i Opposition to the First World War in Wales Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cardiff University, 2016, by Aled Eirug ii Summary This thesis sets the opposition to the First World War in Wales in the context of the countrys tradition of activism in favour of peace and against a background of initial enthusiasm in favour of the War. It provides a critical assessment of the academic interpretation of Waless attitudes towards War, assesses the development of opposition to the continuation of the War from Autumn 1914 onwards, and describes the range of anti-war activity and analyses the sources of political and religious opposition to the War. It provides an analysis of the composition of opposition to the War on religious grounds in Wales, and considers the significance of the Christian pacifist organisation, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, together with a review of the extent of the opposition to the War within Nonconformist denominations. The significance of key individuals such as Principal Thomas Rees and key Welsh publications such as Y Deyrnas are highlighted, and particular consideration is given to the role of millenarian sects within the anti-war movement. The politically based anti-war movement in Wales is examined primarily through an analysis of the activities of the Independent Labour Party and its impact in two of its local strongholds, in Briton Ferry and Merthyr Tydfil. It also considers the role of the National Council for Civil Liberties and the No- Conscription Fellowship and those involved in industrial agitation against conscription in south Wales, and the extent to which this featured as part of the anti-war movement. This thesis provides an analysis of the numbers of conscientious objectors in Wales, their grounds for objection, their geographical distribution and their political and religious allegiances. It considers how the State dealt with the challenge of conscientious objection and how successful the anti-war movement was in challenging military conscription and support for the war in Wales. 300 words iii DECLARATION This work has not been submitted in substance for any other degree or award at this or any other university or place of learning, nor is being submitted concurrently in candidature for any degree or other award Signed. Date. This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. Signed.. Date.. This thesis is the result of my own independent work and investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by explicit references. The views expressed are my own. Signed.. Date.. I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed.. Date. Previously Approved Bar on Access I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loans after expiry of a bar on access previously approved by the Academic Standards and Quality Committee. Signed. Date. iv Abbreviations Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR) Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) Independent Labour Party (ILP) International Bible Students Association (IBSA) London School of Economics (LSE) Miners Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) National Archives (NA) National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) National Library of Scotland (NLS) National Library of Wales (NLW) No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF) Non-Combatant Corps (NCC) South Wales Miners Federation (SWMF) Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) Union of Democratic Control (UDC) Unofficial Reform Committee (URC) v Table of Contents Pages Introduction 1 Chapter One - Literature Review 9 i)ThehistoriographyofOppositiontotheGreatWar11 ii)OppositiontotheGreatWarinWelshhistoriography19 iii)OppositiontotheWarin‘labour’history31 iv)ReligiousoppositiontotheWar 35 v)LocalstudiesofoppositiontoWar40 Chapter Two - Religious Opposition to the War in Wales 44 i) Attitude of the Churches 48 ii) The Quakers and the Millenarian sects 55 iii) The religious anti-war movement in Wales 59 iv) The Fellowship of Reconciliation 65 v) A Soldiers Dream in Borrowed Clothes 80 Chapter Three - Political Opposition to the War in Wales - the 87 Independent Labour Party and the Advanced Men i) The Attitudes of the Independent Labour Party towards the War 89 ii) The organisation of the ILP in Wales, 1914-1918 95 iii) The Independent Labour Party in the Briton Ferry area 106 iv) The Merthyr Tydfil anti-war movement 120 vi) The Advanced Men and their Opposition to War 133 vii) The Impact of the 1917 Russian Revolutions 144 vi viii) The 1917 Comb-Out Ballot 150 Chapter Four - The organization of Opposition - the National 169 Council for Civil Liberties and the No-Conscription Fellowship i) The National Council for Civil Liberties 170 ii) The No-Conscription Fellowship 180 iii) The Policing and the Persecution of the NCF 195 Chapter Five - Conscientious Objectors in Wales 204 i) Enumerating COs in Wales 208 ii) How the State dealt with the Conscientious Objector 218 iii) The Non-Combatant Corps 222 iv) The Home Office Scheme 227 v) The Pelham Committee 245 vi) The Absolutists 249 vii) The Ultimate Price 258 viii) The Legacy of the Conscientious Objectors 262 Conclusion 265 Bibliography 280 1 Introduction This thesis is the first comprehensive study of the breadth and depth of the opposition to the Great War in Wales, and much of it is based on original primary source material from archives and personal collections in Wales and other parts of Britain. Little of this documentation has been explored hitherto in previous studies of the impact of the Great War on Wales. In addition to this valuable source material, this study has made extensive use of contemporary newspapers and these include those that provided t he most detailed coverage of the anti-war movement in Wales, the Merthyr Pioneer , Y Dinesydd , Y Deyrnas , as well as the mainstream newspapers of the period, including the South Wales Daily Post , the South Wales Daily News , Llais Llafur and the Western Mail. The subject of opposition to the Great War in Britain is described and assessed, with greatly varying degrees of thoroughness and detail, in numerous published histories of the labour movement, histories of religion during the Great War, histories of the security services, histories of the peace movement and pacifism, and in the history of conscientious objectors. But the subject of opposition to the War in Wales has been rarely discussed in any depth in the histories that describe opposition to the War. Within the British context, attempts to quantify and assess the activities of anti-war organisations on a local level have been comparatively rare, and no study has appeared hitherto that provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the opposition to the war in Wales. This thesis considers the literature published about opposition to the Great War in a British and a Welsh context, and is followed by an analysis of both the religious and political nature of the opposition to the War in Wales. It is then followed by a description of the extent of conscientious objection in Wales, and for the first time analyses the characteristics of the approximately nine hundred conscientious objectors from Wales. 1 2 The literature associated with opposition to the Great War in Britain is reviewed, and within that field, the literature that relates to attitudes to the Great War in Wales is examined in greater detail. Most general histories of the war in Wales have given scant attention to the prevalence of anti-war feeling and an important feature of this review of the Welsh literature is a study of those biographies and occasional local histories that have illuminated the extent of opposition to the war. This study separates the opposition to the war into two fundamental categories of religious and political opposition to the war. Whilst there was a strong degree of fusion between these two elements, which expressed itself in a moral objection to war, these broad categories help to define the nature and extent of the anti-war movement. The opposition to the war on religious grounds was overwhelmingly Christian pacifist and opposed absolutely to all war. Political opposition was more conditional and tended to oppose the Great War in particular, rather than all wars on principle. Many left wing political leaders such as Ramsay MacDonald and Keir Hardie opposed the War and highlighted its prime cause as a diplomatic blunder. Others who opposed the war on socialist grounds such as Arthur Horner and Nun Nicholas did so on the basis that they rejected it as an imperialist war between two capitalist classes, and believed in transforming imperialist struggle into socialist revolution. The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was the most significant political organisation opposed to the war, and included a wide range of anti- war views, but ameliorated its policy with a stout defence of workers conditions and safeguarding of the interests of soldiers and soldiers dependants. 1 The opposition to the war in Wales on religious grounds was initially muted and cowed by the shock of the onset of war, and the rapidity with which the treasured traditional nineteenth century ideals of pacifism were jettisoned. It 1 R.E. Dowse, Left in the Centre (Longmans, 1966), 21-24 2 3 was mainly through the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR) and the monthly magazine Y Deyrnas that the pacifist movement found its unique Welsh voice and gave succour and support to those individuals within the Nonconformist denominations who disagreed with the war on the grounds of their Christian faith. The leadership of the anti-war pacifist movement, concentrated in North Wales and possessing formidable intellectual influence, proved to be effective in driving support for conscientious objectors and making the notion of peace by negotiation more acceptable to members of Nonconformist denominations by the summer of 1917 at a time when the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, was calling for a knock-out blow against Germany.