ABSTRACT
The strike of 1915 was almost repeated in 1916; became, thereafter, a situation of almost permanently incipient strike. There were other sources of division, While Welsh workers might dislike their bosses, they also identified strongly with the victimized nations of the First World War. The war, Lloyd George asserted, was not being fought for further imperial aggrandizement. In Wales, of course, chapels were not only religious, but social, political and national institutions. J. H. Thomas, a supporter of the war, was left wondering how he could continue to advocate quiet on the home front, in the interest of the war effort, when things like the battle of Cory Hall were allowed to happen. To consider the battle of Cory Hall and the wartime Cardiff in which it took place, is to step away from easy answers. MacDonald and Samuel were not the only ones shocked by what had happened at Cory Hall.
