IN PARALLEL WITH HIS views expressed above, we now come to what his later biographers saw as Graham’s volte-face over his attitudes to empire, with his enthusiastic support for what many saw as a capitalist war between the major European powers for imperial dominance. The consensus among historians was that the suddenness and unexpectedness of the war took many on the left by surprise, and created dilemmas both for political parties and individuals, including the consequential alliance with Czarist Russia. Clayton, writing in 1926, believed:

Despite Graham’s distaste for what he called ‘oceans of false sentiment at home’, a later commentator, writing under the pseudonym ‘Histronicus’, wrote that Graham had been motivated by a sense of honour:

In a similar fashion, Helen Smith wrote that Graham had ‘protested vigorously against the prospect of conflict, but once it had commenced, he lent his support in the hope that the fighting would be brought to a swift conclusion.’ Moreover, his mother had apparently upset Garnett for ‘as good as calling me [Garnett] pro-German’, which indicated strong prejudices within Graham’s immediate family circle. Perhaps Hyndman summed up the position of many:

Graham’s change of heart had been swift, and as early as 29 August 1914, his prejudices were expressed in a letter in the Glasgow Herald headed ‘A Strange Patriot’, in which he attacked a previous letter signed ‘JFS’ that supported Germany against the French. In this letter, he referred to the Germans as ‘blood thirsty murderers of defenseless women, children, and non-combatants’.