Bertha von Suttner

“ As a well-ordered State maintains a police force to execute the decrees of its judges, to secure robbers and maniacs, to overpower mobs that throw stones and apply torches, to protect those who are persecuted by violence, so would an alliance of Culture-States, such as we contemplate, require an armed force to serve international right as an executive power. Power in the service of the right differs essentially from the power which pronounces all its decisions and purposes to be right. ”

“ Just as, immediately before the vote was taken on the Heinze law, a group of devoted men was formed to oppose that measure, which succeeded in defeating it, so, in the face of the present conspicuous and overwhelming manifestation of the principle of brute force, the friends of right might resolutely band themselves together, and, with shields upraised, declare a crusade for the liberation of politics from the thraldom of that immoral tradition. ”

“ The fruits of half a century of national education have been destroyed in this one attack of war-fever. And in place of the great, submarine Channel-tunnel already planned, the fortification of Dover has been begun. India is devastated by a famine, and the money wasted in South Africa for the destruction of human life might have saved the famished ones. ”

“ No advocate of peace has ever been simple enough to imagine that war can be avoided when every condition leading to good understanding and peace has been neglected or trampled under foot.”
Another point steadily maintained by the advocates of peace and denied by their adversaries has come clearly to light in these latter days, namely, that wars are instigated and brought to their culmination by certain influential men without the slightest reference to the people, to parliaments or to the choicest spirits of the nations. ”

“ The Social Democrats, the Ethicists—men of independent tendencies, all of them—lift up warning voices against the fever of Imperialism in general, and specifically against the reckless love of adventure which first scents loot and then seeks revenge in expeditions against a country with four hundred million peace-loving inhabitants.
655To save, to save, to avert universal war—that is the purpose for which the enemies of war will strive untiringly until the very last moment. If their strength be insufficient, where shall we place the blame? The fault is not theirs. ”

“ The individuals of a community are not as yet so virtuous, so rational, and so reliable as to render unnecessary every kind of protection and punishment. It is the same with nations. The nations of the earth are not as yet so cultured and so peaceable that a union of nations could exist without a tribunal or an armed force. ”

“ All these truths, and many theories begotten of them, have not lost an iota of their logical content and of their blessed potentiality from the fact that foolish humanity, through its most powerful agents, government, church and press, still emphasizes dogmas opposed to them.
The advocates of peace maintain their principles. Not only so; they do not rest from their labors; they will not allow the results thus far obtained to slip from their grasp. The institutions created at The Hague, despite the resistance of bellicose Powers, are faithfully guarded by those who helped to create them. ”

“ For crime—within the limits of a civilized community this holds true as well—is usually committed by single individuals or small bands. It is the same among nations. If questions of common morals arose, whose validity is recognized as of interest to all, every single disturber of the peace, every single tyrant, every single land-grabber would be resisted in the execution of his purpose and would be punished by all. ”

“ Massacres are not internal affairs. If one man throws down another in my neighbor’s house and is preparing to kill him, and the victim’s cries reach my ears, it is not a breach of the peace if I hasten to help him or call the police.
The possibility that all Culture-States can enter into an alliance, though contested by our opponents, has been proven in fact. Humanity is forced into solidarity by normal evolution along the lines of natural law. ”

“ No one Power is willing to grant the other a privilege or an advantage. When the coalition campaign has reached its end, or even before that, conflicting interests will assert themselves and the European war will be upon us.”
True, that war will break out, if there be no forum for the settlement of chance contentions, a forum which, by common agreement, would adjust all differences. Everything goes to prove how necessary such a forum is. ”

“ With those who ignore, suspect and belittle the work of peace—even in cases where that work has brought about positive results, where it has matured practical propositions—instead of co-operating with sincere workers in their elaborations of these propositions and enforcing them with opponents—with those must the fault lie. ”

“ Culture is synonymous with the repression of brute force; (2.) Nations are oppressed by their brazen breast-plate, and, if its weight increases, they will be crushed by it; (3.) Right relations are as possible between nations as they have gradually been proven to be between individuals, tribes, boroughs, cities and provinces; (4.) The abolition of war as a legal institution of human society, when such abolition is made a matter of principle, will result in undreamed-of increase of material wealth and moral elevation. ”

“ No one cares to bother with the intricately interwoven network of origins and causes back of it all. Here were we faced by facts—a country in wild uproar, the government overthrown or in league with the rebels against foreigners, the legations bombarded, Ketteler murdered—such facts require action. ”

“ That war and the Chinese problem both show that the nations are being mechanically driven to the position which the advocates of peace have suggested as the only one that can be taken as a result of the exercise of free will and rationality, namely, coalition, surrender of secondary specific interests and contentions for the sake of a higher common interest, of culture and humanity, and the creation of a “world army.” ”

“ They merely prove that these principles have not yet entered fully into the conscience of nations and of their leaders; that the movement is not yet sufficiently advanced in its spread, its organization, its methods of action, to verify the hopes fostered by the conference at The Hague for an early eradication of old, deeply-rooted institutions of brute force. ”

“ Burdett-Coutts in the House of Commons in reference to the horrible condition of the sick and wounded in South Africa are a confirmation of what the advocates of peace have constantly voiced, namely, that, with our present means of destruction and our present methods of warfare, sanitation is an illusion. ”

“ There are no more decisive battles fought nowadays, even where one side has overwhelming force. There is nothing now save mutual extermination of the troops in the field, devastation of the land in which the combat takes place, cessation of commerce, danger of further complications and the carrying of infectious diseases into other lands. ”

“ Apart from the fact that hatred of strangers is a barbarism, concerning which we lack the right to grow indignant so long as the story of anti-Semitic riots and expulsion of foreigners has a place upon European annals, everything was done by Europeans in China to arouse a righteous hatred of foreigners there. ”

“ The emphasis placed upon the help of God, upon the religion of love and of tenderness, and the synchronous emphasis placed upon revenge and threats of horrors, have never been in so glaring a contrast. ”

“ Great changes come to pass slowly, but in times like the present, when upheavals are fierce and dangers lie near, it might be hoped that swifter advances should be made in the conflict between the new and the old. ”

“ Different nations can advance with united purpose against a common danger, and they can do so by means of the very elements that otherwise support and foster antagonism, namely, by means of their armies. Twice has this been demonstrated; once not long ago in Crete, and now in China. ”

“ It rests with the millions of their contemporaries, who, though at heart they desire the same result, yet turn away in contempt or apathy from those who are laboring for it, instead of aiding these labors by the weight that lies in the consensus of the masses. ”

“ A clinging to old ideals of force, reference to the thought that, a thousand years hence, one member of the human family shall tremble before another, as men did a thousand years ago under the lash of Attila; the recommendation on the part of various journals of methods of retaliation savoring of the wildest of savagery, the slaughter of masses of men, desecration of sanctuaries and graves, etc., and all these proposed as a means of 663spreading civilization ”