annihilation, of any one nation would leave those causes still subsisting.
Wipe out Germany from the map, and, if you do nothing else, the other
nations will be at one another's throats in the old way, for the old
causes. They would be quarrelling, if about nothing else, about the
division of the spoil. While nations continue to contend for power,
while they refuse to substitute law for force, there will continue to
be wars. And while they devote the best of their brains and the chief
of their resources to armaments and military and naval organization,
each war will become more terrible, more destructive, and more ruthless
than the last. This is irrefutable truth. I do not believe there is a
man or woman able to understand the statement who will deny it.

In the second place, the enemy nation cannot, in fact, be annihilated,
nor even so far weakened, relatively to the rest, as to be incapable of
recovering and putting up another fight. The notions of dividing up Germany
among the Allies, or of adding France and the British Empire to Germany,
are sheerly fantastic. There will remain, when all is done, the defeated
nations--if, indeed, any nation be defeated. Their territories cannot be
permanently occupied by enemy troops; they themselves cannot be permanently
prevented by physical force from building up new armaments. So long as they
want their revenge, they will be able sooner or later to take it. If
evidence of this were wanted, the often-quoted case of Prussia after
Jena will suffice.

And, in the third place, the defeated nations, so treated, will, in fact,
want their revenge. There seems to be a curious illusion abroad, among the
English and their allies, that not only is Germany guilty of the war, but
that all Germans know it in their hearts; that, being guilty, they will
fully accept punishment, bow patiently beneath the yoke, and become in
future good, harmonious members of the European family. The illusion is