The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of EuropeBénézet, Louis Paul
History
The World War and What was Behind It; Or, The Story of the Map of Europe
Bénézet, Louis Paul
Europe -- History; World War, 1914-1918 -- Causes
The nations of the Entente, including the United States, are now
united in an effort to stamp out the curse of feudalism in
Austria and in Germany—a curse which has disappeared from all
other parts of the civilized world. They are united to crush the
military spirit of conquest which exists among the war leaders of
the Prussians. They are pledged “to make the world safe for
democracy” as President Wilson has said; to do away with the rule
of force. So long as the governments of Germany, Austria, and
Turkey place the military power at all times above the civil
power, so long will it be necessary to police the world. There
must be no repetition of the savage attack of August, 1914. There
was a time when many of us believed that some one nation, by
disbanding its army and refusing to build warships, might set an
example of disarming which all the world would finally follow. It
now is plain that there must be a “League to Enforce Peace” as
Ex-President Taft and other American statesmen have declared. The
United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, Italy, Belgium,
Portugal, Serbia, Greece, together with Spain, Holland, Norway,
Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and other nations where the
will of the people is the law, must unite in an alliance which
will insist on arbitration as a means of settling disputes.
In 1870, Great Britain and the United States had a dispute which
might well have led to war. Instead of fighting over it, however,
they laid their trouble before a court of five men, a Swiss, an
Italian, a Brazilian, an Englishman, and an American. This court,
by a vote of four to one, decided against England, and England
accepted the decision as final, although it cost her many
millions of dollars.
The League to Enforce Peace must insist that each nation in the
world maintain only a small force of soldiers, to be used as
police for its own affairs, and there must be an international
police to settle all differences between nations and to enforce
the orders of the court of arbitration. In time (no one knows how
soon) the people of Germany and Austria will be freed from the
military rule which now has the power to hurl them into war. When
that day arrives and they learn that they have been led astray by
Treitschke and Bernhardi, who preached that war was a blessing to
a nation and that only the powerful nations had the right to
survive, they will know that “Thou shalt not kill” is just as
strong a commandment today as when it first was uttered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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