In December 1914, a group of suffragists and social reformers, including Emily Hobhouse, Isabella Ford, Helen Bright Clark, Margaret Clark Gillett, Sophia Sturge and her sister Lily, and Catherine Courtney, Baroness Courtney of Penwith, addressed a letter through the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance, to the women of Germany and Austria urging them to join them in calling for a truce. Dutch suffragists, led by Aletta Jacobs, proposed holding a Women’s International Congress at The Hague. Sophia Sturge was on the Committee to organize British participation. 180 British women wanted to attend and 25 were given passports. However, they were barred from travelling by the British Government at the last minute and were attacked in the press as unpatriotic and pro-German. In the end, only three British women managed to make their way to The Hague.