The Pankhursts and the War: Suffrage magazines and First World War propaganda

With the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst dramatically changed the course of their militant campaign. Instead of fighting against the Government, they joined forces with their old Liberal adversaries, including Lloyd George, to support the war effort. Accordingly, they employed their periodical of the preceding years, The Suffragette, as a valuable resource for spreading the new word, renaming it Britannia to reinforce their patriotic and imperialist intent. On the other side of London, in the East End district of Poplar where she had set up her headquarters, Sylvia Pankhurst, the renegade sister, also changed the emphasis of her social campaigning. Sylvia had broken with her mother and sister two years earlier, when it became clear that the differences in their political ideas were irreconcilable. Sylvia's path lay in the fight for social reform for the working classes of the East End; men, women and children. A feminist she remained, but a socialist feminist, and, with the onset of the War, a pacifist as well, fervently articulating her views on all three ideologies through the mouthpiece of her organisation, The Woman's Dreadnought. This article explores the literary response of the Pankhursts and their associates to the War, contrasting the patriotic zeal of Britannia with the radicalism of The Dreadnought, asking how these New Women used the press to win support for their various ideas. What devices did they employ and how successfully were they received by their contemporary readers?