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Norman Angell and The Great Illusion: An Episode In Pre-1914 Pacifism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Howard Weinroth
Howard Weinroth
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Extract

On 11 January 1910 Lord Esher, a permanent non-government member of the Committee of Imperial Defence and a close confidant of King Edward VII, dispatched these encouraging words to a relatively unknown journalist: ‘Your book can be as epoch making as Seeley's Expansion of England or Mahan's Sea Power. It is sent forth at the right psychological moment, and wants to be followed up.’ The recipient of the letter, a Mr Ralph Lane (better known under the pseudonym of Norman Angell), had just begun to receive recognition for his small monograph, Europe's Optical Illusion, later revised and expanded into its more celebrated version, The Great Illusion. Esher's words were prophetic. The Great Illusion ran into numerous editions: it sold over two million copies from 1910 to 1913, in 1939 over half a million, and was translated into twenty-five languages.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 1974 , pp. 551 - 574
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

1 The Angell Papers are lodged at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. I am deeply indebted to Dr E. V. Ferrill, Chairman of the Department of History of Ball State University, for having provided access to these papers and for his assistance in collecting the necessary documents.

2 Esher, Lord to Angell, Norman, II Jan. 1910, Norman Angell Papers (hereafter cited as A.P.), A–14–6.Google Scholar

3 See Hines, P. D., ‘Norman Angell: Peace Movement, 1911-:1915’ (unpublished D. Ed. dissertation, Ball Srate University, 1964), p. 18. Dr Hines must be credited with the initial sorting and cataloguing of Norman Angell's papers. His dissertation furnishes interesting data on the ‘Norman Angell’ movement from 1911 to 1915. As he points out, Angell was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for The Great Illusion and other literary contributions to the cause of international understanding. Among the distinguished personalities who signed the formal nomination were Bertrand Russell, J. M. Keynes, Harold Laski, G. P. Gooch, R. H. Tawney, John Dewey and J. A. Hobson (see p. 18).Google Scholar

4 It is not within the scope of this article ro plunge into a discussion of the diversity within the peace movement nor to essay an interpretation of the term ‘pacifism’. Elie HaléVy has shown the origin of the latter in The Rule of Democracy (London, 1961), p. 222Google Scholar, n. 1, but most historians who have grappled with the term admit it was often ambiguously used and extremely elusive. See Morris, A. J. A., Radicalism against War (London, 1972), pp. 198–9Google Scholar, n. 3 and Biscegalia, L. R., ‘Norman Angell and the “Pacifist’ Muddle’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XLV, 3 (05 1972), p. 105, n. 2. Suffice it to say that contemporaries of the period preceding the First World War who identified with pacifism generally shared a common faith that peace was not only the most practical and vital interest of the people, but that it was actually attainable in their time. The rational basis for this faith grew out of the Cobdenite and liberal view of evolutionary progress to which Norman Angell gave an immense boost in The Great Illusion.Google Scholar

5 Angell, Norman, After All (London, 1951), chs. 1–5. In this autobiography Angell sometimes misrepresents facts and misleads the reader as to his associations with colleagues, bur there is no better source for an insight into his early life.Google Scholar

6 Ibid. p. 105.

7 Ibid. pp. 106–7; also Angell, Norman, Patriotism Under Three Flags: A Plea for Rationalism in Politics (London, 1903), pp. 2–25.Google Scholar

8 Angell, , Europe's Optical Illusion (London, 1909), passim.Google Scholar

9 Parker, Percy to Angell, , 9 Feb. 1910Google Scholar: A.P., A–1–2; Hopkins, Tighe to Angell, , 6 Dec. 1910Google Scholar: A.P., C–1–18, and Angell, to Brailsford, H. N., 1 Nov. 1910Google Scholar (Copy): A.P., C–2–43. Brailsford, leader writer for the Nation, penned a glowing tribute to The Great Illusion, in which the originality and intellectual powers of the author were exaggerated by comparing him with Cobden.

10 Quarterly Review, ‘The New Pacifism's growing reputation is the attention that Ernest Barker paid to it in his Political Thought in England (London, 1915). For foreign appraisals of The Great Illusion see the New York Times, 12 Mar. 1911, the Boston Herald, 21 Jan. 1911 and La Revue, Dec. 1913.Google Scholar

11 Angell, to Brailsford, H. N., 1 Nov. 1910Google Scholar (Copy): A.P., C–2–43, and Angell, to Keir, Hardie, , 17 Mar. 1911: A.P., A–40–23.Google Scholar

12 Taylor, A. J. P., The Trouble Makers (Panther edition, 1969), p. 94.Google Scholar

13 Angell, to de Constant, Baron d'Estournelle, 31 Jan. 1911 (Copy); A.P., File Box B/uncatalogued folder.Google Scholar

14 Angell, to Jaurès, Jean, 12 May 1911Google Scholar (Copy): A.P., A–15–75; also document of German Parliamentary Commission for Arbitration and Peace sent to Angell, , 16 Mar. 1911 (Copy): A.P., C–11–66.Google Scholar

15 Angell, to Hardie, Keir, 17 Mar. 1911 (Copy): A.P., A–40–23. Similar complaints were echoed by W. T. Stead at this time: ‘The one thing a rich English pacifist never does is pay, pay, pay for the cause to which he professes to be devoted. The result is that we have two or three miserable societies endeavouring to rid the world from this curse of war without having cash enough in their lockers to pay for postage stamps.’ – Review of Reviews, Feb. 1911.Google Scholar

16 See Angell, After All, p. 170; Cf. Angell, to Massingham, H. W., [?] Apr. 1911Google Scholar (extract copy): A.P., A–77–12. Hardie was not terribly disappointed by Angell's withdrawal from the projected collaboration; the I.L.P. was shifting its emphasis from disarmament agitation to the questions of Land and Mines – see Hardie, Keir to Angell, , 20 May 1911: A.P., A–59–10.Google Scholar

17 See Angell, to Massingham, H. W., 4 June 1911 (Copy): A.P., A–19–6Google Scholar

18 Angell, to MrsCobden-Sickert, , 27 Dec. 1911 (Copy): A.P., A–20–1.Google Scholar

19 Butler, Nicholas Murray to Angell, , 15 Dec. 1911: A.P., A–19–21.Google Scholar

20 See No. 6 Divisional Council Minute Book of I.L.P., 10 Oct. 1912, I.L.P. Papers (London School of Economics); also Labour Leader, 29 Sept. and 6 Oct. 1911.

21 Angell, to MacDonald, , 8 June 1912 (Copy): A.P., R–44–4.Google Scholar

22 See Angell, Norman Report for 1912: A.P., A–10–17Google Scholar; also Angell, to Buxton, Noel, 30 July 1912 (Copy): A.P., C–60–8. Angell claimed that Bernstein and Südekum of the German Social-Democratic party favoured this proposal.Google Scholar

23 Angell, to Doncaster, Samuel, 15 Dec. 1911 (Copy): A.P., File Box B/uncatalogued folder.Google Scholar

24 See Address of Angell, Norman to the National Liberal Club, 31 Jan. 1912 – ‘War as a Capitalistic Venture’, pp. 13, 23: A.P., Miscellaneous.Google Scholar

25 See Robinson, Keith, Sir Edward Grey (London, 1971), p. 232 for the Foreign Secretary's interest in Angell's ideas.Google Scholar

26 Angell, , ‘Man v. The Statesman’, War and Peace, Oct. 1913.Google Scholar

27 Angell, to Smith, Wareham, 2 May 1911 (Copy): A.P., C–79–13.Google Scholar

28 George Barnes was distressed by the manner in which Angell treated Labour men, when he referred to their abundance of rhetoric and cheering but lack of enlightenment. Barnes, G. H. to Angell, , 8 Oct. 1913: A.P., C–89–5.Google Scholar

29 Hines, pp. 43–8.

30 Ibid. pp. 42–3.

31 Ibid. p. 42.

32 Esher, to Angell, , 8 Aug. 1912: A.P., A–57–1; also Hines, p. 49.Google Scholar

33 Esher, to SirMallet, Bernard, 4 Dec. 1913, quoted in Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher (London, 1938), III, 146Google Scholar. The truth is that Esher never intended the Foundation to be other than a centre for academic research. Angell's movement he regarded as having no connexion with the Radical peace party, but he apparendy thought that Angell's doctrine was worthy of propagating among the ‘civilized’ nations, for it would ‘help to draw Europe together’. See Esher, to Balfour, , 4 Oct. 1912Google Scholar in ibid. pp. 111–12.

34 See Balfour, A. J., ‘Anglo-German Relations’, an article written for Nord und Süd, in Speculative and Political Essays (London, 1920).Google Scholar

35 Esher, to Stamfordham, Lord, 26 Oct. 1913Google Scholar. Esher, , op. cit. p. 142; also see Viscount Esher, ‘A Mercenary or a Conscript Army’ in War and Peace, Nov. 1913, for Esher's views on abandoning the voluntary system of military service.Google Scholar

36 Angell, to DrButler, Nicholas Murray, 9 Sept. 1912 (Copy): A.P., A–17–17.Google Scholar

37 Memorandum for Mr Norman Angell from Harold Wright (undated but apparently prepared during the autumn of 1913): A.P., A–5–9. The memorandum provides material on Angell's efforts among Conservative groups, but there are also various letters in the A.P. files which indicate this.

38 Harold Wright saw only the bright prospects ahead: ‘His Lordship [Esher] is in a very sweet temper and has been calling L[angdon]-Davies and myself into consultation with regard to the proposed Garton extension [Angell minuted this – ‘?’]’; while Hilton was ‘steadily capturing the leading Conservatives’. Wright, Harold to Angell, , 1 Apr. 1914: A.P., C–9–11; also see Memorandum for Mr Norman Angell; A.P., A–15–19.Google Scholar

39 Angell to the Executive Committee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, [?] Aug. 1913 (Copy): A.P., A–7–19; also see Memorandum for Norman Angell from Harold Wright. It must be remembered that the reports reflect only what had been achieved within a very short period of time. Furthermore, the existence of the debating unions and urban clubs does not exhaust the extent of the movement's influence, which reached into such societies as the R.U.I.I.(the Society for the Right Understanding of International Interests) and maintained contacts with many local groups concerned with peace issues.

40 Esher, to Angell, , 28 Aug. 1913Google Scholar, quoted in Hines, pp. 61–3. The peace conference at Le Touquet, France was an inspiring affair for Angell's movement. For a list of the outstanding figures who attended see Report of Conference held at the Hermitage Hotel, Touquet, Le, 19–22 Sept. 1913: A.P., A–10–18.Google Scholar

41 Angell informed Sir Joseph Rowntree that his contribution enabled him to give his work ‘a much wider scope than if I were to depend merely on the co-operation of the Garton Foundation’. – Angell, to SirRowntree, Joseph, 4 Apr. 1913, quoted in Hines, p. 52; see also his acknowledgement of Brunner's assistance in A.P., A–15–22.Google Scholar

42 Harold Wright was the son of Charles Wright, a director of Lloyds Insurance and an old Gladstonian Liberal, and Geoffrey Toulmin, president of the Cambridge Liberal Club, was the son of Sir George Toulmin, Liberal M.P. for Bury.

43 Among those who lectured to the Cambridge War and Peace Society were G. L. Dickinson, G. M. Trevelyan, Noel Buxton, Sir Thomas Barclay and Bernard Pares.

44 See Report marked ‘onfidential’ in A.P., A–36–2; it provides the names of subscribers for shares in the ‘War and Peace’ company. The list of the signatories to the manifesto of the Neutrality League can be found in the Manchester Guardian, 3 Aug. 1914. Of the ‘Old Pacifists’ who were active in Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow one might mention J. W. Graham, Quaker Principal of Dalton Hall, Sir John and Lady Barlow of Stockport, D. M. Stevenson, Lord Provost of Glasgow, Lord Airedale (formerly Sir James Kitson) and T. E. Harvey, a Quaker member of parliament.

45 In a letter to the Executive Committee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Angell pointed out that in Manchester it was a body of local industrialists, including the Lord Mayor of the city, and chief members of the Chamber of Commerce, who were gathering funds for his movement and co-operating in every possible way. See Angell to the Executive Committee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [?] Aug. 1913 (Copy): A.P., A–7–19.

46 The only distinguished member of the ‘New Pacifism’ who issued from the working classes was John Hilton. As for working-class ‘Angell’ societies, one such group did spring up at Ilford.

47 See Miss Talmadge's, M. letter to War and Peace, Mar. 1914Google Scholar. Lord Welby also emphasized the need to win the workers to the peace movement when Angell addressed the National Liberal Club on 31 Jan. 1912 and so did Lady Barlow when she told an audience of the Peace Society of the carnest and idealistic response of railwaymen at Crewe to her lecture on world amity (Herald of Peace, 2 June 1913). Mr A. J. A. Morris has made some relevant comments on the relations between middle-class pacifism and the workers in ‘The English Radicals’ Campaign for Disarmament and the Hague Conference of 1907’, Journal of Modern History, XLIII, 3 (09. 1971), p. 378, n. 29.Google Scholar

48 Hobson, J. A. describes this ‘illusion’ in Democracy After the War (London, 1917), p. 88.Google Scholar

49 Angell, , The Great Illusion (London, 1912), pp. 80–96Google Scholar; also Angell, to Hughes, P., 29 Feb. 1912 (Copy): A.P., File Box B/uncatalogued folder.Google Scholar

50 Ibid. pp. 28, 46–61 and 64–6 also Angell, , Europe's Optical Illusion (London, 1909), pp. 53–6.Google Scholar

51 Angell is, of course, thinking primarily of the ‘white’ Colonies, but he believed that Crown Colonies tended to acquire the practical rights of self-governing colonies. Nevertheless, his position on this point is obviously simplistic. See Angell, The Great Illusion, ch. vii, pp. 107–9.

52 See Address delivered to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, ‘Results of Pacifist Effort’ [1913?]: A.P., A–61–10.

53 Letter and Syllabus of Angell, to Brett, Maurice, 22 June 1912, quoted in Hines, p. 83.Google Scholar

54 Grey, in H. of C , 13 Mar. 1911, 5 Parl. Deb., 22, c. 1985.Google Scholar

55 Halévy, Elie, History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century (6 vols., 1961 ed.), vi, p. 665Google Scholar, n.; also Turner, L. C. E., Origins of the First World War (Norton ed., 1970), p. 115.Google Scholar

56 For a friendly criticism of Angell's views on indemnity and The prosperity of small nations because they are unarmed, see O'Farrell, H. H. to Angell, , 11 May 1912: A.P., File Box B/uncatalogued folder.Google Scholar

57 Sydenham, Lord, ‘The Foundations of International Polity’, War and Peace, Apr. 1914; also Quarterly Review, Oct. 1912.Google Scholar

58 Smith, E. G., ‘Our Sordid Policy: Lest We Forget’, War and Peace, Nov. 1913.Google Scholar

59 Angell even offered to write a textbook for the Quakers (see Rowntree, Joseph to Angell, , 28 Apr. 1913: A.P., C–60–1). He was ‘filled all through with his creed’ as they were with the Inner Light (see Lady Courtney's Diaries, 5 July 1912, Courtney Collection in the London School of Economics).Google Scholar

60 Angell, , ‘Are We Sordid?’, War and Peace, Dec. 1913Google Scholar. Angell in his controversy with the exclusively ‘moral’ pacifists ceaselessly hammered home the idea that ‘self-interest and morality were not at variance’. See Angell, to Mead, Edwin, 18 Apr. 1913 (Copy): A.P., A–14–17.Google Scholar

61 Trevelyan, G. M., ‘Norman Angell's New Book’, War and Peace, Mar. 1914.Google Scholar

62 Darby, Evans, The Claim of the New Pacifism (London, 1913), p. 5Google Scholar. Darby, secretary of the Peace Society, was a vehement critic of the ‘New Pacifism’, yet he did not belittle its contribution. Interestingly enough, the Quakers were more in tune with Angell's approach; they argued that his intellectualism complemented the moral enthusiasm of the older organizations. See the letter of Graham, J. W. in War and Peace, Dec. 1913.Google Scholar

63 For a prominent Anglican churchman's views on the relevance of ‘Norman Angellism’ see the address of the Lord Bishop of Oxford at the Third Annual Meeting of the Church of England Peace League, held in Church House, Westminster, 29 January 1914. It appeared in pamphlet form as War and Christianity.

64 See Weinrorh, H., ‘Left-wing Opposition to Naval Armaments in Britain before 1914’, Journal of Contemporary History, vi, 4 (1971); also A. J. A. Morris in Radicalism against War, p. 166 for the feeble reaction of the Reduction of Armaments Committee to the naval estimates of 1910. Additional proof of the weakening of the pacifist position can be found in the Herald of Peace of Apr. and June 1909, which alludes to tried and tempered spokesmen for Anglo-German amity who now expressed a more critical attitude towards Germany and justified naval expansion. Stead's views were heterodoxical. His ‘two-keels-to-one’ slogan was not intended to be an attack upon Germany, and indeed during the Agadir crisis he vented his wrath not on the Germans but the Anglo-French entente.Google Scholar

65 Concord, Mar. 1911. This peace organ detected a danger that the Anglo-American arbitration treaty would be transformed into an alliance. The same fears were voiced by Angell and Keir Hardie.

66 Angell, , The Great Illusion, pp. 50 and 54; also Europe's Optical Illusion, p. 118. Angell's insights were not his own but those of Hartley Withers in The Meaning of Money.Google Scholar

67 Angell, , The Great Illusion, pp. 151–2. Angell noted that the ‘same order of economic and commercial considerations played a predominant though not so conspicuous role in German policy in 1905’ (p. 152).Google Scholar

68 See Angell, to Buxton, Noel, 10 Nov. 1911Google Scholar (Copy): A.P., File Box B/uncatalogued folder; and Angell, to Hobson, J. A., 15 Sept. 1911 (Copy): A.P., R–44–5.Google Scholar

69 See ‘War as a Capitalistic Venture’, Angell's Address to the National Liberal Club on 31 Jan. 1912: A.P., Miscellaneous.

70 Brailsford, , ‘The Public and the WarTraders’, Nation, 4 July 1914.Google Scholar

71 The Times, 12 07 1913. Lloyd George made no reference to Angell in his speech. It is therefore quite likely that he was not directly influenced by Angell, but merely stating a proposition that had gained currency at the time.Google Scholar

72 See report of Mr Churchill's, speech at Sheffield, Manchester Guardian, 31 Oct. 1912Google Scholar; Cf. Hurd's, Archibald article in the Fortnightly Review, Dec. 1912.Google Scholar

73 Angell, , Peace Theories and the Balkan Wars (London, 1912), passim; also interview with Manchester Guardian, 18 Oct. 1912. Though most pacifists were Gladstonians on the Balkan question and had few qualms about forcibly removing the Turks from Europe, they would have preferred less violent means.Google Scholar

74 Angell, Manchester Guardian, loc. cit. and Peace Theories and the Balkan Wars, pp. 25,. 33–6.

75 Pacifists, and peace spokesmen, condemned the War of 1914 and British intervention in it for a variety of reasons; but, above all else, they ascribed its outbreak to a mischievous conception of diplomacy which failed or refused to grasp the underlying meaning of Angell's theories.

76 See Angell's address to the Inter-parliamentary Union, ‘The Pacifist Effort’, p. 3: A.P., A–61–10.

77 Nation, 8 Mar. 1913.

78 For Liebknecht's revelations see Karl Liebknecht, ‘Die Vaterlandsloskeit das Kapitals’ (Rede im Reichstag am 18 Apr. 1913), Ausgewählte Reden, Briefe und Aufsätze (Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1952), p. 192. Liebknecht demonstrated how Krupp's agents had obtained mendacious articles in the French press purporting to France's intended increase in arguments so that Germany might be launched on a similar course. Radical reaction to the revelations was highlighted in a series of articles in the Daily News, 20 to 28-May 1913; also in Concord, June 1913.Google Scholar

79 Manchester Guardian, 22 Apr. 1913.

80 Newbold, J. T. Walton, ‘How Monopolies Control the Press and Foreign Policy’, Labour Leader, 11 Sept. 1913Google Scholar. See also George Aitken's article, ‘Great Illusion or the Economics of War’ in Forward, 8 Mar. 1913 and Johnston's, Tom ‘The Right to Work’, Forward, 17 Feb. 1913.Google Scholar

81 See Anderson, W. C., ‘War and Workers’, Labour Leader, 8 Jan. 1914Google Scholar; also ‘Pacifists on War Path’ in Justice, 1 Jan. 1914 and Angell, , ‘Capitalism and War’, Labour Leader, 6 Oct. 1911Google Scholar. Of course, the real difference between Angell and the left-wing socialists was that while Angell refused to define his armament profiteers, the latter, as evidenced by Newbold's, Walton series of articles to the Labour Leader in 1913, saw them as intricately connected with capitalist industry, finance and even the Liberal party.Google Scholar

82 Newbold, J. T. Walton, ‘Why We Fight War Trusts’, Labour Leader, 4 Dec. 1913. Newbold, despite his fulminations against ‘Angellism’, was in 1914 ‘most sceptical of the great financial interests in the “City” allowing the Government to go to war against Germany and Austria-Hungary’. See the auto-biographical notes of J. T. Walton Newbold, The Walton Newbold Papers, Manchester University.Google Scholar

83 For a perceptive and illuminating analysis of the split which occurred in the peace movement during the 1930s, see L. R. Biscegalia, op. cit.

84 For a man who wished to keep aloof from internal political associations it is certainly odd that Angell offered E. D. Morel political assistance in his constituency of Birkenhead, Angell, to Morel, , 3 Feb. 1914 (Copy): A.P., A–11–3.Google Scholar

85 Angell, , ‘The Clever Mr Churchill’, War and Peace, Nov. 1911. Evidence of increased activity among Radical politicians to establish closer links with Germans who were equally concerned about Anglo-German friendship can be found in the papers of Sir Charles Trevelyan.Google Scholar

86 Angell, , ‘The Unsound Foundations’, an article written for the Nation, 8 Aug. 1914 – found in typescript in A.P., A–58–20 (my italics).Google Scholar

87 Angell's view of the ultimate power that would provide peace was ‘ourselves, the correction of our ideas, the growing sanity of our minds’. Neither the actions of bankers, diplomats, emperors nor any new combination of military powers could serve as a substitute. Angell, , ‘Man v. The Statesman’, War and Peace, Oct. 1913.Google Scholar