An American anti-war cartoon and a Budleigh connection.

The anti-war cartoon pictured here, entitled ‘The Deserter’, appeared in 1916 when the USA had not yet entered World War I. It depicted Jesus facing a firing squad made up of soldiers from five different European countries who were involved in the conflict.  

Understandably, for most of its history, the USA has attempted to remain neutral rather than become involved in European wars. George Washington’s final message to the nation continued to resonate  with Americans. ‘The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible,’ he had written in his ‘Farewell Address’ of 1796.

When World War I broke out in 1914, support for neutrality remained strong among Americans, particularly ethnic Germans and members of Irish families resentful of British rule in Ireland.

Pacifist groups such as the Woman’s Peace Party and the American Union Against Militarism (AUAM) were founded in 1915 to protest against the USA’s entry into the European war.

‘The Deserter’ was first published in The Masses, an American magazine of socialist  politics which appeared monthly between 1911 and 1917, when it was forced to close.  The cartoon was the work of Boardman Robinson, a Canadian-born American artist whose anti-war views were shared by the communist journalist John Reed, a fellow-contributor to The Masses.  In 1915 the pair had travelled to Europe, recording the chaotic events and atrocities taking place in Russia, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece for the book The War in Eastern Europe which was published the following year.    

The USA finally abandoned neutrality and entered the European conflict in 1917.

Readers curious about Massachusetts' 400-year-old link with Budleigh via Roger Conant will be fascinated to learn that Edward Thurstan, a former Budleigh resident, played a crucial role in shaping American policy and, in the words of local historian Roger Lendon, ‘probably had a hand in one of the most significant events to occur in World War I’. 

In January 1917, the German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent a top secret telegram in code which made it clear that Mexico would receive financial support if it attacked the USA, and would regain the states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.  

Edward Thurstan, as British Chargé d’Affaires in Mexico City, saw that a copy of the intercepted and deciphered telegram was sent to London. It was then passed to the US ambassador in London who sent it to President Woodrow Wilson. 

On 1 March 1917, the Zimmermann telegram was released to the American press. The ensuing public outcry was one of the factors that eventually led to the declaration of war against Germany by the US Congress on 6 April 1917.

Photo of Boardman Robinson from Wikipedia 

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A pacifist in Budleigh Salterton: H.G. Wells (1866-1946)

Not too many Budleigh people know that a great literary figure known as ‘the father of science fiction’ stayed in the town. Even fewer know of him as a pacifist. Budleigh Salterton was renowned in the past as a favourite retirement place for military types as well as a health resort.

It was during a cycling holiday in Devon that H.G. Wells and his wife stayed in April 1897 with author George Gissing and his sister Margaret at 4 West End Villas – now 14 West Hill – in Budleigh. Ten or so years older than Wells, Gissing is thought to have been attracted to radical pacifist and anti-imperialist ideas partly derived from his reading of Russian literature, particularly from Leo Tolstoy.  Later, Wells himself is likely to have been influenced by pacifist and socialist ideas through his membership of the reformist Fabian Society.

Wells’ most famous science fiction novel The War of the Worlds anticipates the role of devastating modern weapons with the Martians’ use of heat-rays and toxic gas against humans. The novel’s publication in 1898 came at a time when the desire for world peace was in the news. On 29 August, 1898, Czar Nicholas II of Russia issued an invitation to all nations to confer over the limitation of armaments, observing that ‘the intellectual and physical strength of nations; labour and capital alike, have been unproductively consumed in building terrible engines of destruction’.

Wells' book Little Wars, published in 1913, was seemingly an explanation of rules for conducting a war game with toy soldiers. In reality it reflected the author’s view of how such activities could replace actual wars. ‘How much better is this amiable miniature than the Real Thing!’ he wrote. ‘Here is the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster — and no smashed nor sanguinary bodies, no shattered fine buildings nor devastated countrysides.’  

Another novel by Wells which appeared in the following year was The World Set Free. Set in 1956, it described the effects of a devastating world war fought with atomic bombs, ending with the establishment of a ‘World Republic’

As World War I approached, Wells became more and more focused on the threat to world peace posed by what he saw as German militarism.  His 99-page pamphlet The War That Will End War, published in 1914, proclaimed:  ‘This is now a war for peace. It aims straight at disarmament. It aims at a settlement that shall stop this sort of thing for ever. Every soldier who fights against Germany now is a crusader against war. This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war — it is the last war! England, France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and all the little countries of Europe, are heartily sick of war; the Tsar has expressed a passionate hatred of war; the most of Asia is unwarlike; the United States has no illusions about war.’

A second pamphlet, The Peace of the World, appeared in 1915. A year later saw the publication of Wells’ novel Mr Britling Sees It Through, composed ‘at a time of universal barbarism and cruelty’ in the words of Russian writer Maxim Gorky, who described the work as ‘the finest, most courageous, truthful, and humane book written in Europe in the course of this accursed war’.   

In the post-war period, on 15 April 1929, Wells delivered an address entitled The Common Sense of World Peace to the Reichstag German Parliament in Berlin. It was published by the Hogarth Press. But by 1933 the Nazis were burning his books.

H. G. Wells is pictured here one day before his 60th birthday, on the front cover of Time magazine, 20 September 1926.

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'It might have been us': a British army veteran's thoughts: Patrick Campbell (1897-1986)

 

Patrick (‘Pat’) Campbell retired to Budleigh after a career in teaching, and wrote four books.  The Ebb and Flow of Battle (1977) and In the Cannon’s Mouth (1979) were based on his experiences during World War I, when he served as Captain and Second-in-Command of 150 Army Brigade in the Royal Field Artillery. He was awarded the Military Cross, though he points out in The Ebb and Flow of Battle that the award was made based on a senior officer’s blatantly fictional account which is reproduced in the official citation. ‘I was distressed when I read it,' he tells us. 'It was not true that I had inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy.’  

The Ebb and Flow of Battle deals with events in 1918 and is not an obviously anti-war book.  However a noticeable theme is the author’s emphasis on the common humanity shared by both sides in conflict. Campbell had fought in Belgium, at Ypres and at Paschendaele during the previous year, but was struck by the more peaceful landscape of Northern France where he arrived in March after sick leave.  ‘Ypres had been all shells and shell-holes, mud and desolation, but here there was grass, and men played football only three miles from the line,’ he writes. An observation post gives him ‘a wonderful view’ over enemy-held territory.   ‘At Ypres I had never seen a living German soldier, except prisoners. Now I saw some, and it gave me a strange feeling. They were our enemies. They had to try and kill us and we had to try and kill them, but they looked like ourselves and were doing ordinary things.’ 

By August, the ebb and flow of battle finally saw the approach of victory for the Allies, but with it, the author’s keen sense of losses suffered on both sides. ‘In the evening I took the horses to water in the little river Luce, we crossed no-man’s-land, we went inside what had been enemy land in the morning. His front-line trench was full of bodies, all Germans, they were the first dead Germans I had seen for a long time, I had never seen so many in one place. The sight of them gave me no elation, as once it would have done. Satisfaction yes, we had won a great and totally unexpected victory, but elation no. In March our front-line trench must have looked like that, full of brave Jocks and South Africans.’

The similarity in scenes of slaughter is in contrast to the peaceful landscape. ‘It was a beautiful summer evening, and the little river Luce was beautiful. It was like a little river in England and the flowers growing at the water’s edge, where my horses were drinking, were English flowers. The water was so clean, the field in front of me looked utterly peaceful, but only fifty yards away there was that trench, full of dead Germans, we should see them again on our way back, the grey faces, the poor twisted bodies. They had been bayoneted by the Canadians in the morning, you can’t take prisoners in a  front-line trench in an attack. Wives, mothers, sweethearts, would not know yet, they would still be writing letters, but the letters would never be read. It might have been us.’

A month later comes a moment of sympathy for a single enemy figure spotted by chance. It comes as Campbell overlooks the ‘unspoiled country’ beyond the last line of German defences on the Western Front known as the Hindenburg Line: ‘undulating hills, villages, little woods, villages fit to live in, trees that bore leaves, a hillside without shell-holes. It was like a Promised Land,’  he muses. 

‘I saw a German cart being driven along the road behind the canal, close up to the line. I could have shot at it if I had been in communication with the battery. The man was driving furiously, he knew his danger, he must have been delayed in some way and daylight had caught him, now he was galloping back towards safety, whipping up his horse. I was probably the only Englishman who saw him, and I could do nothing . But after one moment’s regret at my impotence I felt sorry for him, I hoped he would escape, I was glad when he reached a bend in the road and was hidden from sight.’

Patrick Campbell – ‘Soldier, Schoolmaster, Writer’ – died on 26 June 1986, aged 88, and was buried alongside his wife Camilla in St Peter’s Burial Ground, on Moor Lane, Budleigh Salterton.

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Pacifist thoughts from an army chaplain during World War I

‘It is usually very difficult to find much to say which will not offend the vigilant eye of the censor,’ wrote Kenneth John Best to his family in May 1915, while serving as an army chaplain during World War I. Even so, he managed to say much about the horrors of war. 

In December 1914, while still safe in Egypt and yet to be posted to the front he had expressed his frustration with humanity in a letter to his father. ‘The question always occurs to me, why do men try to reach justice by the sword?’ he asked. ‘Brute force seems to have no connection that I can see with Justice. In this particular case, it may turn out all right – but I hope there will after this be some better means found for settling disputes.’ 

Later, from the bloodbath of Gallipoli, he wrote: ‘What a mad world this is! I suppose we shall soon come to our senses and settle the matter which might just as well have been settled without the carnage. How much wiser were the Israelites and Philistines when they settled their dispute by single combat of David and Goliath.’  

Paradoxically, even though he was a non-combatant, he shared a kind of fascination with the violence while revolting against it: ‘I am able to spend most of my time with the boys in the trenches,’ he told his family on 28 June 1915. ‘The only time I cannot go with them is when they charge. I should love to go with them then, but I could be of no use so I wait ‘til they have got into their new position and then join them as soon as it is possible. It is then that one sees the real horrors of war. The trenches are full of dead and dying Turks, Germans and our own boys. Their moans and cries for help are simply heartbreaking. I hope to goodness we shall soon be relieved for the sake of these poor lads. They are played out. The ghastly sights and foul smells on top of incessant work day and night have overtaxed their endurance.’  

Invalided out the following month, he wrote from the General Hospital in Alexandria of his regret at being away from the action, missing the concert of battle: ‘I began to loathe the peace and quiet. I listen for the roar of naval gun. The shell from the howitzer singing overhead. The mighty crackle of the rifles and machine guns.  Distinguishing the slow dull rattle of Turks from quick metallic rattle of our own, and deducing the proportion of Turk rifle shots to our own by the stray whistling over our heads and so concluding what is happening. It is all very fascinating and now it is gone. I long to be in the thick of it again.’ 

He admits to the strange delight of battle, but is under no illusion about the appalling casualty rate. ‘As I see these soldiers climbing over the parapet for a charge, I know that just only about 400 out of 1,000 will come back untouched. The life is glorious for its excitement but its ghastliness outweighs it.’ 

Convalescing in Cyprus in August 1915, he concludes on a gloomy but philosophical note: ‘Wars will never cease so long as selfishness is one of the strongest powers in the world. Only self-sacrifice in everyday life will make wars cease.’  

Kenneth Best continued his war service in France and was awarded the Military Cross on 1 January, 1918. He retired to Budleigh Salterton, where he died aged 93, on 19 April, 1981. 

The image of his headstone in St Peter’s Burial Ground in Budleigh is shown alongside a photo of Kenneth Best with his parents, the Rev and Mrs J.D. Best on the day of his award at Buckingham Palace. Copyright Imperial War Museum 

The above extracts from Kenneth Best's wartime letters are reproduced from https://www.grandadswar.org/war-diaries/letters-of-rev-john-kenneth-best/

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A pacifist in Budleigh: George Gissing (1857-1903)

Not too many Budleigh people know that a great Victorian literary figure, considered in the 1880s as one of the three greatest novelists in England, stayed in the town. Even fewer know of him as a pacifist, for Budleigh Salterton was renowned in the past as a favourite retirement place for military types as well as a health resort. 

And yet, at around the time he was writing his novel The Crown of Life, a desire for peace was in the news. On 29 August, 1898, Czar Nicholas II of Russia issued an invitation to all nations to confer over the limitation of armaments, observing that ‘the intellectual and physical strength of nations; labour and capital alike, have been unproductively consumed in building terrible engines of destruction’. In a letter that Gissing wrote the following year to his German friend and writer Eduard Bertz, he described the novel as containing ‘a rather vigorous attack on militarism’.

According to Gissing’s biographer Jacob Korg, these radical ideas were derived from the author’s reading of Russian writers such as Leo Tolstoy, whose sympathy with the dissident Spiritual Christian group of militant pacifists known as Doukhobors is well known.  Gissing felt that Russian spirituality could serve as an antidote to British Imperialism. 

Gissing and his sister Margaret had spent the spring of 1897 staying at 4 West End Villas – now 14 West Hill – in Budleigh, a town which he had discovered in February 1891 when living in Exeter. They would be joined there by the author, journalist and fellow-pacifist H.G. Wells and his wife. No doubt Czar Nicholas’s invitation would have been one of their subjects of conversation, perhaps contributing to Gissing’s thoughts as he composed The Crown of Life, which was published in 1899.

The novel attacks the role of the press as a fomenter of war. It is notable for its character Lee Hannaford, an inventor of destructive munitions, described by one expert on Gissing as ‘a grotesque, a ludicrous demon’ with ‘near mad Strangelovian inclinations’. Hannaford is used by the author to fix attention upon ‘a sinister aspect of industrialisation at the end of the nineteenth century’.

Here is Gissing’s depiction of the sanctum in which Hannaford works: ‘hung about with lethal weapons of many kinds and many epochs, including a memento of every important war waged in Europe since the date of Waterloo. A smoke-grimed rifle from some battlefield was in Hannaford’s view a thing greatly precious; still more, a bayonet with stain of blood; these relics appealed to his emotions. Under glass were ranged minutiae such as bullets, fragments of shells, bits of gore-drenched cloth or linen, a splinter of human bone – all ticketed with neat inscription. 

'A bookcase contained volumes of military history, works on firearms, treatises on (chiefly explosive) chemistry; several great portfolios were packed with maps and diagrams of warfare. Upstairs, a long garret served as laboratory, and here were ranged less valuable possessions; weapons to which some doubt attached, unbloody scraps of accoutrements, also a few models of cannon and the like.’

By contrast, the novel’s character John Jacks yearns for the day when a new world statesman appears: ‘I want someone to talk about Peace – and not from the commercial point of view,’ he tells us. ‘The slaughterers shan’t have it all their own way… civilization will be too strong for them, and if old England doesn’t lead in that direction, it will be her shame to the end of history.’

Sadly for the idealistic Gissing, it was a time of growing militarism and eventually a bloody war which consumed one of his two sons. Rifleman Walter Gissing died in a hail of shellfire on the first day of the Battle of the Somme at Gommecourt, aged 24; his body was never identified or buried in a marked grave in the ensuing chaos.

Photo of Gissing c.1880, from Wikipedia

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Otterton's pacifist connection: A.A. Milne

Just a few miles from Roger Conant’s birthplace of East Budleigh is the village of Otterton, home to one of Britain’s best known charities for helping the disabled.

Set up in memory of the late Clare Milne, granddaughter of the writer A.A. Milne, it seems only too appropriate that the charity includes helping injured armed forces veterans.

A.A. Milne himself, seen here, is celebrated today for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, along with his children’s poetry. Yet at a serious level he is known as the pacifist, revolted by the slaughter of WW1.

‘Tell the innocent visitor from another world that two people were killed at Sarajevo, and that the best that Europe could do about it was to kill eleven million more,’ he wrote in his book Peace with Honour, published in 1934. 

‘I want everybody to think (as I do) that war is poison, and not (as so many think) an over-strong, extremely unpleasant medicine,’ he explained.

Written six years later, his book War with Honour seemed to be a retraction of that pacifist thinking, faced with the rise of fascism and its evils. 

In one of his letters at this time, he declared himself a ‘practical pacifist’, writing: ‘I believe that war is a lesser evil than Hitlerism, I believe that Hitlerism must be killed before war can be killed.’

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