by Pete Goddard and Atul Hatwal
By 1914, Labour’s internal politics were in a well-worn rut. The routine was familiar: socialists complained about the party’s moderation, moderates complained that the socialists were making the party unelectable and strikers up and down the nation didn’t care what either of them had to say, they had a nationwide wave of industrial unrest to organise.
Then, in summer 1914, Germany’s Kaiser did his holiday planning. France looked nice, but he didn’t want to go abroad. So what better solution than to make France part of Germany? He was a problem solver, that Kaiser.
Kaiser’s top tip – recycle those leftover Christmas baubles into a stylish and practical outfit
So he gathered a few hundred thousand of his closest friends and began stockpiling sun cream, beach towels and heavy artillery.
On 29th July, alarmed by the accumulation of passports and spiky hats in Germany, Keir Hardie represented British labour at a meeting of the International Socialist Bureau (contrary to the title, not a dispensary for people looking to hire or purchase a continental socialist). They “resolved unanimously that it shall be the duty of the workers of all nations concerned not only to continue but to further intensify their demonstrations against the war, for peace, and for the settlement of the Austro-Serbian conflict by international arbitration…”
The problem was that, for many working class Brits, workers sticking up for workers was all very well, but these guys were foreigners, so surely they didn’t count. There was much enthusiasm for nipping over to Germany to stick it to the sausage munchers.
