If the Left's position on international conflict was confused before the summer of 1914, it might be assumed that the rapid mobilisation of European militaries and the declarations of hostilities would have further divided and confounded the movement. Yet, on the contrary, the outbreak resulted in near-unanimous support for the war effort from across the labour movement. This chapter will examine events in August 1914, including the Left's acquiescence to the war, and how it managed to co-ordinate its response. It will discuss the principal characters in the ‘patriotic labour’ camp, and survey specific unions and ordinary workers who gave their support – and their lives – to the war effort. The progress of the war inevitably gave rise to anti-German hostility, and the motivations and implications of this will also be analysed. Finally, there will be a survey of ordinary trade unionists and labour activists who distinguished themselves during the conflict. In terms of both elite and subaltern levels, it will be argued that there was a decidedly united response from labour. Although enthusiasm for the war amongst the labour movement was rare, there was a general consensus that, once begun, it had to be seen through. Ultimately, this chapter argues that labour patriotism, rather than anti-war agitation, characterised the Left's response to the war, and that the history of labour patriotism in this period has been unjustly neglected by historians.

August 1914

Most leading individuals on the British Left remained firmly against the war in the days preceding the start of the conflict. The future ultrapatriot Ben Tillett condemned the war as ‘absolutely wanton and brutal in every feature’, while Will Thorne lamented the ‘utterly shattered’ hopes of internationalism. H.M. Hyndman was one of many leading leftists to have addressed a large peace meeting on 2 August, and Labour made plans to form a Peace Emergency Workers’ National Committee to co-ordinate the anti-war effort.