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- <text>
- <title>
- (Before TIME) World War:What Did the World Gain?
- </title>
- <history>TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1910s Highlights</history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WAR
- "What Did the World Gain?"
- August 4, 1924
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> The American Legion Weekly decided to mark the passing of
- the first decade since the Great War flung the world into the
- Maelstrom of Mars. (Dates of declaration of War by principal
- countries: Austria-Hungary on Serbia, July 28, 1914; Germany on
- Russia, Aug. 1, 1914; Germany on France, Aug. 3, 1914; Britain
- on Germany, Aug. 4, 1914; France on Austria-Hungary, Aug. 11,
- 1914; Britain on Austria-Hungary, Aug. 12, 1914; Italy on
- Austria, May 23, 1915; Bulgaria on Serbia, Oct. 15, 1915; Italy
- on Bulgaria, Oct. 19, 1914; Germany on Portugal, Mar. 9, 1916;
- Italy on Germany, Aug. 27, 1916; Rumania on Austria-Hungary, Aug.
- 27, 1916; Germany on Rumania, Aug. 29, 1916; Turkey on Rumania,
- Aug. 30, 1916; Bulgaria on Rumania, Sept. 1, 1916; Greece
- (Provisional Government) on Germany and Bulgaria, Nov. 23, 1916;
- U.S. on Germany, Apr. 6, 1917; U.S. on Austria-Hungary, Dec. 7,
- 1917.) It wrote to various individuals in various countries,
- asked them to reply to the question: "What did the World Gain by
- the World War?" Excerpts from the answers:
- </p>
- <p> Newton D. Baker, U.S. Secretary of War during the Wilson
- Administration: "I believe it is possible now to say that the
- world is at last convinced that the balance of power theory is
- an unstable basis for world peace and that international
- cooperation is the only other plan to be tried. This is a great
- gain."
- </p>
- <p> Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard University:
- "The World War destroyed the huge Russian, German and Austrian
- autocracies, revived several freer nations which those
- autocracies had crushed or cut into pieces, strengthened the
- three great Powers in which democratic principles have made good
- progress, and brought them nearer to effective union for
- promoting Liberty, Justice and Peace throughout the world."
- </p>
- <p> Gen. John J. Pershing, ex-Commander-in-Chief of the A.E.F.:
- "While we are probably too close to the events of the World War
- definitely to judge of its general benefits to mankind, yet the
- victory did result in preventing domination by autocracy, with
- all of its disastrous effects upon civilization, and the evidence
- is clear that the free peoples of the world will unite in
- resisting such domination."
- </p>
- <p> Upton Sinclair, "U.S. Bolshevik": "The world gained by the
- World War an opportunity to learn thoroughly that capitalist
- governments are incompetent to manage civilized communities, and
- that national competition for raw materials and foreign markets
- will wreck civilization during the present generation, if it is
- not checked by a system of international cooperation."
- </p>
- <p> Maj. Gen. Henry T. Allen, quondam Commander of the American
- Occupation Force: "The world has learned much of the inter-
- dependence of the States. It has learned that Europe cannot
- proceed properly along the road of moral and physical restoration
- without our participation in the great unsettled post-bellum
- measures."
- </p>
- <p> Samuel Gompers, famed U.S. Laborite: "The world gained as
- a result of the Great War a freedom from the menace of organized
- militarist imperialism without which all peoples sooner or later
- would have been enchained in bondage and vassalage. The
- tremendous meaning of that achievement will be more understood
- as time passes. The victory was magnificent, the cause worthy of
- all that we gave and more."
- </p>
- <p> Gen. Sir Arthur W. Currie, ex-Commander-in-Chief of the
- Canadian Expeditionary Force, now Principal of McGill University:
- "By the World War we gained a truer appreciation and a better
- realization of war's unspeakable waste, its dreadful hardships,
- its cruel slaughter and its aftermath of loneliness, sorrow and
- broken hearts. We now know that as a means of solving the world's
- problems and removing international discord war is a delusion and
- a lie. We know that no matter how much a nation may desire to
- hold itself aloof and to keep apart from the struggle it cannot
- escape war's terrible effects."
- </p>
- <p> Hilaire Belloc, British historian: "The world gained by the
- Great War a demonstration in practice that the atheist doctrine
- and tradition of which Prussia had been the increasingly
- successful exponent for 150 years would ultimately prove weaker
- than the culture of Christendom."
- </p>
- <p> John Maynard Keynes, famed British economist: "I don't
- know!"
- </p>
- <p> Wilhelm Hohenzollern (The Legion Weekly had written to the
- ex-Kaiser and had addressed the envelope: WILHELM
- HOHENZOLLERN,Esq., DOORN, HOLLAND.) apparently instructed his
- Secretary, Admiral H. von Rebeur-Paschwitz, to write the
- following letter, of which the Legion Weekly produced a
- facsimile: "In answer to your letter dated May 31st, His Majesty
- the Emperor tells me to let you know that he regrets not being
- able to comply with your request. As to the question: `What did
- the World gain by the World War?' I would think the only possible
- answer could be: `Nothing! It lost everything!' "Very truly
- yours, "W. von Rebeur-Paschwitz."
- </p>
- <p> Friedrich Wilhelm Hohenzollern, eldest son of the above:
- "The United States entered the War believing to destroy
- militarism and to make the world free for democracy. The result
- of the War was that all nations are arming as hard as they can,
- and what about democracy?--just look at the cables from over the
- whole world. Dictatorship of some sort or other is the favorite
- idea. The only good the War did is to show that a nation, not
- well armed, is powerless, and that such a nation gets no help
- from anybody."
- </p>
- <p> Maximilian Harden, German editor, intractable enemy of the
- Hohenzollerns: "The certainty that war has lost its last glowing
- charm of romantic chivalry or knighthood, that it has lost the
- manly nobility of a fight to be decided by personal valor, and
- has become an endless war of industrial masses of matter and
- physical and chemical devils' work."
- </p>
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-