Hundred Years' War

“ This is that, however long the war may 233last, Britain and her Allies will never give up the fight until victory is assured.
This great war has been full of surprises, which soldiers and historians will go on discussing for many years to come. Never before, as I have already explained, had such vast masses of men been engaged, never before had battle fronts extended for two hundred, and even three hundred, miles. ”

“ But we have now been mercifully spared for nearly forty years from any general or continued war. Ten years more of almost unbroken peace, or of peace broken only in the remoter dependencies of the empire, have passed over us. ”

“ But, before trudging on further in our delightful journey, we must pause a moment, and turning square round, with our faces towards the long-ago years of the past, take a bird's-eye view of the early history of our country, that we may know exactly where we are when we come to find ourselves in the outskirts of that long and bloody struggle between the two great nations of England and France, commonly called the Seven Years' War, and sometimes the Old French War. ”

“ But this country which I have been in part describing is now the scene of one of the greatest calamities that can afflict mankind. After seventy years of almost uninterrupted peace, it has become the scene of a civil war, more gigantic, perhaps, than any that we have any record of with regard to any other nation or any other people; for the scene of this warfare is so extended as to embrace a region almost equal in size to the whole of Europe. ”

“ Is it not full sixty whole years since the first French revolution, and six whole years since the revolution of all Europe? Bah!—change is a thing of the past, and tragedy a myth of our forefathers; war a bad habit of old barbarians, eradicated by the spread of an enlightened philanthropy. ”

“ I remember being told by a right hon. gentleman, in the course of a private conversation in the House, that 'if an angel came down from heaven to write my dispatches, I could not prevent Europe from a war in six months'. Well, Sir, not months, but years, rolled by, and no war took place. It was the anxious desire of the Government of Earl Grey to prevent war; and the maintenance of peace was one of the objects at which they expressly aimed, and succeeded. ”

“ It was the death agony of one of the bravest nations in Europe, of a people who had for five long years fought four victorious wars for its national existence, and at last succumbed to a combination of forces three times stronger than itself. ”

“ The whole history of our country has been, in the main, a history of peace. Since 1789, a hundred and twenty-one years ago, only three foreign wars have interrupted our progress, and they lasted, all told, less than eight years. ”

“ I am not, indeed, presumptuous enough to suppose that, when I name fifteen years, I am not naming a period in which events may arise which human foresight cannot reach, and which may baffle all our conjectures. We must not count with certainty on a continuance of our present prosperity during such an interval; but unquestionably there never was a time in the history of this country, when, from the situation of Europe, we might more reasonably expect fifteen years of peace than at the present moment. ”

“ For the thirty years’ war in its wearisome progress makes the outward history of Germany, in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, little more than a record of battles and sieges, with scant breathing-spaces of peace, not long enough for the towns to recover from exhausting occupations of foreign troops. ”

“ Wars, as the Greek philosopher said, are set in motion by trivial causee, but owe their existence to great causes. The trivial causes of the Thirty Years' War were the succession to the duchies of Cleves and Juliers, and the revolt of Bohemia from the Austrian succession. ”

“ The bloodiest war is sometimes the least costly on balance. The greatest war of all history ended but seven years ago, and already the beaten nations have healed up their wounds and are looking forward to the future with greater confidence than many of the “victorious” nations. ”

“ So, full of this mad obsession, full of this frenzied infatuation, full of lust of power and conquest, Germany struck swiftly, blindingly, perfidiously—struck with the forces secretly organized for instant war, while yet the peaceful peoples were unprepared. ”

“ It is certain that, during the last fifty years, the period in which peace societies have been at work, armies have been growing steadily larger, the means of destruction have been multiplying, and wars have been as frequent and as bloody as ever before; and, what is worse, the popular heart goes into war as it has never done in past ages. ”

“ Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy’s condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity. ”

“ Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." ”

“ The age of "expansion," the age of European "empires" is near its end. No one who can read the signs of the times in Japan, in India, in China, can doubt it. It ended in America a hundred years ago; it is ending now in Asia; it will end last in Africa, and even in Africa the end draws near. ”

“ It may be truly said that never before in history was a great war, or any war, so accurately and fully reported day by day for at least three years, subject to certain reservations which were abominably vexatious and tended to depress the spirit of the troops and to arouse the suspicion of the nation. ”

“ It has been said that each of the preceding centuries during a long period of European history has ended in a great war. This one which closed the nineteenth century is not, and will not become, great, as wars are measured. ”

“ Thus qualified, thus armed for destruction, the genius of the French revolution marched forth, the terror and dismay of the world. Every nation has in its turn been the witness, many have been the victims, of its principles, and it is left for us to decide whether we will compromise with such a danger, while we have yet resources to supply the sinews of war, while the heart and spirit of the country is yet unbroken, and while we have the means of calling forth and supporting a powerful co-operation in Europe. ”

“ A multitude of whelps came forth from the lair of this barbaric lioness, in three cyuls, as they call them, that is, in there ships of war, with their sails wafted by the wind and with omens and prophecies favourable, for it was foretold by a certain soothsayer among them, that they should occupy the country to which they were sailing three hundred years, and half of that time, a hundred and fifty years, should plunder and despoil the same. ”

“ According to statistics of the pacifists, from the year 1496 b.c. to the year 1861 a.d.—a period of 3,357 years—there were 227 years of peace and 3,130 years of war—thirteen years of war for every year of peace. Now, if what we are told about the degenerative effects of war is true, since we know that war has been prevalent in all ages, the natural conclusion is, what a lot of rapscallions we must be! If war, instead of tending to secure the survival of the fit, secures the survival of the unfit, then after a thousand centuries of strife we must be signally unfit. ”

“ France and England, abusing their strength, may long defer the period of its utter exhaustion; but I will venture to say, that the fate of all civilised nations is concerned in the termination of a war, the flames of which are raging throughout the whole world. ”

“ Aside from a few bruised shins and torn coats and missing caps, there had been no casualties worth mentioning. It was not a country-wide war. It was, indeed, a war of which no history save this veracious chronicle, gives any record. ”

“ I will not dwell on the sixteen remaining years of the Thirty Years' War. It is too horrible a picture to paint. The desolation and misery which overwhelmed Germany were most frightful and revolting. The war was carried on without system or genius. "Expeditions were undertaken apparently with no other view than to desolate hostile provinces, till in the end provisions and winter quarters formed the principal object of the summer campaigns." "Disease, famine, and want of discipline swept away whole armies before they had seen an enemy." ”

“ While the guns roar from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and the greatest armed host that history has ever known is still locked in a life-and-death struggle on a dozen fronts, another war, more potent and permanent perhaps than the one which now engulfs Europe, lurks beyond the distant horizon of peace. ”

“ But our old, rich, and beautiful country, with all the accumulations on its soil of the labour, the art, the thought of uncounted generations, has been in this war the buffer between German savagery and the rest of Europe. Just as our armies bore the first brunt and held the pass, till civilisation could rally to its own defence, so our old towns and villages have died, that our neighbours might live secure. We have suffered most in war—we claim the first thought in peace. We live in the heart and on the brink of danger. ”

“ Our prosperous generation, threatened with effeminacy and softness, needs to re-open the pages of history and to linger long upon the portraits of our heroic leaders. Theirs was the greatest war that ever shook the earth. A million Northern men, and over against them a million Southern men, and a battle line a thousand miles in length! Including the long-term men and the short-term service, 3,000,000 men engaged in the conflict! ”

“ War, foreign or civil, is another sword hanging over civilisations, whereby the fruits of a long period of growth may be destroyed in a few years. After the Thirty Years War the recovery of Germany occupied a century and a half. ”

“ "The war spirit's getting into me again. I have a hundred years of Ohio love behind me and I'm going to bomb out this trench." ”

“ At the same time the world’s call for arbitration, and the efforts made to enthrone Peace instead of War, never ceased to occupy the minds of twentieth century statesmen. The history of the world for centuries had been written in blood. The enormous standing armies of Europe were fast sapping the vitality and energy of those nations. ”

“ To smooth the scarred and broken earth, and plant
The fields again. But—if we must—
We'll deal first with those war-lords, break
Their knees and bring them to the dust.
For France's sake
We'll fight until we drop. ”

“ How does this pessimism stand in the light of day? It is true, war has not yet been abolished. But who will deny that the number of wars has grown less from century to century, and that many and many troubles, which at earlier periods would surely have led to war, have been peaceably composed? ”

“ It will be so easy, when the right moment comes, to befool you. It will be so easy for the wolf to appear in sheep’s clothing; to masquerade as a victim; to pretend that Germany has been invaded; to give to a war of aggression and conquest the sacred aspect of a war of national defence!
“Let us suppose that, through ill-luck, the war ends in a German success. Good-bye, then, to your dreams, to European idealism, to democratic dogmas. Great will be the discomfiture of your Tugendbund. ”

“ If we study the movements which govern the destinies of societies, we may perhaps discover signs that the era of violent deeds is coming to an end. War, which was formerly a standing institution among nations, is now intermittent, and the periods of peace have become of longer duration than those of war. Our country affords the observations of a fact full of interest, for the French nation presents an original characteristic in the military history of nations. Whereas other nations never waged war except from interest or necessity, alone the French have fought for the pleasure of fighting. ”

“ I consider that either a serious weakening of England, France, and Italy, or a serious strengthening of Germany, would be a great misfortune for the civilisation of the world. I wish ardently to see the Germans expelled from France and Belgium, and led to feel that the war has been a misfortune for them as well as for the Allies. ”

“ That intense employment of resources which makes modern war so sanguinary tends also to shorten its duration. No military struggle could now be prolonged into the period of the Napoleonic wars; to say nothing of the Thirty Years War, which involved the death, with every circumstance of ferocity, of immensely larger numbers than could be affected by any modern war. ”

“ Already in the East there were skirmishes as the prelude to the great war of the nations. All Europe, Europe that only yesterday was sceptical and apathetic, like a dead wood, was swept by the flames. All men were possessed by the desire for battle. War was ever on the point of breaking out. ”

“ To watchers of the present conflict it seems an intolerable thought that, after the fighting is done, we should once more return to a condition of “armed peace,” with jealous, distrustful, and revengeful Powers piling up armaments and plotting singly or in groups against their neighbors until Europe is plunged into another war more terrible, more bloody, and more costly than this. ”