Wilson promised would be "a war to end all wars".JOURNAL, Piper, John F. Jr., The American Churches in World War I, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 38, 2, 1970, 147â€“155, 1461171, 10.1093/jaarel/XXXVIII.2.147, Once war was declared, the more liberal denominations, which had influenced the Social Gospel, called for a war for righteousness that would help uplift all mankind. The themeâ€”an aspect of American exceptionalismâ€”was that God had chosen America as his tool to bring redemption to the world.BOOK, Richard M., Gamble, The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation, 2003, Wilmington, ISI Books, 1-932236-16-3,

Far-left

(File:Come on in America.jpg|thumb|left|Come on in, America, the Blood's Fine! (1917) by M.A. Kempf)(File:Pacifists at Capitol LOC 16992358889.jpg|thumb|right|Anti-war protesters at the US Capitol in April 1917)File:His Best Customer.jpeg|thumb|right|His Best Customer (1917) by Winsor McCay Winsor McCayLeading up to 1917 and the declaration of war against Germany, the labor unions, socialists, members of the Old Right, and pacifist groups in the United States publicly denounced participation,BOOK, Chambers, John Whiteclay,weblink To Raise an Army: The Draft Comes to Modern America, The Free Press, 1987, 978-0-02-905820-6, New York, registration, WEB, World War 1 and the Suppression of Dissent,weblink The Future of Freedom Foundation, April 2002, 22 November 2014, the obvious motive for the 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing stemming from this. When Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection in 1916 on the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War", he received support from these groups (although the Socialist Party of America ran its own candidate, Allan Benson). After Wilson was reelected, though, events quickly spiraled into war. The Zimmermann Telegram and resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany provoked outrage in the U.S., and Congress declared war on April 6. Conscription was introduced shortly thereafter, which the anti-war movement bitterly opposed. Many socialists, typified by Walter Lippmann, became enthusiastic supporters of the war. So too did Samuel Gompers and the great majority of organized labor unions. However, the IWWâ€”"Wobblies"â€”gained strength by opposing the war.JOURNAL, Shor, Francis, The IWW and oppositional politics in World War I: Pushing the system beyond its limits., Radical History Review, 1996, 1996, 64, 75â€“94, 10.1215/01636545-1996-64-75, 142987668, The Espionage Act of 1917 was passed to prevent spying but also contained a section which criminalized inciting or attempting to incite any mutiny, desertion, or refusal of duty in the armed forces, punishable with a fine of not more than $10,000, not more than twenty years in federal prison, or both. Thousands of Wobblies and anti-war activists were prosecuted on authority of this and the Sedition Act of 1918, which tightened restrictions even more. Among the most famous was Eugene Debs, chairman of the Socialist Party of the USA for giving an anti-draft speech in Ohio. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld these prosecutions in a series of decisions.Conscientious objectors were punished as well, most of them Christian pacifist inductees. They were placed directly in the armed forces and court-martialed, receiving draconian sentences and harsh treatment. A number of them died in Alcatraz Prison, then a military facility. Vigilante groups were formed which suppressed dissent as well, such as by rounding up draft-age men and checking if they were in possession of draft cards or not.Ben Salmon was a Catholic conscientious objector and outspoken critic of Just War theology. During World War I, America's Roman Catholic hierarchy denounced him and The New York Times described him as a "spy suspect." The US military (in which he was never inducted) court-martialed him for desertion and spreading propaganda, then sentenced him to death (this was later revised to 25 years hard labor).JOURNAL, Staff of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, 2007, The Life and Witness of Ben Salmon, Sign of Peace, 6.1, Spring 2007,weblink Around 300,000 American men evaded or refused conscription in World War I. Aliens such as Emma Goldman were deported, while naturalized or even native-born citizens, including Eugene Debs, lost their citizenship for their activities. Helen Keller, a socialist, and Jane Addams, a pacifist, also publicly opposed the war, but neither was prosecuted, likely because they were sympathetic figures (Keller working to help fellow deaf-blind people and Addams in charity to benefit the poor).In 1919, as the soldiers came home, disturbances continued, with veterans fighting strikers, the Seattle General Strike, race riots in the South and the Palmer Raids following two anarchist bombings. After the election of Warren G. Harding in 1920, Americans were eager to follow his campaign slogan of "Return to Normalcy." Anti-war dissidents in federal prison, such as Debs, and conscientious objectors, had their sentences commuted to time served or were pardoned on December 25, 1921. The Sedition Act was repealed in 1921, but the Espionage Act remains in force.

In the African colonies

In many European colonies in Africa, the recruitment of the indigenous population to serve in the army or as porters met widespread opposition and resistance. In British Nyasaland (modern-day Malawi), the recruitment of Nyasa to serve in the East Africa Campaign contributed to the Chilembwe uprising in 1915.

References

Bibliography

BOOK, Cockfield, Jamie H., 1997, With snow on their boots: The tragic odyssey of the Russian Expeditionary Force in France during World War I, Palgrave Macmillan, 978-0-312-22082-2,

External links

Patterson, David S.: Pacifism , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
Wilmers, Annika: Feminist Pacifism , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
Marcobelli, Elisa: Pre-war Socialist Pacifism , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.

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opposition to World War I

Women

Pacifists

Catholic Church

International Socialists

Before 1914

Germany

France

Great Britain

Collapse of International Resistance

Austria-Hungary

British Empire

Great Britain

Australia

Canada

Ireland

New Zealand

France

Russia

Russian forces outside Russia

Central Asia

United States

Henry Ford

Religious groups

Far-left

In the African colonies

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links