THE DUTY TO MAKE WAR

Prince Bismarck repeatedly declared before the German Reichstag that no
one should ever take upon himself the immense responsibility of
intentionally bringing about a war. It could not, he said, be foreseen
what unexpected events might occur, which altered the whole situation,
and made a war, with its attendant dangers and horrors, superfluous. In
his "Thoughts and Reminiscences" he expresses himself to this effect:
"Even victorious wars can only be justified when they are forced upon a
nation, and we cannot see the cards held by Providence so closely as to
anticipate the historical development by personal calculation." [A]

[Footnote A: "Gedanken und Erinnerungen," vol. ii., p. 93.]

We need not discuss whether Prince Bismarck wished this dictum to be
regarded as a universally applicable principle, or whether he uttered it
as a supplementary explanation of the peace policy which he carried out
for so long. It is difficult to gauge its true import. The notion of
forcing a war upon a nation bears various interpretations. We must not
think merely of external foes who compel us to fight. A war may seem to
be forced upon a statesman by the state of home affairs, or by the
pressure of the whole political situation.

Prince Bismarck did not, however, always act according to the strict
letter of that speech; it is his special claim to greatness that at the
decisive moment he did not lack the boldness to begin a war on his own
initiative. The thought which he expresses in his later utterances
cannot, in my opinion, be shown to be a universally applicable principle
of political conduct. If we wish to regard it as such, we shall not only