Women at the Hague

When World War I broke out, the Deutscher Verband für Frauenstimmrecht (German Union for Woman Suffrage) withdrew as host.

A response to the notice, published in the same issue and written the Dutch pacifist, feminist, and suffragist Aletta Jacobs proposing that the conference be held in the Netherlands, as it was a neutral country.

Recognizing that the IWSA could not sponsor a conference to discuss foreign policy and the war during the conflict, Chrystal Macmillan privately communicated to Jacobs, suggesting that individuals and organizations could be invited to an unsponsored convention.

[1]: xxxvii–xxviii [2]: 425–426  Many IWSA members, including German leaders Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann, echoed the need for a conference and stressed that it should be autonomous so as not to damage the women's movement objectives.

[2]: 425, 429 In that regard, Jacobs invited representatives of both sides of the conflict and neutral women to a planning meeting held at Amsterdam early in February 1915.

[1]: xxxix  [Notes 1] A preliminary programme was drafted at this meeting, and it was agreed to request the Dutch women to form a committee to take in hand all the arrangement for the Congress and to issue the invitations.

This general agreement was interpreted to imply the conviction (a) That international disputes should be settled by pacific means; (b) That the parliamentary franchise should be extended to women.

[11]: 52 [2]: 427 Countries represented included the United States, which sent 47 members; Sweden, 12; Norway, 12; Netherlands, 1,000; Italy, 1; Hungary, 9; Germany, 28; Denmark, 6; Canada, 2; Belgium, 5; Austria, 6, and Great Britain, 3, although 180 others from there were prevented from sailing owing to the closing of the North Sea for military reasons.