Dynamic Force, Trojan Horse
The First World War and its impact on
the Christian churches of Wales . . . .
As the franchise was extended during the Nineteenth century
Wales became increasingly opposed (at least electorally)to war. Henry Richard elected MP for Merthyr
Boroughs in the 1868 general election was a notable member of the Peace Society
which eschewed war, and despite being an anti-slavery activist was also opposed
to the American Civil War.
The 1900 election saw Wales vote for the generally
anti-Imperialist Liberals such as Lloyd George, as opposed to England which voted
heavily in favour of the Conservative under Lord Salisbury who promoted and waged
the South African War. This echoed the attitude of the principality fifteen
years earlier when Wales had overwhelmingly favoured the liberal Prime Minister
Herbert Gladstone who lost a great deal of support due his reluctance to
involve British forces in overseas ventures. Gladstone encountered particular
political difficulties when the death of General Gordon in Khartoum in 1885 was
blamed on him. His failure lay in his not sending a military force to rescue
the darling of the public in time. A failure which led Queen Victoria to publicly
rebuke him. The loss of the Liberal majority in the 1885 general election was
likely due to the death of “China Gordon, although support for him and the party
in Wales was overwhelming.
In 1914 the initial response of the churches and chapels to
the First World War was cautious. The outbreak of the war took many by
surprise, including almost the entirety of the British Cabinet. There were many
links between the Nonconformist tradition and Germany, through theology and
hymns, such as the well-known Christmas carol, Silent Night. In contrast, the
French with their can-can dance and their bordellos and their mixture of
Catholicism and revolutionary atheism were regarded as a somewhat dubious
nation with whom to ally.
The initial feeling among the public and among much of the political
leadership was that it would all be over by Christmas. It soon became obvious that
this was hopelessly optimistic as both sides dug trenches from the Swiss Alps
to the North Sea, and ammunition shortages began to become evident among the British
forces. The “Wizard Merlin,” David Lloyd George played a key role in fighting back,
not just against the Germans, but against the more insidious enemy of the British
government itself; not just the leadership of Prime Minister Asquith but
against the inertia of the British Civil Service. Starting the war as
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd-George proceeded to solve the weapons and
ammunition supply problems by way of the newly created Ministry of Munitions.
His brief stay at the War Office after the timely and convenient death of Lord
Kitchener was but a short step on the staircase to Number Ten Downing Street.
However, the Saviour of the nation was also the trojan horse
for the destruction of the Welsh church. Lloyd-George was a key figure in transforming
the pacifist tendency of much of the churchgoers in Wales into enthusiastic
support for the war. After all, he was Welsh, he could be trusted. Had he not promoted
disestablishment of the Anglican Church and promoted the interest of Welsh nonconformity
after the passage of the contentious Education Act of 1902? Was he not a Welsh speaker
and had he not promoted the interest of the Welsh working class by way of the
National Insurance Act and other measures of the early welfare state? At a meeting
of Welsh nonconformists in London’s Westminster city temple in November 1914,
Merlin had, with liberal use of Christian language, declared:
“As the Lord liveth we had entered into no conspiracy
against Germany . . .we are in the war from motives of purest chivalry to
defend the weak . . . [Belgium is] a poor little neighbour like Wales whose
home was broken into by a hulking bully.”[i]
Without the Christian resolve of its allies little Belgium would
surely perish. Others were even more explicit
as to the true nature of the battle. Congregationalist minster T. Esger James argued
that it was a clash between “truth and error, light and darkness, between righteousness
and unrighteousness, between Christ and Anti-Christ, between the beast and the
Son of Man.”[ii]
Some preachers used Lloyd George as their excuse for their
own enthusiastic promotion of the war effort. John Williams, Brynsiencyn even
appeared in the pulpit wearing the British army uniform. As the war dragged on conscription
was introduced and then expanded. Welsh speaking conscientious objectors s appeared
before tribunals to justify their stance. Few succeeded, partly because they lacked
proficiency in English, the language of the tribunals. Many of those unsuccessful
Welsh objectors found themselves doing hard labour, abused by the system to the
extent that some underwent “mock executions.” Any criticisms or reservations about
the war were dealt with harshly. The windows of Bala-Bangor theological college
were broken because its principal had dared to suggest that Britain’s’ entry into
the war was not wholly altruistic – to defend “plucky little Belgium” – but was
done out of reasons of power and national self-interest. D.R. Daniel, one time colleague
of Lloyd George suggested that inculcating hatred for the Germans, even in a war
such as this was “a negation of the Gospel.” Other minsters were vilified from
within their own congregations for less than wholehearted support of the war. Not
a few lost their jobs.
And when the war was over, there was a backlash. Many mothers,
bereft and heartbroken at the death of their sons in a war that gradually came
to be seen as a pointless and destructive conflict. protested the behaviour of
John Williams, Brynsiencyn, and others of his ilk. Many faithful Christians had
served at the front, whether as chaplains or as combatants. However, the religious
indifference that many worried about in 1914 had been accelerated by the harsh
realities of war. For many, such as Cynddelw Williams, who tried to arrange
services in 1919 for the South Wales Borderers and the Welsh Regiment at home
in Britain, the religious instinct appeared to have been killed by the war.
Many drifted away from the churches into secularism and the
Labour movement, finding meaning in the struggle forge a fairer and more just society.
Electorally, this was to the disadvantage of the previously nonconformist-supporting
Liberal party, already split between the followers of Asquith and the
supporters of Lloyd George. At the infamous Carlton Club Meeting in 1922, which
ended the premiership of Lloyd George, Conservatives warned of the “dynamic
force” that had destroyed the Liberal party. Nobody mentioned the deadly blow which
had struck the Christian churches in Wales.
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