Douglas Hurd Quotes
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.
Hurd, Douglas. "The Use and Abuse of History." German Historical Institute London Bulletin, vol. 26, no. 2, Nov. 2004.
See the American ambassador’s assessment after the war began {41089}
Germany had just attacked Russia with whom it had a treaty. For a while, Hitler paid little attention to Italy and just gave their “ally” orders and instructions. Italian public opinion was concerned about the same question. See {627973} .
1914 was the outbreak of WWI in which all the belligerents had very different interests and reasons for war—even allies on the same side greatly differed as to their motivation for fighting.
The Times regretted that the Germans did not speak to the Austrians more vigorously when they were threatening to attack Serbia who harbored anti-Austro-Hungarian terrorists (see {642085}). What the Times editors did not realize was that the Germans had already made their war plans (see {642092}) and the Serbian issue was just the justification they needed to implement them. So there was no real reason for the Germans to discourage the Austro-Hungarian Empire from its mission to punish Serbia.
stating that war was obsolete See {640087} for the quotation of exactly what Angell wrote.
This was very much a minority opinion at the time, and has much historical significance as he was the father of the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, 1869-1940, whose appeasement of Germany led to Word War II. . See {585941}.
the reasons nations arm and war
Note that he assumes that not only will there be another World War, but he assumes that we will be on opposite sides.
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC is a British Conservative politician who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1979 to 1995.
