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Title: Peace Theories and the Balkan War

Author: Norman Angell

Release Date: April 3, 2004 [EBook #11895]
[Date last updated: Jan 29, 2006]

Language: English

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PEACE THEORIES AND THE BALKAN WAR

BY

NORMAN ANGELL

Author of "The Great Illusion"

1912

PEACE THEORIES AND THE BALKAN WAR

By NORMAN ANGELL,

Author of "The Great Illusion."

1912

THE TEXT OF THIS BOOK.

Whether we blame the belligerents or criticise the powers, or sit in
sackcloth and ashes ourselves is absolutely of no consequence at the
present moment....

We have sometimes been assured by persons who profess to know that
the danger of war has become an illusion.... Well, here is a war
which has broken out in spite of all that rulers and diplomatists
could do to prevent it, a war in which the Press has had no part, a
war which the whole force of the money power has been subtly and
steadfastly directed to prevent, which has come upon us, not through
the ignorance or credulity of the people, but, on the contrary,
through their knowledge of their history and their destiny, and
through their intense realisation of their wrongs and of their
duties, as they conceived them, a war which from all these causes
has burst upon us with all the force of a spontaneous explosion, and
which in strife and destruction has carried all before it. Face to
face with this manifestation, who is the man bold enough to say that
force is never a remedy? Who is the man who is foolish enough to say
that martial virtues do not play a vital part in the health and
honour of every people? (Cheers.) Who is the man who is vain enough
to suppose that the long antagonisms of history and of time can in
all circumstances be adjusted by the smooth and superficial
conventions of politicians and ambassadors?--MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL
at Sheffield.