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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
History consists of the general and the particular. The existence of the general is the reason why history repeats itself. In the annals of the past it is surprising to find, time and again, that what is often considered as modern and unique has happened before. Closer study reveals that men, when confronted with a similar set of circumstances have reacted, throughout recorded history, in patterns revealing a marked degree of similarity. If we are to gain a measure of rational control over an otherwise frequently anti-rational—and therefore anti-human—world, it is essential that we know these patterns. They show that men so often do what they do not want to do; they are caught in a chain of circumstances which they could have broken only if they had realized what the last link would be while they were forging the first or were permitting events to forge it for them.
1 Such tendencies may arise from the weakness of a state. Luxembourg, for example, is not likely to take any active part in conflicts with her neighbors. In the Western Hemisphere some nations possess so much territory that no value is placed upon what might be gained by conquest. The best illustration is provided by the relations between the United States and Canada, although the agitation of some of the “war hawks” before the War of 1812 should not be forgotten any more than the subsequent southward expansion of the United States at the expense of Mexico.
2 A comparative study of militarism, combining the analytical and the empirical approach, and dealing with all relevant variables in their historical setting, is long overdue. It is one of the tasks along the lines of “systematic history” which should be taken up after the war.
3 de Laveleye, E., Le gouvernement dans la démocratie. Vol. II, (Paris 1891), p. 435Google Scholar.
4 These quotations are taken from the translation as given by Lutz, B. F., “Forceful Peace Pleas in History,” Social Justice Review, (01 1943), p. 300Google Scholar. For the full French text of the letter, see Oeuvres de Fénelon. ed. Aime-Martin, M., Vol. III, (Paris, 1838), pp. 425–29Google Scholar.
5 Hamilton's argument was incomplete. He lived too early to realize that modern democracy makes for peace and can, within certain limits, offset factors working for war. The “republics,” whose warlike tendencies he discusses, differ in essential points from modern representative democracies.
6 It started early. General Smuts, during the Paris Peace Conference, made some remarks to MrNicolson, Harold summarized by the latter as follows: “He is very pessimistic. His view is that the world-crisis is one between government and anarchy. The former, in his opinion, has shown itself incapable of constructive or directive thought. It has followed the stream of public opinion instead of canalising that stream into intelligent channels. He feels that all we have done here is worse, far worse, than the Congress of Vienna. The statesmen of 1815 at least knew what they were about. These don't,” Peacemaking 1919, (New York, 1939), p. 336Google Scholar.
7 Here quoted from Coker, F. W., Readings in Political Philosophy, (New York, 1938), p. 200Google Scholar.
8 For some details see Barnes, J., “Russians, Poles, Czechs, Turks, Indians Fight for Hitler,” The Chicago Sun, 06 25, 1944Google Scholar.
9 “The Tough Young Men of France,” Harper's Magazine, (April 1945), p. 468.
10 If our papers wished to do so, they could fill column after column with lurid stories of Russian atrocities, and draw from them the same conclusions which they have drawn in regard to Germany.
11 “Who Saved Fascism?” The Saturday Evening Post, November 23, 1940.
12 In this respect the Bishops of Germany, now the object of so much criticism, were able to do better. See, for example, their Pastoral Letter of Passion Sunday, 1942. (Reprinted in the New York Times, June 7, 1942, under the title “Nazi Acts Decried by Reich Bishops.”) The Times commented editorially that this letter reveals “a courage no less exalted than that of the Christian martyrs in pagan Rome,” and added: “This, then, means that the Nazi dictatorship is waging war on its own people.” (“Call to German Conscience,” issue of June 8, 1942.)
13 Page 352 of the pocket book edition.
14 Armistice 1918. (New Haven, 1944)Google Scholar.
15 For the text see The New York Times of June 1, 1945.
16 For some details see my book, The Tyrants' War and the Peoples' Peace, (University of Chicago Press, 1944), pp. 160–7Google Scholar.
Interesting information on recent developments is contained in a report to the New York Times (issue of June 7, 1945) by Gladwin Hill, which bears the significant headline: “Old Parties Astir in Occupied Reich; Allied Ban on Politics Fails to Prevent Group Activity.” It is mentioned that, for example “A group of Centrists (Christian Democrats) in the northern Rhineland has applied for permission to organize, which at present is being withheld.” Such a policy leaves only the possibility of illegal work, in which both Communists and Nazis excel. The radicals will indeed gain a strong head start, unless Allied policies change soon.
17 (Stanford University, 1945).
18 Vignaux, P., “Unrest in France,” The Commonweal, 05 4, 1944Google Scholar. See also Arendt, Hannah, ”Approaches to ‘the German Problem’,” The Partisan Review. Winter 1945Google Scholar.
19 Mistakes were made as much by Wilson as by his opponents in the Senate. As Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler and Mr. Stephen Bonsai have advised us in recent years. Wilson could have obtained a two-thirds majority for the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles had he accepted moderate reservations, to which both Britain and France were willing to agree. Besides, those who discuss the conflict in the familiar terms of herodevil antagonism overlook that, as Mr. Ray Stannard Baker has reminded us in his introduction to the latest edition of Wilson's Congressional Government, the separation of powers system had something to do with the fact that there could be such a conflict.