H G Wells

The War That Will End War H G Wells

The cause of a war and the object of a war are not necessarily the same. The cause of this war wasthe invasion of Luxemburg and Belgium. We declared war because we were bound by treaty todeclare war. We have been pledged to protect the integrity of Belgium since the kingdom of Belgiumhas existed. If the Germans had not broken the guarantees they shared with us to respect theneutrality of these little States we should certainly not be at war at the present time. The fortifiedeastern frontier of France could have been held against any attack without any help from us. We hadno obligations and no interests there. We were pledged to France simply to protect her from a navalattack by sea, but the Germans had already given us an undertaking not to make such an attack. Itwas our Belgian treaty and the sudden outrage on Luxemburg that precipitated us into this conflict. No Power in the world would have respected our Flag or accepted our national word again if wehad not fought. So much for the immediate cause of the war. But now we come to the object of this war. We began to fight because our honour and our pledgeobliged us; but so soon as we are embarked upon the fighting we have to ask ourselves what is theend at which our fighting aims. We cannot simply put the Germans back over the Belgian borderand tell them not to do it again. We find ourselves at war with that huge military empire with whichwe have been doing our best to keep the peace since first it rose upon the ruins of FrenchImperialism in 1871. And war is mortal conflict. We have now either to destroy or be destroyed. Wehave not sought this reckoning, we have done our utmost to avoid it; but now that it has beenforced upon us it is imperative that it should be a thorough reckoning. This is a war that touchesevery man and every home in each of the combatant countries. It is a war, as Mr. Sidney Low hassaid, not of soldiers but of whole peoples. And it is a war that must be fought to such a finish thatevery man in each of the nations engaged understands what has happened. There can be nodiplomatic settlement that will leave German Imperialism free to explain away its failure to its peopleand start new preparations. We have to go on until we are absolutely done for, or until the Germansas a people know that they are beaten, and are convinced that they have had enough of war.