Freepedia
is a series of free encyclopaedias. We currently specialize in history
but we intend to branch out into other areas. This section is about
the Manchester Guardian.
Charles
Prestwich Scott, the owner of the Manchester
Guardian, initially opposed Britain's involvement in the First
World War. Scott supported his friends, John
Burns, John Morley and Charles
Trevelyan, when they resigned from the government over this issue.
As he wrote at the time: "I am strongly of the opinion that the
war ought not to have taken place and that we ought not to have become
parties to it, but once in it the whole future of our nation is at stake
and we have no choice but do the utmost we can to secure success."
During the summer of 1914 most of the newspaper's writers, including
C. E. Montague, Leonard
Hobhouse, Herbert Sidebottom, Henry
Nevinson, and J. A. Hobson had called
for Britain to remain neutral in the growing conflict in Europe. However,
once war was declared, most gave their support to the government.
J. A. Hobson remained opposed to Britain's
involvement and joined the and anti-war organisation, the Union
of Democratic Control (UDC). Hobson served on the UDC's executive
council and wrote the book Towards International
Government (1914) which advocated the formation of a world
body to prevent wars.
C. E. Montague, although forty-seven with
a wife and seven children, volunteered to join the British
Army. Grey since his early twenties, Montague died his hair in an
attempt to persuade the army to take him. On 23rd December, 1914, the
Royal Fusiliers accepted him and he joined the Sportsman's Battalion.
Montague was later promoted to the rank of second lieutenant and transferred
to Military Intelligence. For the next two years he had the task of
writing propaganda for the British Army
and censoring articles written by the five authorized English journalists
on the Western Front (Perry
Robinson, Philip Gibbs, Percival
Phillips, Herbert Russell and Bleach
Thomas). Howard Spring, another of the
newspaper's writers, also worked for the Military Intelligence in France.
Henry Nevinson, the newspaper's main war
reporter, was highly critical of the tactics used by the British
Army but was unable to get this view past the censors. C.
P. Scott and Leonard Hobhouse opposed
conscription introduced in 1916 and
the following year supported attempts made by Arthur
Henderson to secure a negotiated peace.
Manchester
Guardian: Wikipedia
Manchester
Guardian: Spartacus
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Debates
War
Propaganda Bureau
Manchester
Guardian
(1)
Editorial in The Manchester Guardian
(27th July, 1914)
On the whole, English newspapers have avoided taking sides in the quarrel.
All with, we think, only with one exception (the Morning Post)
have recognised the extreme provocation that Austria has received, and
her right to take the strongest measures to secure the punishment of
all concerned in the assassination of the Crown Prince.
(2)
Editorial in The Manchester Guardian
(30th July, 1914)
If Russia makes a general war out of a local war it will be a crime
against Europe. If we, who might remain neutral, rush into the war or
let our attitude remain doubtful, it will be both a crime and an act
of supreme and gratuitous folly.
(3)
C. P. Scott, editor of the Manchester
Guardian, wrote a letter to Charles Trevelyan
suggesting that he should not publish a pamphlet he had written that
raised doubts about the reported atrocities being committed by the Germans
in Belgium (5th September, 1914)
It would be expedient to hold back the pamphlet. The war is at present
going badly against us and any day may bring more serious news. I suppose
that as soon as the Germans have time to turn their attention to us
we may expect to see their big guns mounted on the other side of the
Channel and their Zeppelins flying over Dover and perhaps London. People
will be wholly impatient of any sort of criticism of policy at such
a time and I am afraid that premature action now might destroy any hope
of usefulness for your organisation (Union of Democratic Control) later.
I saw Angell and Ramsay MacDonald yesterday afternoon and found that
they had come to the same conclusion.
(4)
H. W. Nevinson, The
Manchester Guardian (14th April, 1916)
After the strain of carefully organised preparations, the excitement
of the final hours was extreme, but no signs of anxiety were shown.
Would the sea remain calm? Would the moon remain veiled in a thin cloud?
Would the brigades keep time and place? Our own guns continued firing
duly till the moment for withdrawal came. Our rifles kept up an intermittent
fire, and sometimes came sudden outbursts from the Turks.
Mules neighed, chains rattled, steamers hooted low, and sailor men shouted
into megaphones language strong enough to carry a hundred miles. Still
the enemy showed no sign of life or hearing, though he lay almost visible
in the moonlight across the familiar scene of bay and plain and hills
to which British soldiers have given such unaccustomed names.
So the critical hours went by slowly, and yet giving so little time
for all to be done. At last the final bands of silent defenders began
to come in from the nearest lines. Sappers began to come in, cutting
all telephone wires and signals on their way. Some sappers came after
arranging slow fuses to kindle our few abandoned stores of biscuits,
bully beef, and bacon left in the bends of the shore.
Silently the staffs began to go. The officers of the beach party, who
had accomplished such excellent and sleepless work, collected. With
a smile they heard the distant blast of Turks still labouring at the
trenches - a peculiar instance of labour lost. Just before three a pinnace
took me off to one of the battleships. At half-past three the last-ditchers
put off. From our familiar northern point of Suvla Bay itself, I am
told, the General commanding the Ninth Army Corps was himself the last
to leave, motioning his chief of staff to go first. So the Sulva expedition
came to an end after more than five months of existence.
(5)
C. P. Scott, letter to Arthur
Balfour about the threaten introduction of military
conscription (2nd January, 1916)
You know that I was honestly willing to accept compulsory military
service, provided that the voluntary system had first been tried out,
and had failed to supply the men needed and who could still be spared
from industry, and were numerically worth troubling about. Those, I
think, are not unreasonable conditions, and I thought that in the conversation
I had with you last September you agreed with them. I cannot feel that
they had been fulfilled, and I do feel very strongly that compulsion
is now being forced upon us without proof shown of its necessity, and
I resent this the more deeply because it seems to me in the nature of
a breach of faith with those who, like myself - there are plenty of
them - were prepared to make great sacrifices of feeling and conviction
in order to maintain the national unity and secure every condition needed
for winning the war.
(6)
Herbert Sidebottom, The Manchester
Guardian (18th July, 1916)
To expose human flesh and blood to the malignity of machine-guns
is not scientific war but the untutored valour of the savage. What we
seem to need for operations of this nature is some kind of armour which
would enable the attack to get to close quarters with the defence without
suffering such heavy losses. The defence is in effect wearing armour
- the armour of a wall of bullets from their machine-guns besides the
wall of masonry. The attack should have armour too, and as in those
close operations the support of heavy artillery is out of the question
the real parallel is not with anything known in field operations but
with street fighting.
(7) C. P. Scott,
recorded in his diary comments made by David
Lloyd George at a private meeting on 27th December, 1917.
I listened last night, at a dinner given to Philip Gibbs on
his return from the front, to the most impressive and moving description
from him of what the war (on the Western Front) really means, that I
have heard. Even an audience of hardened politicians and journalists
were strongly affected. If people really knew, the war would be stopped
tomorrow. But of course they don't know, and can't know. The correspondents
don't write and the censorship wouldn't pass the truth. What they do
send is not the war, but just a pretty picture of the war with everybody
doing gallant deeds. The thing is horrible and beyond human nature to
bear and I feel I can't go on with this bloody business.
