The War Rages On 913When Dutch socialists initiated a peace conference in Stockholm in
December 1917, Britain prohibited British citizens from attending. The
poet Siegfried Sassoon, wounded at the front, returned to England and
publicly declared, “I believe the War is being deliberately prolonged by
those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am act
ing on behalf of soldiers.” After being incarcerated in a mental asylum, he
returned to the front because of his allegiance to his comrades. There he
was wounded again.
In the meantime, the French government faced different problems on the
home front than those confronting Britain. The German armies occupied
some of France s richest agricultural land and industrial centers of the north
and northeast. Refugees from the war zone arrived in Paris and, increasingly,
the south carrying their remaining possessions. But the French home front
held together, despite ebbs and flows in morale as the war went on and on.
Although there was grumbling about peasants who profited from price rises
for commodities, or about specialist workers exempt from conscription
because munitions factories required their skills, and about other “shirkers”
who escaped service, there were relatively few signs of opposition to the war
in France, particularly early on. The government s decision in the war’s first
month to provide some financial assistance to families with husbands, broth
ers, and sons in uniform was popular. The French gradually adapted to the
war. With the German army deep inside France, close to Paris, capitulation
was unthinkable, as was even a negotiated settlement.
The German home front also held together. Posters showed an ogre-like
British “John Bull” with the caption “This man is responsible for your
hunger.” However, in 1917 signs of war weariness increased as casualties
reached astronomic levels and rumors spread that the campaign of unre
stricted submarine warfare against the Allies was failing. Open criticism of