After the end of World War I, in a speech given at St. Louis on September 11, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson said: "Why, my fellow citizens, is there any man here, or any woman - let me say, is there any child here - who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry? ... This war, in it's inception, was a commercial and industrial war. It was not a political war. (The Economic Consequences of the Peace, by that renowned British economist, John Maynard Keynes - 1919, page 30)
In summing up his analysis of World War I, Keynes continued: "The politics of power are inevitable, and there is nothing very new to learn about this war or the end it was fought for: England has destroyed, as in each preceding century, a trade rival".
After the war was over, a defeated Germany pleaded in vain to be allowed to import wheat, fats, condensed milk, etc, but their plea was rejected. As a direct consequence, in Bohemia in February 1919, 20 percent of the babies were born dead, and 40% died within the first month of birth. Only in March 1919, when Lord Plumer, commander of the British Army of the Rhine informed the British government that his soldiers were unable to endure the spectacle of starving children, was the blockade partially relaxed. ("Unfinished Victory", Arthur Bryant, 1940, as cited in "The Conduct of War", by J.F.C. Fuller, 1992, First Da Capo press edition, page 217)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
