King and Country

On 9 February 1933, barely ten days after Adolf Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany, the Oxford Union, the internationally renowned student debating society, sent shockwaves around the world when its members declared that they would, in no circumstances, fight for King and Country. The Oxford Oath, as it became known, led to furious newspaper editorials, unleashed a political storm that lasted for several weeks, and triggered similar debates at other universities around the world. The individuals present at the Oxford debate – including, among others, Michael Foot, Dean Rusk and Terence Rattigan – were future stars in their own right, but they were also typical of their generation: young and idealistic, they had grown up in the shadow of the First World War and some of them became pacifists at a time when the world appeared to be falling apart. King and Country tells the full story of the debate, examines attitudes towards pacifism and appeasement in Britain between the wars, and seeks to understand this fascinating period of history through the eyes of a generation that said no to war.