‘Playing fields not battlefields’: pacifism, non-violence and sport in inter-war Britain

Whilst scholars have tended to focus on hegemonic internationalist sporting practices and their promotion of peace, this study illustrates that peace activists promoted sport as a means to create a community of anti-war individuals, on both the domestic and international levels. This study looks at two organisations to ascertain the role of physical activity in pacifist organisations: the League of Nations' Union and the Peace Pledge Union. The paper demonstrates that in the 1920s sport was used to foster international kinship as peace activists believed it to be an effective antidote to war and militarism. When international conflict and fascism was gaining ground across Europe, this belief was questioned. As pacifism became more absolute, physical activities were increasingly used to test an individual’s commitment to non-violence.