A Short History of the WorldWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
A Short History of the World
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
World history
Says Dr. Dillon in his book, _The Peace Conference:_ “Europe, when the
President touched its shores, was as clay ready for the creative
potter. Never before were the nations so eager to follow a Moses who
would take them to the long-promised land where wars are prohibited and
blockades unknown. And to their thinking he was just that great
leader. In France men bowed down before him with awe and affection.
Labour leaders in Paris told me that they shed tears of joy in his
presence, and that their comrades would go through fire and water to
help him to realize his noble schemes. To the working classes in Italy
his name was a heavenly clarion at the sound of which the earth would
be renewed. The Germans regarded him and his doctrine as their
sheet-anchor of safety. The fearless Herr Muehlon said: ‘If President
Wilson were to address the Germans and pronounce a severe sentence upon
them, they would accept it with resignation and without a murmur and
set to work at once.’ In German-Austria his fame was that of a
saviour, and the mere mention of his name brought balm to the suffering
and surcease of sorrow to the afflicted ... .”
Such were the overpowering expectations that President Wilson raised.
How completely he disappointed them and how weak and futile was the
League of Nations he made is too long and too distressful a story to
tell here. He exaggerated in his person our common human tragedy, he
was so very great in his dreams and so incapable in his performance.
America dissented from the acts of its President and would not join the
League Europe accepted from him. There was a slow realization on the
part of the American people that it had been rushed into something for
which it was totally unprepared. There was a corresponding realization
on the part of Europe that America had nothing ready to give to the old
world in its extremity. Born prematurely and crippled at its birth,
that League has become indeed, with its elaborate and unpractical
constitution and its manifest limitations of power, a serious obstacle
in the way of any effective reorganization of international
relationships. The problem would be a clearer one if the League did not
yet exist. Yet that world-wide blaze of enthusiasm that first welcomed
the project, that readiness of men everywhere round and about the
earth, of men, that is, as distinguished from governments, for a world
control of war, is a thing to be recorded with emphasis in any history.
Behind the short-sighted governments that divide and mismanage human
affairs, a real force for world unity and world order exists and grows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account