The Struggle a Century Ago

The Struggle for Pacifism

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once.

Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

- Albert Einstein

Long before the Great War erupted in 1914, having had their sons, brothers and fathers taken forever in a distant fight, pacifists assembled locally and eventually abroad to form organizations and offer peaceful resolutions to potential conflicts arising between nations intent on war. At the outset of the World War One, with hostilities imminent, an international peace convention was actually taking place in Switzerland and many attendees en route witnessed city streets filled with patriotic celebrations and trains stations with soldiers enthusiastically heading to the frontlines.

Advocating peace, people who opposed war and had traveled to Constance to opine idealistically, nonetheless on August 2 appealed to their respective governments to end the escalating tensions and stop the frenzied mobilization of troops, and also sought the direct intervention of US President Woodrow Wilson to intervene and mediate a solution. Historians today estimate there were approximately 190 peace societies active in Europe at that time who between them published and distributed periodicals in at least ten languages.

In the few months after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in June, the European powers were finished rattling their sabres and officially went to war on August 4, fighting each other relentlessly and at great expense until 1918. Prior, the area known as the Balkans was ruled by the Turkish Ottomans and had for decades been widely disputed. In 1874, Bosnia and Herzegovina had rebelled and two years later Serbia declared war on Turkey. Sarajevo, where the assassinations had taken place, is located in Bosnia which had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908.

Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, at a peace conference hosted by Germany's Otto von Bismarck, without truly taking into consideration the Balkan peoples, Bosnia and Herzegovina were allowed to be occupied by Austro-Hungarian forces, and Cyprus was given to Britain. Russia's leaders had sided with the so-called Slavic nations of Eastern Europe seeking independence and desired to unite and in fact rule the Balkan peninsula. While Britain - seeking to maintain control of the vital trade route to India and its Pacific colonies via the Suez Canal (completed in 1869) - sided with Turkey.

By allocating these lands, peace had been achieved, but with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin, the Treaty of Stefano that had been signed three months earlier by Russia and Turkey was effectively replaced. The victorious Russians who had relieved the Ottomans of their territorial possessions in Europe now found their influence greatly diminished. Upon leaving Berlin, the leaders of Europe were satisfied, though many others were not, including those among the Russian and Ottoman empires. Underlying their goals, was the issue of religion - noticeable in Bulgaria.

Planting seeds for the World War One, the effects of the Treaty of Berlin were anything but peaceful, as Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro were declared independent principalities. Meanwhile Russia "kept" South Bessarabia, which it had annexed in its war against Turkey, though the Bulgarian state it had created was split into the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, both of which were given nominal autonomy under the control of the Ottoman Empire, where the Turkish government were obliged to guarantee the civil rights of non-Muslim subjects.