Mary Sheepshanks

[John Simkin]

Mary Sheepshanks was one of the leading figures who campaigned against the First World War. She later wrote: "The war brought me as near despair as I have ever been... That many of the best men in every country should forswear their culture, their humanity, their intellectual efforts... to wallow in the joys of regimentation, brainlessness, and... the primitive delights of destruction! For they did... everywhere, in every belligerent country, men were doing the same things; patriotically rushing to the defence of their homes and loved ones, taunting and imprisoning, (if they did not shoot) the small number of young men who refused to join them; and disseminating and believing the same atrocity stories against each other. It was lonely in those days. I felt that men had dropped their end of the burden of living, and left women to carry on."

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