The Great War
In previous years Caine had edited books to raise money for Queen Alexandra's charities in 1905 and 1908. In 1914, following the outbreak of the Great War, he decided to produce another charity book, this time in support of the exiled King Albert of Belgium. King Albert rewarded him by creating him an Officer of the Order of Leopold of Belgium.
Caine tried to involve America in the war by writing articles, mainly for The New York Times and in 1915 he gave a series of lectures in the USA but these were not well received. He wrote a series of articles for The Daily Telegraph about how the war was affecting "ordinary" people. These were published in 1915 as a book entitled The Drama of 365 Days: Scenes in the Great War. In 1916 he was invited to work with Lord Robert Cecil at the Foreign Office towards the creation of the League of Nations after the end of the war. The same year Caine produced a small book entitled Our Girls: Their Work for the War Effort to show that women were also playing an active part in the war. He was also involved in writing a propaganda film to assist the war effort but the war ended before the film could be completed.
Towards the end of 1917 Caine was offered a baronetcy but he declined it and instead he accepted a knighthood as a KBE, insisting on being called, not 'Sir Thomas Hall Caine' but 'Sir Hall Caine'.
Read more about this topic: Hall Caine
Famous quotes containing the words the great and/or war:
“The great, the rich, the powerful, too often bestow their favours upon their inferiors in the manner they bestow their scraps upon their dogs, so as neither to oblige man nor dogs. It is no wonder if favours, benefits, and even charities thus bestowed ungraciously, should be as coldly and faintly acknowledged.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (16941773)
“There is great fear expressed on all sides lest this war shall be made a war for the negro. I am willing that it shall be. It is a war to found an empire on the negro in slavery, and shame on us if we do not make it a war to establish the negro in freedomagainst whom the whole nation, North and South, East and West, in one mighty conspiracy, has combined from the beginning.”
—Susan B. Anthony (18201906)