I have the observer piece in front of me.
Neither it nor the Independent piece contradicts my case.
A quotes from the Observer.

" Few on the left would wish to defend Kaiser Wilhelm II against such charges of militarism. "First cow the socialists, behead them and make them harmless, with a bloodbath if necessary, and then make war abroad. But not before and not both together," was his advice to his chancellor, Bernhard von Bülow, in 1905.

The British left responded to such fascism by largely supporting the war effort. Appeals by trade union leaders to oppose German aggression, particularly against Belgium, led more than 250,000 of their members to enlist by Christmas 1914, with 25% of miners volunteering before conscription. Typical was John Ward, one of my predecessors as MP for Stoke-on-Trent and the leader of the Navvies' Union. To "fight Prussianism", he raised three pioneer battalions from his members and, commissioned as a colonel by Lord Kitchener, led them to battle in France, Italy and Russia."