The press, propaganda and war resisters in Scotland at the time of the Great War

From the commencement of hostilities on 4 August 1914, the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in Scotland dismissed the claim that Britain’s war was a ‘just cause’ and consistently held to that line from then through to armistice on 11 November 1918. War hysteria quickly reached fever pitch and the British state rapidly took control of the railways, docks, impounded enemy ships, interned aliens and mobilised the British Territorial Army. The ILP feared the inevitable growth in state power and the militarisation of civil and industrial society and helped form the No-Conscription Fellowship (NCF) in November 1914: together they bore the brunt of the struggle against conscription. When conscription was introduced in January 1916, and extended in May of that year, the ILP and NCF members became Conscientious Objectors (COs). Indeed, three-quarter of all COs owed their primary allegiance to the ILP. Despite the clamour for war and vitriolic attacks on the ILP the party held true to its Internationalist Socialist principals and through the columns of its propaganda organ Forward it offered the people of Scotland the opportunity to consider a critique of the war at a time when few dissenting voices were heard. This short article paper provides a brief examination the role of war resisters and the attitude of the press and public to the anti-war movement in Scotland at the time of the Great War.