Total war

“ Nothing grander has ever appeared to the eyes of men than to fight against barbarism and despotism, against the system of provocations and threats which Germany called peace, against the system of murder and wholesale pillage which Germany calls war, [Loud cheers.] And it is against the insolent supremacy of a military caste that France and her Allies have flung themselves as emancipators and avengers. ”

“ Then will come the catastrophe. All Europe will be called to arms, and sixteen to eighteen million men, the flower of the nations, armed with the best instruments of murder will make war upon each other. ”

“ Coming so swiftly, sweeping from anarchy to anarchy, from one excess to another, passing from bloodshed to bloodshed, from civil war to international strife, from democracy to tyranny, it stunned Europe into a stricken silence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Should we now seek to imagine the worst possible effects of a defeat, we shall find that they resemble, line for line, with the exception of imperialistic annexations, the same picture that presented itself as the irrefutable consequence of victory: the effects of war today are so far reaching, so deeply rooted, that its military outcome can alter but little in its final consequences. ”

“ War, like a black cloud, rises above the horizon, overspreads the sky, thunders and wraps France filled with explosive materials in a circle of lightening, and it is the Assembly which, through the greatest of its mistakes, draws down the bolt on the nation's head. ”

“ Soon the highways of Europe resounded with the hoof-beats and the tramp of marching hosts, with the rattle of arms and the rumble of artillery. Of such a war, once begun, no man could predict the end. But the world realized that it was a catastrophe of unparalleled proportions, a failure of civilization in its stronghold, a disaster to humanity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But whatever may be the fate of the present crisis, whether it be doomed to the horrors of prolonged strife, or shall soon brighten into the radiance of enduring concord, I cannot doubt that the Nations are gravitating, with resistless might, even through fire and blood, into peaceful forms of social order, where the War System will cease to be known. ”

“ The continual state of warfare in which Europe is kept, too clearly shows how ill-governed it is. Were each nation naturally and nobly governed, war would cease, and the people would learn to understand and to respect one another's rights without a passionate or suicidal recourse to arms. ”

“ That war, especially with the present many fearful contrivances for wholesale carnage an destruction, is repugnant to every principle of reason, humanity, and religion; and this meeting earnestly invites all civilized and Christian peoples to insist upon the abolition of standing armies, and the settlement by arbitration of all international disputes. ”

“ Unless the war ends with a victory so decisive for the Allies that an era of universal peace shall dawn for the world, each nation will constitute itself an armed camp fearing always that the German, with his lust for war and conquest, will again terrorise the world by a sudden assault. ”

“ The breakdown of Russia, the massing of German troops on the western front, the accumulation of cannon and munitions against the day of account, make it certain that the coming inevitable battle is to be the greatest battle of the most terrible war that ever shook our earth. All the issues vital to democracy, independence, freedom, and self-government are now at stake. ”

“ An exterminating war would follow, not, sir, a war of two or three years’ duration, but a war of interminable duration—and exterminating wars would ensue until, after the struggles and exhaustion of both parties, some Philip or Alexander, some Cæsar or Napoleon, would arise and cut the Gordian knot, and solve the problem of the capacity of man for self-government, and crush the liberties of both the severed portions of this common empire. ”

“ The rule which declares that war makes all the citizens or subjects of one belligerent enemies of the Government and of all the citizens or subjects of the other, applies equally to civil and to international wars. ”

“ Strange that when Germany struck her long-planned, well-prepared blow, this cheap and simple measure failed to stay her hand! War will pass when injustice passes. Never before, unless hope leaves the world. ”

“ After more than four years of a world war, characterized by such merciless slaughter of men, women, and children, by such titanic mobilization of men and weapons of destruction, and by such hideous brutality, that no past age of savagery has equaled them, the peoples of the earth are now striving to form a league of nations for the expressed purpose of abolishing the causes of war and to establish a lasting peace among all men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ War with Germany? A war in which half the nations of Europe would be flung against each other in a deadly struggle—millions against millions of men belonging to the peoples of the highest civilization? ”

“ Not only every war, but every recognition of war as the mode of determining international differences, is evidence that we are yet barbarians,—and so also is every ambition for empire founded on force, and not on the consent of the people. ”

“ In this state of uncertainty the nations of Europe stand there armed to the teeth, “every laborer at his work carrying a soldier or a sailor on his back,” all nervously dreading the arrival of the moment when the tremendous engines of war will be let loose for the work of bloodshed and destruction. This republic is the only great power untroubled by dangerous entanglements. ”

“ When two civilized nations go to war, each strains every nerve to mow the other down, to cut his throat, to mutilate and kill him,—by fair means or foul,—and when the battle is lost and won, they commiserate and sympathize with them, and grieve to see so many hundreds of their fellowmen writhing in agony on the battlefield. ”

“ Thus, while rebels were waging a barbarous war, marshaling savage Indians to join them in the slaughter, while rifled cannon-balls were battering down the walls of our forts, and the iron-clad hand of monarchical power was being invoked to assist in the destruction of our government and the dismemberment of our country, while a tremendous rebel ram was sinking our fleet and threatening the cities of our coast, we were still dreaming of peace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The casual disputes that so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations; the private feuds of any considerable chieftains diffused itself among their followers and allies. To chastise the insolent, or to plunder the defenceless, were alike causes of war. The most formidable states of Germany affected to encompass their territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. ”

“ There is no lesson to be drawn from it except that Germany must be fought to a finish, and that all the resources of the allied countries must be marshalled for that purpose. We are engaged in no ordinary war. The very existence of civilization is at stake. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So we made an end of tyranny among the nations, and when the world-war was at length brought to an end, we disbanded all the armies that were upon land and sank the warships that were left upon the sea, that men might no more fight with each other. ”

“ We are in this war because we were forced into it: because Germany not only murdered our citizens on the high seas, but also filled our country with spies and sought to incite our people to civil war. ”

“ An idea seemed to be entertained that all that was necessary to constitute a war was organized hostility in the district of country in a state of rebellion — that conflicts on land and on sea — the taking of towns and capture of fleets — in fine, the magnitude and dimensions of the resistance against the Government — constituted war with all the belligerent rights belonging to civil war. ”

“ The Germans never looked upon war as a clash of armies alone, but sought by every means in their power, by oppression, by slavery, by terror, to bend the non-combatant population to their will. It is a logical view. ”

“ It is true, indeed, that even the gigantic and unnatural means by which that revolution has been supported are so far impaired; the influence of its principles and the terror of its arms so far weakened; and its power of action so much contracted and circumscribed, that against the embodied force of Europe, prosecuting a vigorous war, we may justly hope that the remnant and wreck of this system cannot long oppose an effectual resistance. ”

“ Supposing however a general league to be formed in opposition to all precedents, to the nature of things, and to all political calculation. What difficulties will they not have to encounter? An offensive war against twenty-five millions of people, a proud high spirited nation enthusiastic to a degree of desperation, insulted with the very idea of invasion, with greater means than all the rest of Europe can furnish, and England out of the scale. ”

“ When we reflect upon the uncertainty of the result of the late mission to France, and upon the uncommon nature, extent, and aspect, of the war now raging in Europe—which affects materially our relations with the powers at war, and which has changed the condition of their colonies in our neighborhood—we are of opinion, with you, that it would be neither wise nor safe to relax our measures of defence, or to lessen any of our preparations to repel aggression. ”

“ Some day accumulated suffering will reach its limit; some day the pent-up anguish which this war is causing will find a voice. Then, if not before, the rulers in the war zone will pause to listen to the stern question, "Why do we die?"—the question which shakes thrones and marks the furthermost limits of arbitrary power. ”

“ We have in this war batch such a spectacle as the mother country, exhibited during the invasion of Napoleon,—a country occupied by the enemy in his capital and in most of its important points, but with the authority of the occupying power obeyed or respected only where an armed force is present to uphold it. ”

“ This spectacle was the more grand and delightful, as it occurred at a period when Europe was shaken to its centre, by civil contentions, and almost universal hostilities. Hostilities not grounded on the ordinary causes of war, but growing out of opposite principles, which imbittered the animosities of nations beyond the example of all former times. ”

“ Now, unhappily, there arises a conflict in our own country, which presents the case of an armed military rebellion—a revolt of certain portions of population, maintaining, if you please, to a certain extent, the mastery over a certain portion of our soil, using against us the actual means and processes of war, and compelling from our Government, in maintaining dominion against their aggressive assaults, the means of military power, naval and land forces, and all the authority and violence of war. ”

“ From the Bosphorus to the Wall of China, and perhaps inside it, there will be an enormous faction-fight, with an amount of misery to mankind of which no recorded war has produced the like. It will be a war, too, which can lead to no atoning results. England staggers already under the vastness of her responsibilities, and even if she conquers can undertake no more. ”

“ When a nation numbering 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 of people can be successfully invaded by an army of 75,000 men, two thirds of them volunteers, raw, and undisciplined; when the invaders with less than 15,000 can march two hundred miles into the very heart of the hostile country, and with less than [Pg 159] 6,000 can take and hold the capital of the nation, a city of 100,000 or 200,000 inhabitants, and dictate a peace, taking as much territory as they will—it is hardly fair to dignify such operations with the name of war. ”

“ Moreover, it has been possible for German writers to misrepresent our war aims as dictated by Imperialistic ambitions, similar in kind to those by which they are themselves actuated, and involving 'annexations and indemnities,' such as have in the past been too often the result of victory in war. I take it that the real object of the Allies is, after defeating Germany, to establish such a world peace as shall, within the limits of human foresight, preclude another conflagration. ”