The Great Illusion

of all the German ports on the Baltic or the North Sea would present little difficulty.⁠ ⁠… Consider the effect on Germany if her flag were swept from the high seas and her ports blockaded. She might not miss her colonies, for they are only a burden, but the loss of her seaborne trade would be an equivalent to an immediate fine of at least a hundred million sterling. In plain words, a war with Germany, even when conducted by her with the utmost wisdom and prudence, must mean for her a direct loss of a terribly heavy kind, and for us virtually no loss at all.” This article is full of the fallacies which I have endeavored to expose in this book, but it logically develops the notions which are prevalent in both England and Germany; and yet Germans have to listen to an English Minister of Marine describing their Navy as a luxury! ↩

Here is the real English belief in this matter: “Why should Germany attack Britain? Because Germany and Britain are commercial and political rivals; because Germany covets the trade, the Colonies, and the Empire which Britain now possesses.⁠ ⁠… As to arbitration, limitation of armament, it does not require a very great effort of the imagination to enable us to see that proposal with German eyes. Were I a German, I should say: ‘These islanders are cool customers. They have fenced in all the best parts of the globe, they have bought or captured fortresses and ports in five continents, they have gained the lead in commerce, they have a virtual monopoly of the carrying trade of the world, they hold command of the seas, and now they propose that we shall all be brothers, and that nobody shall fight or steal any more,’ ” (Robert Blatchford, Germany and England, pp. 4⁠–⁠13). ↩

Facts and Fallacies. An Answer to “Compulsory Service”, by Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, V.C., K.G. ↩

Discussing the first edition of this book, Sir Edward Grey said: “True as the statement in that book may be, it does not become an operative motive in the minds and conduct of nations until they are convinced of its truth and it has become a commonplace to them” (Argentine Centenary Banquet, May 20, 1910). ↩

Lecky, History of the Progress of Rationalism in Europe. ↩

I do not desire in the least, of course, to create the impression that I regard the truths here elaborated as my “discovery,” as though no one had worked in this field before. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as priority in ideas. The interdependence of peoples was proclaimed by philosophers three thousand years ago. The French school of pacifists⁠—Passy, Follin, Yves Guyot, de Molinari, and Estournelles de Constant⁠—have done splendid work in this field; but no one of them, so far as I know, has undertaken the work of testing in detail the politico-economic orthodoxy by the principle of the economic futility of military force; by bringing that principle to bear on the everyday problems of European statecraft. If there is such an one⁠—presenting the precise notes of interrogation which I have attempted to present here⁠—I am not aware of it. This does not prevent, I trust, the very highest appreciation of earlier and better work done in the cause of peace generally. The work of Jean de Bloch, among others, though covering different ground from this, possesses an erudition and bulk of statistical evidence to which this can make no claim. The work of J. Novikow, to my mind the greatest of all, has already been touched upon. ↩

Turkey in Europe, pp. 88⁠–⁠9 and 91⁠–⁠2.

It is significant, by the way, that the “born soldier” has now been crushed by a nonmilitary race whom he has always despised as having no military tradition. Capt. F. W. von Herbert (Bye Paths in the Balkans) wrote (some years before the present war): “The Bulgars, as Christian subjects of Turkey exempt from military service, have tilled the ground under stagnant and enfeebling peace conditions, and the profession of arms is new to them.”

“Stagnant and enfeebling peace conditions” is, in view of subsequent events, distinctly good. ↩

I dislike to weary the reader with such damnable iteration, but when a British Cabinet Minister is unable in this discussion to distinguish between the folly of a thing and its possibility, one must make the fundamental point clear. ↩

This Appendix was written before the Balkan States fell to fighting one another. It is scarcely necessary to point out that the events of the last few days (early summer 1913) lend significance to the argument in the text. ↩

See text. ↩

Review of Reviews, November, 1912. ↩

In the Daily Mail, to whose Editor I am indebted for permission to reprint it. ↩

Colophon

The Great Illusion
was published in 1913 by
Norman Angell.

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