Lay Down Your Arms

When I was requested by the Committee of the International Arbitration and Peace Association, of which I have the honour to be a Member, to undertake the translation of the novel entitled Die Wafen Nieder, I considered it my duty to consent and I have found the labour truly a delight. Baroness Suttners striking tale has had so great a success on the Continent of Europe that it seems singular that no complete translation into English should yet have appeared. An incomplete version was published some time since in the United States, without the sanction of the authoress but it gives no just idea of the work. Apart from its value as a work of fiction-great as that is the book has a transcendent interest for the Society with which I am connected from its bearing on the question of war in generaland of the present state of Europe in particular. We English speaking people, whether in England, in the Colonies, or in the United States, being ourselves in no immediate danger of seeing our homes invaded, and our cities laid under contribution by hostile armies, are apt to forget how terribly the remembrance of such calamities, and the constant threat of their recurrence, haunt the lives of our Continental brethren.

Die Waffen nieder! (1889), translated into English in 1892 as Lay Down Your Arms, was an international bestseller. Its Austrian author Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914) chose the medium of fiction in order to reach as broad an audience as possible with her pacifist ideals. Challenging the narrow nationalisms of nineteenth-century Europe, Suttner believed that disputes between nations should be settled by means of arbitration rather than armed conflict. She devoted her life to campaigning for the cause of peace, and in 1905 became the first female recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Suttner’s influential novel yields insights into the early development of calls for a united Europe and an end to the arms race. This English translation of the novel was carried out as a ‘labour of love’ by the eminent Victorian surgeon and medical scholar Timothy Holmes (1825-1907), the editor of Gray’s Anatomy, for whom this was an unusual foray into the world of fiction. Holmes was Vice-Chairman of the London-based International Arbitration and Peace Association and a contemporary of Suttner. His translation helped to spread Suttner’s views across the Anglophone world, and contributed to the growth of the peace movement in the period before the First World War.

"Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling" by Bertha von Suttner and translated by T. Holmes is a German novel that has the honor of having earned von Suttner a Novel prize. The book follows a countess as she witnesses and lives through various wars. This perspective truly shows how pointless many conflicts are and served as a piece of peace propaganda that touched readers immediately.

Bringing together eight anarchist, communist, and socialist writers of the 1930s--Hendrik Jan Mispelblom Beyer, Magdeleine Paz, Saïl Mohamed, Lyonel Florant, Aron van Dam, Han Kuijsten, M. P. T. Acharya, and E. K. Nobushima--this book reproduces a November 1935 special issue of the Dutch anti-militarist journal, De Wapens Neder, collecting essays on anti-militarism, anti-imperialism, and anti-fascism during the period just after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), at a time when Japanese aggression in Asia had been going on for a decade, and at the cusp of the Spanish Civil War. Including radical voices from India, Algeria, and Japan, the essays gathered here tie the rise of militarism and fascism to European, American, and Japanese imperialism. In doing so, they open a window onto the global networks of the radical left during this era and document an overlooked history of anarchist anti-colonialism.

Featuring a previously published author introduction, a personal foreword by his son and a new introduction by his grandson, a definitive edition of the lauded World War I classic collects all 39 of the Nobel Prize-winning author's alternate endings to offer new insights into his creative process. Reprint.