Why Men Fight

The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp (Evanston, Illinois, 1944), p. 726.

2

² Principles of Social Reconstruction (London, 1916), p. 67.

3

³ Michael Holroyd, Lytton Strachey (London, 1968), vol. 2, p. 173.

4

⁴ Principles of Social Reconstruction, p. 167.

5

⁵ Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 1914– 1942 (London, 1968), vol. 2, p. 20.

6

⁶ Ibid., p. 76.

7

¹ On this subject compare Bernard Hart’s “Psychology of Insanity” (Cam-bridge University Press, 1914), chap. v, especially pp. 62–5.

8

² This was written before Christianity had become punishable by ten years’ penal servitude under the Military Service Act (No. 2). [Note added in 1916.]

9

¹ The blasphemy prosecutions.

10

² The syndicalist prosecutions. [The punishment of conscientious objectors must now be added, 1916.]

11

³ “In a democratic country it is the majority who must after all rule, and the minority will be obliged to submit with the best grace possible” (Westminster Gazette on Conscription, December 29, 1915).

12

⁴ “Some very strong remarks on the conduct of the ‘white feather’ women were made by Mr. Reginald Kemp, the Deputy Coroner for West Middlesex, at an inquest at Ealing on Saturday on Richard Charles Roberts, aged thirty-four, a taxicab driver, of Shepherd’s Bush, who committed suicide in consequence of worry caused by his rejection from the Army and the taunts of women and other amateur recruiters.

It was stated that he tried to join the Army in October, but was rejected on account of a weak heart. That alone, said his widow, had depressed him, and he had been worried because he thought he would lose his licence owing to the state of his heart. He had also been troubled by the dangerous illness of a child.

A soldier relative said that the deceased’s life had been made ‘a perfect misery’ by women who taunted him and called him a coward because he did not join the Army. A few days ago two women in Maida Vale insulted him ‘something shocking.’

The Coroner, speaking with some warmth, said the conduct of such women was abominable. It was scandalous that women who knew nothing of individual circumstances should be allowed to go about making unbearable the lives of men who had tried to do their duty. It was a pity they had nothing better to do. Here was a man who perhaps had been driven to death by a pack of silly women. He hoped something would soon be done to put a stop to such conduct” (Daily News, July 26, 1915).

13

⁵ By England in South Africa, America in the Philippines, France in Morocco, Italy in Tripoli, Germany in South-West Africa, Russia in Persia and Manchuria, Japan in Manchuria.