ABSTRACT
As international tensions gathered that late July of 1914, Christabel was in Paris packing her suitcases and collecting her papers together, ready to travel to St Malo where she would meet up with her mother and Ethel Smyth. On 1 August she telephoned Lincoln’s Inn to report her departure for Brittany. Christabel was with her mother and Ethel Smyth in St Malo on 3 August when Germany declared war against France, the country that had given her shelter for over two years. The patriotic Christabel and Emmeline decided to support their own nation in its hour of need and halt the militant campaign, otherwise they and their followers were unlikely ever to be granted the parliamentary vote and could even be accused of treason. However, such a course was difficult to adopt while comrades were still in prison. Most historians have portrayed Christabel’s patriotic support for her country as an abrupt about-turn from her suffragette days.
