In The Machine Age, she chose to attack states

Who glamorized nationalism and military might.

As she wrote, “I wanted to express the thought

Of war that was burning in my soul.”  Debate

Swirled wildly, with praise, critique, translations and alarm

When her ‘opus magnus’ hit, Lay Down Your Arms!

A study of war she made – not of who won –

The history of those who fought them, when it was done.

Lampooned by many a cartoonist, she made her name

Mean unrelenting perseverance, and her fame,

And her story synonymous with Peace, convincing critics.

Bolstered, she strode to new issues: women, anti-Semitics.

Lay Down Your Arms!, noted both Nobel and Tolstoy,

Became a seminal work of the 19th century.

Bertha von Suttner received the Peace Prize for

A life of writing, work and lecturing on peace.

Born in Prague, a countess . . . but not more,

Her sex was not correct, for the times, at least.

Tell how, when none to marry could be found,

She failed at opera, then answered an ad which wound

Up bringing her face to face with, do tell:  Alfred!

Although, friends for life, she never shared his bed.

She raced back to her true love, Arthur, who’d written,

“I can’t live without you.” Secretly, they wed,

Then moved to escape the social censure they were found in:

Married ‘across class.’ To the Caucasus, they fled.

Her writing (anonymously) developed in stages,

But her pen wielded truth that would sound, down the ages.

The Institute of International Law, we see,

Became the Prize’s sixth recipient.

Founded in Belgium in 1873,

Its motto, “Justice and Peace,” was succinct.

Gustave Rolin-Jacquemyns had shared his view

That sovereign states be ruled by rule of law and, too,

Not war or violence. But, bolstered by free trade

And cooperative ventures, Peace’s path be laid.

Not many had heard of it before – that is,

“International law,” as codified it would become:

Through efforts of members to analogize,

The “customs of war” and arbitration into one.

Harmonizing the laws of ‘war’ and ‘peace,’ still done,

Meets goals of law and of transparency, hard-won.

Cremer had seen sufficient war losses,

Franco-Prussian, Crimean, the Boer War –

South Africa, arguing always that the cost was

Too great, the excitement and horror all too poor

Compensation. To Parliament he spoke then:

“The verdict of history is always with the friends

Of peace,” and “There is not a man

In this House who will now declare

That the Crimean War was a just one.”

First seen as “theorists and mere utopians,”

His efforts contributed greatly to the Hague Convention

Deciding to create a Court of International Arbitration.

“Millions have been sacrificed to the demon of war.” A potion,

“Their blood has saturated every plain and . . . ocean.”

Cremer knew poverty and intolerance well,

From England, before their voting rights story.

From ‘boiling pitch’ (at 12) to trade rights work his efforts swelled,

While constantly he engaged others to freely

Work for peace, support the North’s Civil War,

And voting rights for men, and arbitration.

The International Arbitration League he bore:

He did what others talked of. He wrote treaties, then

Pursued them to all lengths to get them ratified.

While women suffragettes complained of him,

His England – U.S. treaty efforts died.

Yet France and England’s joint efforts were born.

From pauper to a torch-bearer of Peace’s promises

To arbitrate an end to war, he saw his vision’s genesis.

Albert Gobat also won the Prize that year.

He was Swiss. He trained in law and, later, politics.

On issues parliamentary, he had no peer,

Though those who knew him called him empiric.

From Grand Council of Bern to Council of States he rose,

Thus to the International Parliamentary Union, his obsession,

And so parliamentarians around the world proposed

Initiatives for ending wars: by global arbitration.

He worked to unify their focus, broaden station,

With writing, planning conferences, leading in scope.

The friendship thus established between nations

Would one day, Gobat knew, translate to hope.

Mandatory global arbitration was his ‘gun.’

He died in 1914, on the eve of World War I.

“And when the clamour of the battlefield abates,”

Said Élie Ducommun in his acceptance speech

Upon receiving the Peace Prize, “the labor

Of civilization has to begin anew

In a world of physical and moral chaos.”

As tragic as his statement is, well, true,

It reminds us not of rebirth, but of loss:

Continuing, “This is what has been called

The refining and civilizing influence of war.”

That war refines those subject to its effects

Or civilizes as it does so recollects

‘Glamour of the fight’ justifications.

Ducommun’s point was: ‘Stop this plagiary;

It’s our world:  stop the ‘ironic’ tragedy!’

Élie Ducommun won the peace prize for his tireless attention

To the cause of Peace, throughout his busy workday.

In his youth, he wrote for the democratic press, with erudition,

Later directing the Swiss railroad, his management talent at play.

He helped to found the International League for Peace

And Freedom, becoming its journal editor.  This League

Wished for the “United States of Europe” – in order to increase

The potential for cross-European trade, with boundaries agreed.

Ducommun felt that Peace could be taught to hostile nations,

Relying for compliance on international arbitration.

He led the International Peace Bureau’s work unpaid,

Creating a vigorous global debate among nations.

A networking servant he was, in this work, and a tutor,

Devoting his funds and the Prize to Peace’s future.

Frederic Passy was called the ‘doyen’- ‘the Elder,’ of his colleagues,

Those in global peace studies and arbitration work. Though he

Studied law, he much preferred economics and ‘free trade.’

This, he taught, would help Peace flourish:  with money paid

By those who embraced the free flow of goods between nations,

Unfettered competition, labor and careful arbitration.

He lectured, created the International Peace Bureau.  He gave:

“I have worked incessantly for the peace cause for thirty years,”

He was noted to say as a French candidate, and his peers

Found his leadership rousing, his posture well-argued and staid.

French losses from floods he compared to war’s ‘false’ disasters –

To halt France from war – which he did:  no more loss or tears.

Passy, an apostle for the “utopia” of Peace, believed and said:

Stop producing weapons and save our children from the dead.