The First World War (WWI) :: World War 1 I One

Chapter 1 The recompense to Make WarSince 1795, when Immanuel Kant published in his old age his treatise on "Perpetual Peace," m any have considered it an established fact that war is the remainder of each(prenominal) good and the origin of all evil. In spite of all that history teaches, no conviction is felt that the struggle between nations is inevitable, and the ripening of civilization is credited with a great power to which war must yield. But, undisturbed by such human theories and the change of times, war has once more and again marched from country to country with the clash of arms, and has proved its destructive as sound as creative and purifying power. It has not succeeded in teaching reality what its real nature is. Long periods of war, utmost from convincing men of the requirement of war, have, on the contrary, always revived the wish to exclude war, where possible, from the policy-making relation of nations.This wish and this hope are widely dissemin ated even today. The maintenance of mollification is lauded as the only goal at which statesmanship should aim. This unqualified inclination for pause has obtained in our days a quite peculiar power everywhere mens spirits. This aspiration finds its public expression in quietude leagues and ease congresses the Press of every country and of every party opens its columns to it. The on-line(prenominal) in this direction is, indeed, so strong that the majority of Governments profess--outwardly, at any rate--that the necessity of maintaining peace is the real aim of their policy while when a war breaks out the aggressor is universally stigmatized, and all Governments exert themselves, partly in reality, partly in pretense, to extinguish the conflagration.Pacific ideals, to be sure, are seldom the real motive of their operation. They usually employ the need of peace as a cloak under which to promote their own political aims. This was the real position of affairs at the Hague Cong resses,1 and this is in like manner the meaning of the action of the United States of America, who in recent times have earnestly tested to conclude treaties for the establishment of Arbitration Courts, first and foremost with England, but also with Japan, France, and Germany. No practical results, it must be said, have so far been achieved.We can hardly assume that a real love of peace prompts these efforts. This is shown by the fact that precisely those Powers which, as the weaker, are exposed to aggression, and consequently were in the greatest need of international protection, have been completely passed over in the American proposals for Arbitration Courts.