ABSTRACT
In February 1915 Aletta Jacobs, Holland’s first woman doctor, pioneer of birth control and leading suffragist, cabled women’s organizations all over the world calling for an International Women’s Congress to protest against the ‘Great World War’ and to try to prevent any recurrence. Very soon after World War One broke out, a second Cassandra emerged: Mary Sheepshanks, the editor of the International Women’s Suffrage Movement periodical lus Suffragii. Addressing herself to what was being perpetrated by Britain in 1917, Marian Ellis denounced the anti-Christian cruelty and humbug of her own side. Unlike the original Cassandra of Greek mythology, some English Cassandras were not annihilated by the horrors outside themselves or their despair within. Each time that they failed to win a hearing – and they were under no illusion but that they did fail – they summoned up the energy for new effort, both mental and physical.
