page_title: Open Christmas Letter
section_title: Peace initiatives
hierarchical_section_title: Open Christmas Letter / Peace initiatives
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Carrie Chapman Catt from 1914.
context_page_description: The Open Christmas Letter was a public message for peace addressed "To the Women of Germany and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British suffragists at the end of 1914 as the first Christmas of the First World War approached. The Open Christmas Letter was written in acknowledgment of the mounting horror of modern war and as a direct response to letters written to American feminist Carrie Chapman Catt, the president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, by a small group of German women's rights activists. Published in January 1915 in Jus Suffragii, the journal of the IWSA, the Open Christmas Letter was answered two months later by a group of 155 prominent German and Austrian women who were pacifists. The exchange of letters between women of nations at war helped promote the aims of peace, and helped prevent the fracturing of the unity which lay in the common goal they shared, suffrage for women.
context_section_description: Directly after war broke out in August 1914, Rosika Schwimmer, a native of Austria–Hungary working in England but prevented by war from returning home, outlined her idea for an international conference of neutrals to mediate between warring nations. In September 1914, Marie Stritt, president of the German Union for Woman Suffrage, wrote to Carrie Chapman Catt in America with "deep personal regret" for the "terrible war" to say that the women of Germany must withdraw their invitation to the annual IWSA International Alliance meeting in June 1915 which was to convene in Berlin. In December 1914 Julia Grace Wales, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, expanded eloquently on the concept, and published her views in a pamphlet entitled "Continuous Mediation Without Armistice", popularly known as the Wisconsin Plan. Taking these messages as her inspiration, Catt proposed that, instead of holding a woman suffrage convention in Berlin, an international peace congress of women should meet in The Hague for four days beginning 28 April 1915.
  When this announcement reached the UK, the NUWSS was divided on the one hand by patriots such as Fawcett and on the other by the signers of the Christmas letter who wished to send peace delegates. However, the majority of the NUWSS were nationalistic more than they were peace-minded—they were primarily concerned with helping the UK men win the war. The NUWSS membership rejected a resolution favoured by Helen Bright Clark and Margaret Bondfield which would have supported a delegation of women at The Hague. Because of this, Margaret Ashton resigned from the NUWSS and was subsequently censured by her local Manchester branch of suffragists. As well, Helena Swanwick and Maude Royden resigned from the NUWSS and made plans to attend at The Hague.
  At The Hague, between 28 April and 1 May 1915, a large congress of 1,150 women from North America and Europe gathered to discuss peace proposals. The event was called the International Congress of Women, or the Women's Peace Congress. A planned contingent of 180 British women was greatly reduced to just three persons by the government cancellation of British ferry service across the English Channel, stranding Royden and Swanwick, among others. Having already travelled to Flushing, Netherlands on a mission of mercy in late October 1914 to provide food for refugees from the fall of Antwerp, Chrystal Macmillan was able to attend the women's conference and speak for the UK. Macmillan, a signer of the Open Christmas Letter, had previously resigned from the NUWSS when its refusal to stand against the war had become clear. Macmillan was selected as one of the international committee who would travel to neutral nations and champion the proposal of the Congress. The Wisconsin Plan was unanimously adopted as the optimum method for returning peace to the world, and Macmillan, Schwimmer and the committee travelled to the neutral US to present President Woodrow Wilson with the plan. Many of the women's peace proposals were used by Wilson in his Fourteen Points, and the women's efforts helped encourage the later founding of the League of Nations.
caption: Carrie Chapman Catt aided the interchange of peace wishes between women of warring nations.
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