found the majority of the audience sympathetic so long as I con?ned myself
to industrial areas. In London, however, the matter was di?erent.
Cli?ord Allen,
6
the chairman of the No Conscription Fellowship, was a
young man of great ability and astuteness. He was a Socialist, and not a
Christian. There was always a certain di?culty in keeping harmonious rela-
tions between Christian and Socialist paci?sts, and in this respect he showed
admirable impartiality. In the summer of 1916, however, he was court-
martialled and sent to prison. After that, throughout the duration of the War, I
only saw him during the occasional days between sentences. He was released
on grounds of health (being, in fact, on the point of death) early in 1918, but
shortly after that I went to prison myself.
It was at Cli?ord Allen’s police court case when he was ?rst called up that I
?rst met Lady Constance Malleson, generally known by her stage name of
Colette O’Niel. Her mother, Lady Annesley, had a friendship with Prince
Henry of Prussia which began before the War and was resumed when the
War was over. This, no doubt, gave her some bias in favour of a neutral
attitude, but Colette and her sister, Lady Clare Annesley, were both genuine
paci?sts, and threw themselves into the work of the No Conscription Fellow-
ship. Colette was married to Miles Malleson, the actor and playwright. He had
enlisted in 1914, but had had the good luck to be discharged on account of a
slight weakness in one foot. The advantageous position which he thus
secured, he used most generously on behalf of the conscientious objectors,
having after his enlistment become persuaded of the truth of the paci?st
position. I noticed Colette in the police court, and was introduced to her. I
the autobiography of bertrand russell 234found that she was one of Allen’s friends and learned from him that she was
generous with her time, free in her opinions, and whole-hearted in her
paci?sm. That she was young and very beautiful, I had seen for myself. She
was on the stage, and had had a rapid success with two leading parts in
succession, but when the War came she spent the whole of the daytime
in addressing envelopes in the o?ce of the No Conscription Fellowship. On
these data, I naturally took steps to get to know her better.
My relations with Ottoline had been in the meantime growing less
intimate. In 1915, she left London and went to live at the Manor House
at Garsington, near Oxford. It was a beautiful old house which had been used
as a farm, and she became absorbed in restoring all its potentialities. I used
to go down to Garsington fairly frequently, but found her comparatively
indi?erent to me.
7
I sought about for some other woman to relieve my
unhappiness, but without success until I met Colette. After the police court
proceedings I met Colette next at a dinner of a group of paci?sts. I walked
back from the restaurant with her and others to the place where she lived,
which was 43 Bernard Street, near Russell Square. I felt strongly attracted,
but had no chance to do much about it beyond mentioning that a few days
later I was to make a speech in the Portman Rooms, Baker Street. When
I came to make the speech, I saw her on one of the front seats, so I asked
her after the meeting to come to supper at a restaurant, and then walked
back with her. This time I came in, which I had not done before. She was
very young, but I found her possessed of a degree of calm courage as great
as Ottoline’s (courage is a quality that I ?nd essential in any woman whom I
am to love seriously). We talked half the night, and in the middle of talk
became lovers. There are those who say that one should be prudent, but I do
not agree with them. We scarcely knew each other, and yet in that moment
there began for both of us a relation profoundly serious and profoundly
important, sometimes happy, sometimes painful, but never trivial and never
unworthy to be placed alongside of the great public emotions connected
with the War. Indeed, the War was bound into the texture of this love from
?rst to last. The ?rst time that I was ever in bed with her (we did not go to
bed the ?rst time we were lovers, as there was too much to say), we heard
suddenly a shout of bestial triumph in the street. I leapt out of bed and saw a
Zeppelin falling in ?ames. The thought of brave men dying in agony was
what caused the triumph in the street. Colette’s love was in that moment a
refuge to me, not from cruelty itself, which was unescapable, but from the
agonising pain of realising that that is what men are. I remember a Sunday
which we spent walking on the South Downs. At evening we came to Lewes
Station to take the train back to London. The station was crowded with
soldiers, most of them going back to the Front, almost all of them drunk, half
of them accompanied by drunken prostitutes, the other half by wives or
the first war 235sweethearts, all despairing, all reckless, all mad. The harshness and horror of
the war world overcame me, but I clung to Colette. In a world of hate, she
preserved love, love in every sense of the word from the most ordinary to the
most profound, and she had a quality of rock-like immovability, which in
those days was invaluable.
After the night in which the Zeppelin fell I left her in the early morning to
return to my brother’s house in Gordon Square where I was living. I met on
the way an old man selling ?owers, who was calling out: ‘Sweet lovely roses!’
I bought a bunch of roses, paid him for them, and told him to deliver them in
Bernard Street. Everyone would suppose that he would have kept the money
and not delivered the roses, but it was not so, and I knew it would not be so.
The words, ‘Sweet lovely roses’, were ever since a sort of refrain to all my
thoughts of Colette.
We went for a three days’ honeymoon (I could not spare more from work)
to the ‘Cat and Fiddle’ on the moors above Buxton. It was bitterly cold and
the water in my jug was frozen in the morning. But the bleak moors suited
our mood. They were stark, but gave a sense of vast freedom. We spent our
days in long walks and our nights in an emotion that held all the pain of the
world in solution, but distilled from it an ecstasy that seemed almost more
than human.
I did not know in the ?rst days how serious was my love for Colette. I had
got used to thinking that all my serious feelings were given to Ottoline.
Colette was so much younger, so much less of a personage, so much more
capable of frivolous pleasures, that I could not believe in my own feelings,
and half supposed that I was having a light a?air with her. At Christmas I
went to stay at Garsington, where there was a large party. Keynes was there,
and read the marriage service over two dogs, ending, ‘Whom man hath
joined, let not dog put asunder.’ Lytton Strachey was there and read us the
manuscript of Eminent Victorians. Katherine Mans?eld and Middleton Murry
were also there. I had just met them before, but it was at this time that I got to
know her well. I do not know whether my impression of her was just, but it
was quite di?erent from other people’s. Her talk was marvellous, much
better than her writing, especially when she was telling of things that she was
going to write, but when she spoke about people she was envious, dark, and
full of alarming penetration in discovering what they least wished known
and whatever was bad in their characteristics.
8
She hated Ottoline because
Murry did not. It had become clear to me that I must get over the feeling that
I had had for Ottoline, as she no longer returned it su?ciently to give me any
happiness. I listened to all that Katherine Mans?eld had to say against her; in
the end I believed very little of it, but I had become able to think of Ottoline
as a friend rather than a lover. After this I saw no more of Katherine, but was
able to allow my feeling for Colette free scope.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 236The time during which I listened to Katherine was a time of dangerous
transition. The War had brought me to the verge of utter cynicism, and I was
having the greatest di?cult in believing that anything at all was worth doing.
Sometimes I would have ?ts of such despair as to spend a number of succes-
sive days sitting completely idle in my chair with no occupation except to
read Ecclesiastes occasionally. But at the end of this time the spring came, and
I found myself free of the doubts and hesitations that had troubled me in
relation to Colette. At the height of my winter despair, however, I had found
one thing to do, which turned out as useless as everything else, but seemed to
me at the moment not without value. America being still neutral, I wrote an
open letter to President Wilson, appealing to him to save the world. In this
letter I said:
Sir,
You have an opportunity of performing a signal service to mankind, sur-
passing even the service of Abraham Lincoln, great as that was. It is in your
power to bring the war to an end by a just peace, which shall do all that could
possibly be done to allay the fear of new wars in the near future. It is not yet
too late to save European civilisation from destruction; but it may be too late
if the war is allowed to continue for the further two or three years with
which our militarists threaten us.
The military situation has now developed to the point where the ultimate
issue is clear, in its broad outlines, to all who are capable of thought. It must
be obvious to the authorities in all the belligerent countries that no victory
for either side is possible. In Europe, the Germans have the advantage; outside
Europe, and at sea, the Allies have the advantage. Neither side is able to win
such a crushing victory as to compel the other to sue for peace. The war
in?icts untold injuries upon the nations, but not such injuries as to make a
continuance of ?ghting impossible. It is evident that however the war may be
prolonged, negotiations will ultimately have to take place on the basis of
what will be substantially the present balance of gains and losses, and will
result in terms not very di?erent from those which might be obtained now.
The German Government has recognised this fact, and has expressed its
willingness for peace on terms which ought to be regarded at least as a?ord-
ing a basis for discussion, since they concede the points which involve the
honour of the Allies. The Allied Governments have not had the courage to
acknowledge publicly what they cannot deny in private, that the hope of a
sweeping victory is one which can now scarcely be entertained. For want of
this courage, they are prepared to involve Europe in the horrors of a continu-
ance of the war, possibly for another two or three years. This situation is
intolerable to every humane man. You, Sir, can put an end to it. Your power
constitutes an opportunity and a responsibility; and from your previous
the first war 237actions I feel con?dent that you will use your power with a degree of wisdom
and humanity rarely to be found among statesmen.
The harm which has already been done in this war is immeasurable. Not
only have millions of valuable lives been lost, not only have an even greater
number of men been maimed or shattered in health, but the whole standard
of civilisation has been lowered. Fear has invaded men’s inmost being, and
with fear has come the ferocity that always attends it. Hatred has become the
rule of life, and injury to others is more desired than bene?t to ourselves. The
hopes of peaceful progress in which our earlier years were passed are dead,
and can never be revived. Terror and savagery have become the very air we
breathe. The liberties which our ancestors won by centuries of struggle were
sacri?ced in a day, and all the nations are regimented to the one ghastly end
of mutual destruction.
But all this is as nothing in comparison with what the future has in store
for us if the war continues as long as the announcements of some of our
leading men would make us expect. As the stress increases, and weariness of
the war makes average men more restive, the severity of repression has to be
continually augmented. In all the belligerent countries, soldiers who are
wounded or home on leave express an utter loathing of the trenches, a
despair of ever achieving a military decision, and a terrible longing for peace.
Our militarists have successfully opposed the granting of votes to soldiers;
yet in all the countries an attempt is made to persuade the civilian population
that war-weariness is con?ned to the enemy soldiers. The daily toll of young
lives destroyed becomes a horror almost too terrible to be borne; yet every-
where, advocacy of peace is rebuked as treachery to the soldiers, though the
soldiers above all men desire peace. Everywhere, friends of peace are met
with the diabolical argument that the brave men who have died must not
have shed their blood in vain. And so every impulse of mercy towards the
soldiers who are still living is dried up and withered by a false and barren
loyalty to those who are past our help. Even the men hitherto retained for
making munitions, for dock labour, and for other purposes essential to the
prosecution of the war, are gradually being drafted into the armies and
replaced by women, with the sinister threat of coloured labour in the back-
ground. There is a very real danger that, if nothing is done to check the fury
of national passion, European civilisation as we have known it will perish as
completely as it perished when Rome fell before the Barbarians.
It may be thought strange that public opinion should appear to support all
that is being done by the authorities for the prosecution of the war. But this
appearance is very largely deceptive. The continuance of the war is actively
advocated by in?uential persons, and by the Press, which is everywhere
under the control of the Government. In other sections of Society feeling is
quite di?erent from that expressed by the newspapers, but public opinion
the autobiography of bertrand russell 238remains silent and uninformed, since those who might give guidance are
subject to such severe penalties that few dare to protest openly, and those few
cannot obtain a wide publicity. From considerable personal experience,
reinforced by all that I can learn from others, I believe that the desire for
peace is almost universal, not only among the soldiers, but throughout the
wage-earning classes, and especially in industrial districts, in spite of high
wages and steady employment. If a plebiscite of the nation were taken on the
question whether negotiations should be initiated, I am con?dent that an
overwhelming majority would be in favour of this course, and that the same
is true of France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary.
Such acquiescence as there is in continued hostilities is due entirely to fear.
Every nation believes that its enemies were the aggressors, and may make
war again in a few years unless they are utterly defeated. The United States
Government has the power, not only to compel the European Governments to
make peace, but also to reassure the populations by making itself the guaran-
tor of the peace. Such action, even if it were resented by the Governments,
would be hailed with joy by the populations. If the German Government, as
now seems likely, would not only restore conquered territory, but also give
its adherence to the League to Enforce Peace or some similar method of
settling disputes without war, fear would be allayed, and it is almost certain
that an o?er of mediation from you would give rise to an irresistible move-
ment in favour of negotiations. But the deadlock is such that no near end to
the war is likely except through the mediation of an outside Power, and such
mediation can only come from you.
Some may ask by what right I address you. I have no formal title; I am
not any part of the machinery of government. I speak only because I
must; because others, who should have remembered civilisation and human
brotherhood, have allowed themselves to be swept away by national passion;
because I am compelled by their apostacy to speak in the name of reason
and mercy, lest it should be thought that no one in Europe remembers the
work which Europe has done and ought still to do for mankind. It is to the
European races, in Europe and out of it, that the world owes most of what
it possesses in thought, in science, in art, in ideals of government, in hope
for the future. If they are allowed to destroy each other in futile carnage,
something will be lost which is more precious than diplomatic prestige,
incomparably more valuable than a sterile victory which leaves the victors
themselves perishing. Like the rest of my countrymen I have desired ardently
the victory of the Allies; like them, I have su?ered when victory has been
delayed. But I remember always that Europe has common tasks to ful?l; that a
war among European nations is in essence a civil war; that the ill which we
think of our enemies they equally think of us; and that it is di?cult in time of
war for a belligerent to see facts truly. Above all, I see that none of the issues
the first war 239in the war are as important as peace; the harm done by a peace which does
not concede all that we desire is as nothing in comparison to the harm done
by the continuance of the ?ghting. While all who have power in Europe speak
for what they falsely believe to be the interests of their separate nations, I am
compelled by a profound conviction to speak for all the nations in the name
of Europe. In the name of Europe I appeal to you to bring us peace.
The censorship in those days made it di?cult to transmit a document of this
sort, but Helen Dudley’s sister, Katherine, who had been visiting her, under-
took to take it back with her to America. She found an ingenious method of
concealing it, and duly delivered it to a committee of American paci?sts
through whom it was published in almost every newspaper in America. As
will be seen in this account, I thought, as most people did at that time, that
the War could not end in a victory for either party. This would no doubt have
been true if America had remained neutral.
From the middle of 1916 until I went to prison in May 1918, I was very
busy indeed with the a?airs of the No Conscription Fellowship. My times
with Colette were such as could be snatched from paci?st work, and were
largely connected with the work itself. Cli?ord Allen would be periodically
let out of prison for a few days, to be court-martialled again as soon as it
became clear that he still refused to obey military orders. We used to go
together to his courts-martial.
When the Kerensky Revolution came, a great meeting of sympathisers with
it was held in Leeds. I spoke at this meeting, and Colette and her husband
were at it. We travelled up in the train with Ramsay MacDonald, who spent
the time telling long stories of pawky Scotch humour so dull that it was
almost impossible to be aware when the point had been reached. It was
decided at Leeds to attempt to form organisations in the various districts of
England and Scotland with a view to promoting workers’ and soldiers’ coun-
cils on the Russian model. In London a meeting for this purpose was held at
the Brotherhood Church in Southgate Road. Patriotic newspapers distributed
lea?ets in all the neighbouring public houses (the district is a very poor one)
saying that we were in communication with the Germans and signalled to
their aeroplanes as to where to drop bombs. This made us somewhat
unpopular in the neighbourhood, and a mob presently besieged the church.
Most of us believed that resistance would be either wicked or unwise, since
some of us were complete non-resisters, and others realised that we were too
few to resist the whole surrounding slum population. A few people, among
them Francis Meynell, attempted resistance, and I remember his returning
from the door with his face streaming with blood. The mob burst in led by a
few o?cers; all except the o?cers were more or less drunk. The ?ercest were
viragos who used wooden boards full of rusty nails. An attempt was made by
the autobiography of bertrand russell 240the o?cers to induce the women among us to retire ?rst so that they might
deal as they thought ?t with the paci?st men, whom they supposed to be all
cowards. Mrs Snowden behaved on this occasion in a very admirable manner.
She refused point-blank to leave the hall unless the men were allowed to leave
at the same time. The other women present agreed with her. This rather upset
the o?cers in charge of the roughs, as they did not particularly wish to
assault women. But by this time the mob had its blood up, and pandemon-
ium broke loose. Everybody had to escape as best they could while the police
looked on calmly. Two of the drunken viragos began to attack me with their
boards full of nails. While I was wondering how one defended oneself
against this type of attack, one of the ladies among us went up to the police
and suggested that they should defend me. The police, however, merely
shrugged their shoulders. ‘But he is an eminent philosopher’, said the lady,
and the police still shrugged. ‘But he is famous all over the world as a man of
learning’, she continued. The police remained unmoved. ‘But he is the
brother of an earl’, she ?nally cried. At this, the police rushed to my assis-
tance. They were, however, too late to be of any service, and I owe my life to a
young woman whom I did not know, who interposed herself between me
and the viragos long enough for me to make my escape. She, I am happy to
say, was not attacked. But quite a number of people, including several
women, had their clothes torn o? their backs as they left the building. Colette
was present on this occasion, but there was a heaving mob between me and
her, and I was unable to reach her until we were both outside. We went home
together in a mood of deep dejection.
The clergyman to whom the Brotherhood Church belonged was a paci?st
of remarkable courage. In spite of this experience, he invited me on a sub-
sequent occasion to give an address in his church. On this occasion, however,
the mob set ?re to the pulpit and the address was not delivered. These were
the only occasions on which I came across personal violence; all my other
meetings were undisturbed. But such is the power of Press propaganda that
my non-paci?st friends came to me and said: ‘Why do you go on trying to
address meetings when all of them are broken up by the mob?’
By this time my relations with the Government had become very bad.
In 1916, I wrote a lea?et
9
which was published by the No Conscription
Fellowship about a conscientious objector who had been sentenced to
imprisonment in de?ance of the conscience clause. The lea?et appeared
without my name on it, and I found rather to my surprise, that those who
distributed it were sent to prison. I therefore wrote to The Times to state that I
was the author of it. I was prosecuted at the Mansion House before the Lord
Mayor, and made a long speech in my own defence. On this occasion I was
?ned ￡100. I did not pay the sum, so that my goods at Cambridge were sold
to a su?cient amount to realise the ?ne. Kind friends, however, bought them
the first war 241in and gave them back to me, so that I felt my protest had been somewhat
futile. At Trinity, meanwhile, all the younger Fellows had obtained commis-
sions, and the older men naturally wished to do their bit. They therefore
deprived me of my lectureship. When the younger men came back at the end
of the War I was invited to return, but by this time I had no longer any wish
to do so.
Munition workers, oddly enough, tended to be paci?sts. My speeches to
munition workers in South Wales, all of which were inaccurately reported by
detectives, caused the War O?ce to issue an order that I should not be
allowed in any prohibited area.
10
The prohibited areas were those into which
it was particularly desired that no spies should penetrate. They included the
whole sea-coast. Representations induced the War O?ce to state that they did
not suppose me to be a German spy, but nevertheless I was not allowed to
go anywhere near the sea for fear I should signal to the submarines. At
the moment when the order was issued I had gone up to London for the
day from Bosham in Sussex, where I was staying with the Eliots. I had to
get them to bring up my brush and comb and tooth-brush, because the
Government objected to my fetching them myself. But for these various
compliments on the part of the Government, I should have thrown up paci?st
work, as I had become persuaded that it was entirely futile. Perceiving,
however, that the Government thought otherwise, I supposed I might be
mistaken, and continued. Apart from the question whether I was doing any
good, I could not well stop when fear of consequences might have seemed to
be my motive.
At the time, however, of the crime for which I went to prison, I had ?nally
decided that there was nothing further to be done, and my brother had
caused the Government to know my decision. There was a little weekly
newspaper called The Tribunal, issued by the No Conscription Fellowship, and I
used to write weekly articles for it. After I had ceased to be editor, the new
editor, being ill one week, asked me at the last moment to write the weekly
article. I did so, and in it I said that American soldiers would be employed as
strike-breakers in England, an occupation to which they were accustomed
when in their own country.
11
This statement was supported by a Senate
Report which I quoted. I was sentenced for this to six months’ imprison-
ment. All this, however, was by no means unpleasant. It kept my self-respect
alive, and gave me something to think about less painful than the universal
destruction. By the intervention of Arthur Balfour, I was placed in the ?rst
division, so that while in prison I was able to read and write as much as I
liked, provided I did no paci?st propaganda. I found prison in many ways
quite agreeable. I had no engagements, no di?cult decisions to make, no fear
of callers, no interruptions to my work. I read enormously; I wrote a book,
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, a semi-popular version of The Principles of
the autobiography of bertrand russell 242Mathematics, and began the work for Analysis of Mind. I was rather interested in
my fellow-prisoners, who seemed to me in no way morally inferior to the
rest of the population, though they were on the whole slightly below the
usual level of intelligence, as was shown by their having been caught. For
anybody not in the ?rst division, especially for a person accustomed to read-
ing and writing, prison is a severe and terrible punishment; but for me,
thanks to Arthur Balfour, this was not so. I owe him gratitude for his interven-
tion although I was bitterly opposed to all his policies. I was much cheered,
on my arrival, by the warder at the gate, who had to take particulars about
me. He asked my religion and I replied ‘agnostic’. He asked how to spell it,
and remarked with a sigh: ‘Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they
all worship the same God.’ This remark kept me cheerful for about a week.
One time, when I was reading Strachey’s Eminent Victorians, I laughed so loud
that the warder came round to stop me, saying I must remember that prison
was a place of punishment. On another occasion Arthur Waley, the translator
of Chinese poetry, sent me a translated poem that he had not yet published
called ‘The Red Cockatoo’.
12
It is as follows:
Sent as a present from Annam –
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.
And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.
I had visits once a week, always of course in the presence of a warder, but
nevertheless very cheering. Ottoline and Colette used to come alternately,
bringing two other people with them. I discovered a method of smuggling
