John Bright Quotes
And even if I were alone, ... I should have the consolation ... to the last moment of my existence ... that no word of mine has tended to the squandering of my country's treasure or the spilling of one single drop of my country's blood.
John Bright, 1811-1889, British Member of Parliament (Liberal), Speech on the Crimean War, House of Commons, December 22, 1854
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Ataturk was a young major at the time commanding troops of a weak and corrupt Ottoman regime. However a combined English and French (the strongest military powers in Europe) invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula threatened to capture the Turkish capital, Constantinople. Ataturk alone rallied the Turkish defenders and fought the invaders to a standoff in long drawn out battle with huge casualties on both sides. Ataturk became a national hero. Although Ataturk thereafter was very reluctant to use military force or endanger troops, the thing he always thought worth the supreme sacrifice (including his own) was the independence and sovereignty of the nation. See {584502} for his continuing belief in this type of sacrifice.
See Noah Webster and Timothy Pickering for similar positions. The War of 1812 was very unpopular with the New England states. They had the most developed trade with England and were economically injured by the curtailment of that trade. The citizens of Essex wanted to give the State Legislature the most possible moral and political power to negotiate an end to the war.
Ataturk had been a military hero, but was very much opposed to war and military adventurism not unlike the Dwight Eisenhower and Colin Powell type leaders. However, the one thing that he thought worth the sacrifice of his own and other Turkish lives was Turkish independence and sovereignty. Historically, the Ottoman Empire which Ataturk finally ended, had dominated half of Europe and all of the Mid East at the cost of sovereignty of other nations and Ataturk saw no more important virtue with dying for than national sovereignty. See {125322} and {584501}.
Quintus Horatius Flaccus
John Bright was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies.
