17 quotes
The quantum of a hypothetical German civilization would not take us very far, because she is to-day still too close to barbarism.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
The idea of force is deeply rooted in man, as in the whole universe. Law is controlled and ordered force.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
Whether we wish it or not, it is not the International Parliament of Geneva, subtle epitome of all the Parliaments of this world, with no executive powers, that will determine the peace of the future.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
To ensure the execution of the Treaty [of Versailles] all we lacked later on was a statesman of some strength of purpose.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
Peace or war, we are in the midst of a relentless struggle for power. Woe to the weak! Turn your back on the purveyors of soothing syrup!
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
For the catastrophe of 1914 the Germans are responsible. Only a professional liar would deny this.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
What will remain of the greatest effort of the human civilizations for an enlargement of universal civilization I shall not attempt to foresee, after ten years of talk in which victors and vanquished have gone on the same tack to shatter, one by one, every guarantee of success.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
I scan the horizon in vain for any sign of a recovery. Day by day the position grows more serious through our inertia, while the designs of German violence shrink from no ways or means or instrument.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
Above all, do not be so ingenuous as to believe that you will disarm, by methods of persuasion, the Powers who see you strengthening against every eventuality your means of defence, which might turn into means of aggression.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
Who need wonder in these circumstances that the Germans tried, without loss of time, to evade the most important of their obligations? The history of the last ten years is a series of surrenders on the part of the Allies, of successes for Germany.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
The [Anglo-American] Guarantee Pact thus assumed the position of the keystone of European peace, far above all theories. Its rejection, for that very reason, amounted to an indirect invitation for the thwarted aggressor to try again.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
A peace of justice, a Europe founded upon right, the creator of independent states whose military power is augmented by all the moral energies generated by the necessity for asserting themselves in all spheres of international life—will not this create a body of forces superior to anything that could come from a powerfully organized frontier?
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
Bismarck went so far as to boast of a forgery. The Ems telegram was a crime of no less magnitude than the outrage on Belgium. The cynicism of the scrap of paper will be counted against Germany as long as human history lasts. That stain, like Lady Macbeth's, can never be effaced.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
Is it not fairly clear that the very idea of a fatherland, which is still so potent among us, has lost some of its native strength in the hearts of those who have deliberately allowed themselves to be despoiled of that French pride so essential if the fatherland is to live and not die?
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
The Locarno pacts offer only the insubstantial semblance of a guarantee; they are an illusion calculated to mislead easily satisfied consciences and to lull more vigilant minds to sleep. In their inadequacy lies their danger. The spirit of Locarno itself is positively injurious to the interests of our country.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
If Germany, still obsessed by her traditional militarism, persists in her Deutschland über Alles, well—let the die be cast. We shall take up the atrocious War again at the point where we left it off. We must have the courage to prepare for it, instead of frittering away our strength in lies that no one believes, from conference to conference.
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)
As for myself, what more can I say? I am bitterly censured for having refused to give my country a strategic frontier. How can I take seriously those who, both great and small, reproach me with this, since they know that I could not—apart from any question of the rights of peoples—annex the Rhineland without breaking off our alliance, WHICH NO ONE DARED TO SUGGEST TO ME?
Grandeur and Misery of Victory (1930)