Agent of Peace

In the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) Emily Hobhouse championed the cause of the women and children herded into camps by Kitchener's army. By 1914, a confirmed pacifist, she felt passionately that civilians suffered more than combatants. Throughout the war she was anxious for a negotiated peace. Her 'Open Christmas Letter' of January 1915, calling for an end to hostilities, was answered in by 155 prominent pacifist and feminist German and Austrian women. In 1916 – extraordinarily – she obtained perm