One hundred years ago today the first Christmas of the Great War was nigh. The famous, tireless, humanitarian and feminist Emily Hobhouse organised and published a heartfelt "Open Christmas Letter from Manchester Suffragettes to The Women of Germany and Austria".
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"Sisters,
"Some of us wish to send you a word at this sad Christmastide. The Christmas message sounds like mockery to a world at war, but those of us who wished and still wish for peace may surely offer a solemn greeting to such of you who feel as we do.
"Though our sons are sent to slay each other, and our hearts are torn by the cruelty of this fate, yet through pain supreme we will be true to our common womanhood.
"Do you not feel that the vast slaughter of our opposing armies is a stain on civilisation and Christianity, and that still deeper horror is aroused at the thought of those innocent victims, the countless women, children, babes, old and sick, pursued by famine, disease and death in the devastated areas, both East and West?
"We must all urge that peace be made with appeal to Wisdom and Reason ... if we are to save womanhood and childhood as well as the manhood of Europe.
"Even through the clash of arms we treasure our poet's vision, and already we seem to hear "A hundred nations swear that there shall be/Pity and Peace and Love among the good and free."
"May Christmas hasten that day. We are yours in this sisterhood of sorrow,
EMILY HOBHOUSE [and many others]."
