Produced by David Edwards, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE FRUITS OF VICTORY "THE GREAT ILLUSION" CONTROVERSY 'Mr. Angell's pamphlet was a work as unimposing in form as it was daring in expression. For a time nothing was heard of it in public, but many of us will remember the curious way in which ... "Norman Angellism" suddenly became one of the principal topics of discussion amongst politicians and journalists all over Europe. Naturally at first it was the apparently extravagant and paradoxical elements that were fastened upon most--that the whole theory of the commercial basis of war was wrong, that no modern war could make a profit for the victors, and that--most astonishing thing of all--a successful war might leave the conquerors who received the indemnity relatively worse off than the conquered who raid it. People who had been brought up in the acceptance of the idea that a war between nations was analogous to the struggle of two errand boys for an apple, and that victory inevitably meant economic gain, were amazed into curiosity. Men who had never examined a Pacifist argument before read Mr. Angell's book. Perhaps they thought that his doctrines sounded so extraordinarily like nonsense that there really must be some sense in them or nobody would have dared to propound them.'--_The New Stateman_, October 11, 1913. 'The fundamental proposition of the book is a mistake.... And the proposition that the extension of national territory--that is the bringing of a large amount of property under a single administration--is not to the financial advantage of a nation appears to me as illusory as to maintain that business on a small capital is as profitable as on a large.... The armaments of European States now are not so much for protection against conquest as to secure to themselves the utmost possible share of the unexploited or imperfectly exploited regions of the world.'--The late ADMIRAL MAHAN. 'I have long ago described the policy of _The Great Illusion_ ... not only as a childish absurdity but a mischievous and immoral sophism.'--MR. FREDERIC HARRISON. 'Among the mass of printed books there are a few that may be counted as acts, not books. _The Control Social_ was indisputably one; and I venture to suggest to you that _The Great Illusion_ is another. The thesis of Galileo was not more diametrically opposed to current ideas than those of Norman Angell. Yet it had in the end a certain measure of success.'--VISCOUNT ESHER.