The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-05-09
War Corroborates Book of 1909

After q wears and a titanic war in between to illus
trate and prove the point, statesmen who had to do with
the recent world conflict and the after effects have come
into agreement with Norman Angel, who wrote a book
In 1909 to warn the nations that no longer was it posi-
BILE to derive profit from modern war.
His book, "The Great Illusion" was inspired by the
truculent atmosphere of Europe in those days Of mill
tarism which led up to the grapple of the Central pow
es and the Allies. It was the period of the seizure of
Novi-Bazar, the Algeciras episode, the feverish race be-
tween England and Germany for naval supremacy and
between France and Germany for the possession of the
greater army, of diplomatic ~intrigues, easy insult. en-
circling alliances Of rival interests in Algeria, Tunis and
Morocco and of hysteric nationalism working itself up
to the proper pitch for the coming clash. Angel foresaw
this. Statesmen knew it. With the opening of the
secret archives after Russia broke down in the fighting,
these statesmen were revealed as plotting for it, even
welcoming 1t, at this time.
Angel, sizing up the situation, declared bluntly that
they were all wasting their efforts. Never again, he
asserted, would it be possible for q victory in war to
bring prosperity or security to the nation that won it.
This, then, was his 'great iNusion"-the theory that
any nation stood to gain anything Of lasting value by
going to war.
Angel was bitterly criticized. branded an impractical
pacifist and an idealst. A few years later the war that
he foresaw came, and all the world took a hand.
The other day he celebrated the twenty-first anniver-
sary Of his book-and found high British government
officials ready to congratulate him and tell him that
he had been right all along. The country that had con-
demned him two decades ago was ready to admit that
there might be something to his argument.
For the World war, after all, did teach US something.
It compelled us to learn that modern war is a ~profitless
business all around.
Germany, beaten in the war, has gone through an UNI
comfortable ten years. It has experienced nearly every
form of hardship that can come to a nation and is left
with a gigantic PREPARATIONS burden for. the future. The
war that was to win Germany q place in the sun" was
most assuredly q losing venture.
But the conquered always fare poorly. How about the
Nictors?
There is England; England. which has had a colossal
unemployment problem ever since the ~armistice, which
has a tax rate so staggering DIS to be almost incompre-
hensible to Americans. which has seen her trade and
financial supremacy more violently shaken since 1918
than ever before. which has had to grant another nation
joint rulership Of the seas, which skated closer to q
revolution. in the 1926 general strike, than any English
man likes to think, and which has q Socialist prime min
lister.
That is what England got out Of the war.
You could go down the line with the contesting ma
lions and get a similar result in nearly every case. An
gels thesis has come close to being proven. If the
World war paid" anyone 1t is hard to figure out just
bow.