be forgotten – ‘I sometimes wonder in my secret thoughts’, Mrs Ward confided,
‘whether we are not already beaten!’^50
With just a fortnight to plan the procession and deputation to Lloyd George,
to be held on 17 July, the staff in the WSPU office swung into action under the
direction of Grace Roe. Lord Northcliffe, the newspaper proprietor and also a
fierce critic of Asquith, was approached for his support, which he gladly gave;
he also promised that when the issue of women’s enfranchisement was raised
again, his newspapers would support the campaign. On notepaper headed
‘Women’s War Service’, with the address as Lincoln’s Inn House, Emmeline
sent out an appeal for volunteers, ‘re-casting’ the procession as the WSPU’s
rather than the government’s initiative.^51 She had lost none of her old touch as
in direct, simple language she noted that, if women were allowed to help the
war effort, it could make the difference between defeat and victory. ‘So grave is
our national danger, and so terrible is the loss of precious lives at the front due
to shortage of munitions, that Mr. Lloyd George, as Minister of Munitions, has
been asked to receive a deputation and hear women’s demand for the right to
make munitions and render other War Service. ... Will you help?’^52 The
Suffragetteprinted a call for 700 banner bearers, 300 marshals, 300 paper sellers
and 400 young women dressed in white and announced that it was ‘every
woman’s duty’ to march in the War Service Procession.^53
Emmeline was determined that this rally, which would include some ninety
bands playing hymns of the Allies and patriotic airs, would attract the maximum
publicity; she was not disappointed. Despite the high wind and driving rain, the
press coverage of the event was widespread and ecstatic, beyond the ‘wildest
dreams’ of the efficient WSPU Organisers.^54 ‘There has never been a procession
like it’, enthusedThe Observer. ‘The line of women, four abreast, stretched along
the Embankment from Westminster to Blackfriars. They were women of all
classes – ladies of title, working women, and in the majority women and girls of
the middle classes.’ It was a ‘perfect triumph of organisation’, claimed theDaily
Telegraph, ‘and demonstrated once more in a particularly striking manner the
capacity of women to plan big undertakings on successful lines’. All of the
20,000 marchers, clad in macintoshes or cloaks, were divided into 125 contin-
gents, each woman carrying a flag of the patriotic colours of the Union Jack –
red, white or blue – rather than the more familiar purple, white and green;
sometimes the colours were massed together, sometimes mingled. Some carried
banners with texts that declared, ‘Russian women are serving their country, why
cannot we?’, ‘For men must fight and women must work’, ‘Shells made by a wife
may save her husband’s life’, and ‘What women are doing in France we can do’.
In the pageant of the Allies, one of the most striking figures was the Madonna-
like woman draped in dark purple, bare footed in the mud, carrying a torn flag,
who typified Belgium at war, mourning over her children. Emmeline walked
immediately behind the pageant, with Annie Kenney, Lady Parsons, Mrs.
Mansel, Mrs. Grant and Miss Baker. Crowds of people, sometimes six deep,
lined the route, cheering especially the large contingent of nurses.^55
WAR WORK AND A SECOND FAMILY