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INTRODUCTION

BY NORMAN ANGELL

This book has a special interest for all who wish to help and not hinder the great international effort to destroy German militarism.

One way to hinder that effort - a way in which many people who really want to assist are now actually hindering it— is to regard any preparation for the peace as inconsistent with the effective prosecution of the war.

The internationalist may, with no surrender of his creed, fully admit that American coöperation with the Allies is a necessary step towards an organized internationalism of the future. But American participation, and victory however complete, will fail to achieve the declared objects of the war, unless they are used to enforce the right policy.

It is easy and it is disastrous to assume that all America needs to do is help defeat Germany; that German defeat will by itself cause the destruction of German militarism. But to act on that assumption is to make it certain that the defeat of Germany will have no such result. The distinction between what is necessary, and what is enough, is in war-time particularly hard to establish. German defeat may be necessary: but it is not enough. Our military defeat of the German Government

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