ABSTRACT
In August 1914 the war that nobody wanted and everybody had prepared for flooded the world like a dark deluge. The message began by patriotically recognizing that ‘our Government has made a most tremendous effort to preserve peace’—a view substantially accepted, though the Memoirs of Lord Hankey, published in 1960, show that Britain was involved in detailed preparations for war long before 1914. In July 1914 Richard Roberts, then Minister of the Presbyterian Church at Crouch Hill, which had then perhaps the largest evening congregation in North London, had attended the first conference of the newly-formed Presbyterian Fellowship at Swanwick in Derbyshire. Intending to preach at his own church on the first Sunday of the conflict he promptly returned to London, but the prepared address was never delivered. Roberts discovered a strong inclination towards pro-war propaganda developing among their group; he and Henry Hodgkin found themselves in a hopeless minority.
