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“Lay down your arms” – Bertha von Suttner, the most prominent Austrian peace activist

Bertha von Suttner was born Countess Kinsky von Wchinic und Tettau in Prague on 9 June 1843. Her father, Count Franz Michael Kinsky, field marshal in the Austro-Hungarian army, died at the age of 75 before she was born. As a result, Bertha von Kinsky was brought up by her mother (née Körner). The Kinsky family was one of the most prominent Bohemian aristocratic dynasties, and Bertha von Kinsky thus received the education of a young lady in aristocratic circles. Apart from German, she learnt French, English and Italian. She also received piano lessons and read classical literature.

She first came into contact with militarism, war and peace with her husband Arthur in Paris in the winter of 1886/87, when she met Alfred Nobel. A year earlier the couple had returned from a nine-year stay in the Caucasus, where Bertha von Suttner has written a draft for her first novel. Alfred Nobel, renowned as the inventor of dynamite, was looking at the question of war and of ways of preventing it. He was convinced, for example, that lasting peace could be achieved only through the invention of a weapon of mass destruction that would be so devastating that humanity would be deterred for ever from waging war.

Through Alfred Nobel’s circle Bertha von Suttner learned for the first time of the existence of European peace movements and came into contact with pacifist ideas. She published her first novel, Das Maschinenalter, in 1887 under the pseudonym ‘Jemand’. It was based on her own experience in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, which she had witnessed in the Caucasus. Her second work, Lay Down Your Arms, appeared two years later. Like Suttner, the aristocratic protagonist of this novel came from a family with a military background. Her life, which is narrated in the book, was marked again and again by death and suffering as a result of war. The book was a resounding success and remains her most well-known work. By 1917 it had been reprinted forty times in German and translated into sixteen languages.

Translation: Nick Somers

Bibliografie 

Cohen, Laurie R. (Hrsg.): „Gerade weil Sie eine Frau sind …“ Erkundungen über Bertha von Suttner, die unbekannte Friedensnobelpreisträgerin, Wien 2005

Gütermann, Christoph: Die Geschichte der österreichischen Friedensbewegung 1891-1985, in: Rauchensteiner, Manfried (Hrsg.): Überlegungen zum Frieden, Wien 1987, 13-132

Hamann, Brigitte: Bertha von Suttner – Ein Leben für den Frieden, München 2002

Kovács, Henriett: Die Friedensbewegung in Österreich-Ungarn an der Wende zum 20. Jahrhundert, Mitteleuropäische Studien II, herausgegeben von Binder, Dieter A./Kastner, Georg/Suppan, Arnold, Herne 2009

 

Quotes:

„[...] that lasting peace could be achieved …“: Kovács, Henriett: Die Friedensbewegung in Österreich-Ungarn an der Wende zum 20. Jahrhundert, Mitteleuropäische Studien II, herausgegeben von Dieter A. Binder/Georg Kastner/Arnold Suppan, Herne 2009, 16

„By 1917 it had been reprinted …“: figures, quoted from: Cohen, Laurie R. (Hrsg.): „Gerade weil Sie eine Frau sind …“ Erkundungen über Bertha von Suttner, die unbekannte Friedensnobelpreisträgerin, Wien 2005, 47

Biographical data of Bertha von Suttner from: Cohen, Laurie R. (Hrsg.): „Gerade weil Sie eine Frau sind …“ Erkundungen über Bertha von Suttner, die unbekannte Friedensnobelpreisträgerin, Wien 2005 und Kovács, Henriett: Die Friedensbewegung in Österreich-Ungarn an der Wende zum 20. Jahrhundert, Mitteleuropäische Studien II, herausgegeben von Dieter A. Binder/Georg Kastner/Arnold Suppan, Herne 2009, 13 ff

Contents related to this chapter

Aspects

  • Aspect

    On the eve of war

    The last decade of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth were a time of modernisation, mechanisation and speed. In 1910, Vienna, capital of the Habsburg empire, had 2.1 million inhabitants and had grown to become an international metropolis. New technologies changed working life and leisure. Railways increased mobility, as did the bicycle, motor vehicle and aeroplane. How did this development manifest itself and what other trends emerged in the last years before the outbreak of the First World War?

  • Aspect

    Discontent

    The longer the war lasted, the more disagreement was voiced by representatives of the Austrian peace and women’s movements and also by sections of the Austro‑Hungarian population. They became increasingly tired of the war, reflected in strikes and hunger riots and in mass desertions by front soldiers towards the end of the war.

Persons, Objects & Events

  • Person

    Bertha von Suttner

    Bertha von Suttner, the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize (1905), remains the most well-known figure in the Austrian peace movement. She published the successful novel Lay Down Your Arms and was president of the Austrian Peace Society until her death.

  • Object

    For peace

    The face on the 1000-schilling note is Bertha von Suttner, probably the most famous representative of the Austrian peace movement. During the First World War there were lots of people and groups who followed her example and protested against the war and in favour of peace. Although they had little influence, their advocacy of peace was particularly courageous in view of the prevailing and controlling censorship.