Joseph Stalin Quotes

We have to ask if it is once again the summer of 1914. Small acts of terror in the Middle East, in South Asia, could lead to cataclysm as they did in Sarajevo.

World War I broke out largely because of an arms race, and World War II because of the lack of an arms race.

Just imagine going to war over Danzig - such a world catastrophe, just to prevent Germany from getting a piece of territory that belonged to her; because Britain was afraid of Germany getting too strong.

The more the history of the World War and what led up to it is studied, the more clearly those tragic years become revealed as a vast collapse of civilization.

A European war is bound to come sooner or later in which the issue will be one of a struggle between Germandom and Slavdom.

He [Norman Angell] wrote these words in 1910. One politician after another lined up to praise the book. Four years later, the same men started World War I.

Unless Germany has gone out of her mind, she will never attack Russia, England and France combined.

The history of the outbreak of war 100 years ago and of the collapse of the fragile balance of power in Europe in the summer of 1914 is a disturbing tale of the failure of the governing elites and the military, but also of diplomacy.

There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of the First World War.

The first World War in so many ways shaped the 20th century and really remade our world for the worse.

Europe is to be the scene of the most terrible war she has witnessed since the Fall of the Roman Empire… The blame must fall on Germany. She could have stayed the plague had she chosen to speak in Vienna as she speaks when she is in earnest. She has not chosen to do so.

The first 'world' war was in reality the last European war fought by globally significant European powers.

The First World War not only destroyed European civilisation and the empires at its heart; its aftermath led to a second conflagration, the Second World War, which divided the continent until the end of the century.

Germany, which has lately united 80 million Germans, has submitted certain neighboring countries to her supremacy and gained military strength in many aspects, and thus has become, as clearly can be seen, a dangerous rival to principal imperialistic powers in Europe - England and France. That is why they declared war on Germany on a pretext of fulfilling the obligations given to Poland. It is now clearer than ever, how remote the real aims of the cabinets in these countries were from the interests of defending the now disintegrated Poland or Czechoslovakia.

"World War III, was the Cold War".

Then down came the lid--the day was lost, for art, at Sarajevo. World-politics stepped in, and a war was started which has not ended yet: a "war to end war." But it merely ended art. It did not end war.

We first fought... in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.

In the 1930s, there were so many different conflicts going on between the British, the French, the Russians, the Germans, the Spaniards, the Romanians and so on.

In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.

It is not in the interest of the German people or in the interest of world peace that Germany should become a pawn or a partner in a military struggle for power between the East and the West.

If America would withdraw from South Korea, there could be a power struggle between such as China and Japan.

During the Cold War, we were interested because we were scared that Russia and the United States were going to go to war. We were scared that Russia was going to take over the world. Every country became a battleground.

World War I was not inevitable, as many historians say. It could have been avoided, and it was a diplomatically botched negotiation.

As a result of the World War, this old Germany collapsed. It collapsed in its constitution, in its social order, in its economic structure. Its thinking and feeling changed.

Today we know that World War II began not in 1939 or 1941 but in the 1920's and 1930's when those who should have known better persuaded themselves that they were not their brother's keeper.