Produced by David King 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 War That Will End War The War That Will End War By H. G. Wells Author of “Tono-Bungay,” “The New Machiavelli,” “Marriage,” etc. New York Duffield & Company 1914 COPYRIGHT 1914 BY H. G. WELLS CONTENTS I Why Britain went to War 9 II The Sword of Peace 16 III Hands off the People’s Food 23 IV Concerning Mr. Maximilian Craft 32 V The Most Necessary Measures in the World 40 VI The Need of a New Map of Europe 50 VII The Opportunity of Liberalism 60 VIII The Liberal Fear of Russia 69 IX An Appeal to the American People 80 X Common Sense and the Balkan States 89 XI The War of the Mind 97 I WHY BRITAIN WENT TO WAR A CLEAR EXPOSITION OF WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR The cause of a war and the object of a war are not necessarily the same. The cause of this war was the invasion of Luxemburg and Belgium. We declared war because we were bound by treaty to declare war. We have been pledged to protect the integrity of Belgium since the kingdom of Belgium has existed. If the Germans had not broken the guarantees they shared with us to respect the neutrality of these little States we should certainly not be at war at the present time. The fortified eastern frontier of France could have been held against any attack without any help from us. We had no obligations and no interests there. We were pledged to France simply to protect her from a naval attack by sea, but the Germans had already given us an undertaking not to make such an attack. It was our Belgian treaty and the sudden outrage on Luxemburg that precipitated us into this conflict. No Power in the world would have respected our Flag or accepted our national word again if we had not fought. So much for the immediate cause of the war.