Lord Grey has said that if there had existed in 1914 a League of Nations as tentative even as that embodied in the Covenant, Armageddon could in any case have been delayed, and delay might well have meant prevention. We know now that if war had been delayed the mere march of events would have altered the situation. It is unlikely that a Russian revolution of one kind or another could have been prevented even if there had been no war; and a change in the character of the Russian government might well have terminated on the one side the Serbian agitation against Austria, and on the other the genuine fear of German democrats concerning Russia's imperialist ambitions. The death of the old Austrian emperor was another factor that might have made for peace.[137] Assume, in addition to such factors, that Britain had been prepared to recognise Germany's economic needs and difficulties, as Mr Garvin now urges we should recognise them. Whether even this would have prevented war, no man can say. But we can say--and it is implicit in the economic case now so commonly urged as to the need of Germany for economic security--that since we did not give her that security we did not do all that we might have done to remove the causes of war. 'Here in the struggle for primary raw materials' says Mr Garvin in effect over the six hundred pages more or less of his book, 'are causes of war that must be dealt with if we are to have peace.' If then, in the years that preceded Armageddon, the world had wanted to avoid that orgy, and had had the necessary wisdom, these are things with which it would have occupied itself. Yet when the attempt was made to draw the attention of the world to just those factors, publicists even as sincere and able as Mr Garvin disparaged it; and very many misrepresented it by silly distortion. It is easy now to see where that pre-war attempt to work towards some solution was most defective: if greater emphasis had been given to some definite scheme for assuring Germany's necessary access to resources, the real issue might have been made plainer. A fair implication of _The Great Illusion_ was that as Britain had no real interest in thwarting German expansion, the best hope for the future lay in an increasingly clear demonstration of the fact of community of interest. The more valid conclusion would have been that the absence of conflict in vital interests should have been seized upon as affording an opportunity for concluding definite conventions and obligations which would assuage fears on both sides. But criticism, instead of bringing out this defect, directed itself, for the most part, to an attempt to show that the economic fears or facts had nothing to do with the conflict. Had criticism consisted in taking up the problem where _The Great Illusion_ left it, much more might have been done--perhaps sufficient--to make Armageddon unnecessary.[138]