A study of those groups and movements in England that were opposed to WW1. They were a strange mixture: Quakers, Non-Conformists, early Socialists motivated by political or religious beliefs. They were natural _targets for the most bitter enmity of the State and the ordinary patriotic citizen. Jeered at, assaulted, viciously attacked, some of these groups nonetheless chose the awkward way out: they would not serve. Amongst the purely awkward and the cranks was a group of straight-minded men who resisted the hysteria brought out by war. Of these, Clifford Allen was the most conspicuous: a man not only of vision and humanity, but of considerable moral toughness as well. Alongside him were figures like Bertrand Russell, Ramsey Macdonald, Herbert Morrison and others. This story of men who opted out of armed combat shows that many of them behaved as heroically in opposition as the heroes themselves.