 Elsewhere in the world , pacifist women were forced to adjust to the realities of war . After " the guns of August " , Rosika Schwimmer , a native of Austria – Hungary working in England but prevented by war from returning home , outlined her idea for an international conference of neutrals to mediate between warring nations . In September 1914 , Stritt wrote to Catt in America with " deep personal regret " for the " terrible war " . The pacifist women of Germany were forced by war to withdraw their invitation to host the annual IWSA congress which was to have been held nine months later in Berlin . In December 1914 , Canadian Julia Grace Wales , a professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison , published her views about working toward a mediated peace in a pamphlet entitled " Continuous Mediation Without Armistice " , popularly known as the Wisconsin Plan . Taking these messages as her inspiration , Catt proposed that , rather than holding a woman suffrage convention in Berlin , an international peace congress of women should meet in The Hague for four days beginning 28 April 1915 . 
