Trechos do prefácio de War Memoirs (1933), de David Lloyd George.
With this volume I finish my recollections of the War. They have taken the best part of my time for five years. The writing of books is a new business for me. When a man starts a new craft in his seventieth year he does not expect to gain that proficiency in the art which would enable him to become anything better than an amateur. It is as such I shall be ranked - it is as such I crave to be judged. I have sought to narrate facts as I remember them. I have given my impressions of events and personalities exactly as I found them at the time.
- - -
The only merit I claim for these volumes is that apart from the Official Histories of the War, they are the most carefully and richly documented account of the great Armageddon. Official Histories deal in great detail with the battles fought; I have only undertaken to give an account of the struggle as I saw it from the standpoint of a Minister of the Crown. I was the only Minister in any country who had some share throughout the whole of the War in its direction. During the last two years I had much the largest share in the Ministerial direction of the resources of the British Empire. No other Minister in any of the belligerent countries held an official position from the 1st of August, 1914, to the 11th of November, 1918. King Albert, King George, the Kaiser and Poincare were the only rulers who saw it through from the beginning to the end. Of these Poincare alone has given us an elaborate and detailed account of his contact with events during the War. For that reason his Diaries contain material of great value for the historian of the future.
- - -
The mass of papers accumulated by my secretaries during the period of the War and the subsequent peace negotiations filled me with dismay when I first entertained the thought of writing my War Memoirs. When I was engaged in an active political career as leader of a party I had neither the spare time nor the spare energy to undertake the gigantic toil of rummaging through this mountain of printed, typewritten or written memoranda, minutes, notes or letters - selecting those that mattered and choosing the passages that could be compressed and summarised and those that had to be given textually.
A serious illness, which disabled me for months in 1931, happily gave me the opportunity I had many times sought in vain to retire from the front line in politics.
- - -
The first [criticism] is based on the allegation that the War Cabinet could have achieved an honourable peace in 1917. This allegation has been completely exposed by a wealth of documentary proof which shows that at no stage of the War before their defeat in the autumn of 1918 were the Germans prepared to concede terms which would not have actually rewarded them for plunging the world into this horrible war. Any fair-minded perusal of the documents - German as well as British - which I have published, would have induced a change of opinion on the part of honest critics. Herein I have been disappointed. Men whose political bias is entrenched in misconception only dig deeper when their parapets are demolished.
- - -
Without the help such men rendered, victory would have been unattainable. The war was won by the incredible valour and endurance of the men who braved - actually and physically - death in every element for the honour of their native land. But they would not have been given a chance to win had it not been for the skill of men who worked behind and outside the region of horror where the soldier, the sailor (of all services) and the aviator discharged their perilous duties.
- - -
The first is my amazement that there should be millions of men who could go through such horrifying experiences without a complete shattering of nerves and brain. Multitudes of young men in many lands endured it for years and have survived without any obvious impairment of either. I constantly meet survivors of the War who for years endured the terrifying sensations of modern warfare, haunted day by day and night by night by the menace of death in its ghastliest and most agonising aspect. Psychologically and spiritually it must have had repercussions which are not easy to trace. But physiologically they seem to be as calm, as steady of nerve and as full of the joy of life as the men who never passed through those scorching fires. This courage possessed by so many ordinary men has always been to me incomprehensible. It is immeasurably great. In training, in discipline, in equipment and efficiency there were marked distinctions between one belligerent nation and another. There was no difference in the high courage of the common man whatever his country of origin. What makes war so terrifying is that it is waged by men. No human effort brings forth so clearly and impressively the strongest qualities of mankind as a whole. But war is a prodigal and stupid waste of these virile attributes. Evoked, stimulated and organised by and for some beneficent movement which is productive not of ruin and death but of something which gives life and gives it abundantly to the children of men, it would transfigure the world.
And that brings me to another impression engraven on my mind by the events of the War. As a tribunal for ascertaining the rights and the wrongs of a dispute, war is crude, uncertain and costly. It is true that the World War ended, as I still believe, in a victory for Right. But it was won not on the merits of the case, but on a balance of resources and of blunders. The reserves of man power, of material and of money at the command of the victorious Powers were overwhelmingly greater than those possessed by the vanquished. They were thus better able to maintain a prolonged struggle. Both sides blundered badly, but the mistakes committed by the Central Powers were more fatal, inasmuch as they did not possess the necessary resources to recover from the effects of their errors of judgment.
As I have pointed out in the text of this book, in 1915 the Allies committed the grave strategical error of concentrating their strength on a tremendous offensive against the German ramparts in France, and thus allowed the Central Powers with a few divisions to conquer the Balkans. But this mistake was more than counterbalanced by the incredible blunder committed by the German Staff in the spring and summer of 1916, when they hurled their best legions against Verdun in a vain effort to capture it. The Allied mistake prolonged the War. The German mistake lost them the War.
In the spring of 1916, if Falkenhayn, instead of wasting irrecoverable opportunity and time over Verdun, had taken Conrad's advice and attacked Italy and had adopted Hoffmann's proposal to finish off Russia, the issue of the war would have been different. Caporetto and Brest-Litovsk in 1916, instead of 1917 and 1918, when our army was not fully trained, with no America in the War and no starvation in Germany or Austria, would have forced the Western Powers to accept an unfavourable peace. The great offensive of March, 1918, came too late to save the Central Powers. By November, 1917, France and Britain were strong enough to rescue Italy from the consequences of her crushing defeat. And by the late spring of 1918 American reinforcements were pouring in to strengthen the Allied front just as the reserves of the Central Powers were exhausted. Judgment which is dependent on such contingencies is too precarious. Chance is the supreme judge in war and not Right. There are other judges on the bench, but Chance presides.
If Germany had been led by Bismarck and Moltke instead of by von Bethmann-Hollweg and Falkenhayn, the event of the great struggle between a military autocracy and democracy would in all human probability have been different. The blunders of Germany saved us from the consequences of our own. But let all who trust justice to the arbitrament of war bear in mind that the issue may depend less on the righteousness of the cause than on the cunning and craft of the contestants. It is the teaching of history, and this war enforces the lesson. And the cost is prohibitive. It cripples all the litigants. The death of ten millions and the mutilation of another twenty millions amongst the best young men of a generation is a terrible bill of costs to pay in a suit for determining the responsibility and penalty for the murder of two persons, however exalted their rank. When you add to that £50,000,000,000 expended in slaughter and devastation, the complete dislocation of the international trade of the world, unemployment on a scale unparalleled in history, the overthrow of free institutions over the greater part of Europe, and the exasperation and perpetuation of international feuds which threaten to plunge the world into an even greater catastrophe, one must come to the conclusion that war is much too costly and barbarous a method of settling quarrels amongst the nations of the earth.
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovTer2sFmEo
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/LloydGeorge.htm
- - -
The only merit I claim for these volumes is that apart from the Official Histories of the War, they are the most carefully and richly documented account of the great Armageddon. Official Histories deal in great detail with the battles fought; I have only undertaken to give an account of the struggle as I saw it from the standpoint of a Minister of the Crown. I was the only Minister in any country who had some share throughout the whole of the War in its direction. During the last two years I had much the largest share in the Ministerial direction of the resources of the British Empire. No other Minister in any of the belligerent countries held an official position from the 1st of August, 1914, to the 11th of November, 1918. King Albert, King George, the Kaiser and Poincare were the only rulers who saw it through from the beginning to the end. Of these Poincare alone has given us an elaborate and detailed account of his contact with events during the War. For that reason his Diaries contain material of great value for the historian of the future.
- - -
The mass of papers accumulated by my secretaries during the period of the War and the subsequent peace negotiations filled me with dismay when I first entertained the thought of writing my War Memoirs. When I was engaged in an active political career as leader of a party I had neither the spare time nor the spare energy to undertake the gigantic toil of rummaging through this mountain of printed, typewritten or written memoranda, minutes, notes or letters - selecting those that mattered and choosing the passages that could be compressed and summarised and those that had to be given textually.
A serious illness, which disabled me for months in 1931, happily gave me the opportunity I had many times sought in vain to retire from the front line in politics.
- - -
The first [criticism] is based on the allegation that the War Cabinet could have achieved an honourable peace in 1917. This allegation has been completely exposed by a wealth of documentary proof which shows that at no stage of the War before their defeat in the autumn of 1918 were the Germans prepared to concede terms which would not have actually rewarded them for plunging the world into this horrible war. Any fair-minded perusal of the documents - German as well as British - which I have published, would have induced a change of opinion on the part of honest critics. Herein I have been disappointed. Men whose political bias is entrenched in misconception only dig deeper when their parapets are demolished.
- - -
Without the help such men rendered, victory would have been unattainable. The war was won by the incredible valour and endurance of the men who braved - actually and physically - death in every element for the honour of their native land. But they would not have been given a chance to win had it not been for the skill of men who worked behind and outside the region of horror where the soldier, the sailor (of all services) and the aviator discharged their perilous duties.
- - -
The first is my amazement that there should be millions of men who could go through such horrifying experiences without a complete shattering of nerves and brain. Multitudes of young men in many lands endured it for years and have survived without any obvious impairment of either. I constantly meet survivors of the War who for years endured the terrifying sensations of modern warfare, haunted day by day and night by night by the menace of death in its ghastliest and most agonising aspect. Psychologically and spiritually it must have had repercussions which are not easy to trace. But physiologically they seem to be as calm, as steady of nerve and as full of the joy of life as the men who never passed through those scorching fires. This courage possessed by so many ordinary men has always been to me incomprehensible. It is immeasurably great. In training, in discipline, in equipment and efficiency there were marked distinctions between one belligerent nation and another. There was no difference in the high courage of the common man whatever his country of origin. What makes war so terrifying is that it is waged by men. No human effort brings forth so clearly and impressively the strongest qualities of mankind as a whole. But war is a prodigal and stupid waste of these virile attributes. Evoked, stimulated and organised by and for some beneficent movement which is productive not of ruin and death but of something which gives life and gives it abundantly to the children of men, it would transfigure the world.
And that brings me to another impression engraven on my mind by the events of the War. As a tribunal for ascertaining the rights and the wrongs of a dispute, war is crude, uncertain and costly. It is true that the World War ended, as I still believe, in a victory for Right. But it was won not on the merits of the case, but on a balance of resources and of blunders. The reserves of man power, of material and of money at the command of the victorious Powers were overwhelmingly greater than those possessed by the vanquished. They were thus better able to maintain a prolonged struggle. Both sides blundered badly, but the mistakes committed by the Central Powers were more fatal, inasmuch as they did not possess the necessary resources to recover from the effects of their errors of judgment.
As I have pointed out in the text of this book, in 1915 the Allies committed the grave strategical error of concentrating their strength on a tremendous offensive against the German ramparts in France, and thus allowed the Central Powers with a few divisions to conquer the Balkans. But this mistake was more than counterbalanced by the incredible blunder committed by the German Staff in the spring and summer of 1916, when they hurled their best legions against Verdun in a vain effort to capture it. The Allied mistake prolonged the War. The German mistake lost them the War.
In the spring of 1916, if Falkenhayn, instead of wasting irrecoverable opportunity and time over Verdun, had taken Conrad's advice and attacked Italy and had adopted Hoffmann's proposal to finish off Russia, the issue of the war would have been different. Caporetto and Brest-Litovsk in 1916, instead of 1917 and 1918, when our army was not fully trained, with no America in the War and no starvation in Germany or Austria, would have forced the Western Powers to accept an unfavourable peace. The great offensive of March, 1918, came too late to save the Central Powers. By November, 1917, France and Britain were strong enough to rescue Italy from the consequences of her crushing defeat. And by the late spring of 1918 American reinforcements were pouring in to strengthen the Allied front just as the reserves of the Central Powers were exhausted. Judgment which is dependent on such contingencies is too precarious. Chance is the supreme judge in war and not Right. There are other judges on the bench, but Chance presides.
If Germany had been led by Bismarck and Moltke instead of by von Bethmann-Hollweg and Falkenhayn, the event of the great struggle between a military autocracy and democracy would in all human probability have been different. The blunders of Germany saved us from the consequences of our own. But let all who trust justice to the arbitrament of war bear in mind that the issue may depend less on the righteousness of the cause than on the cunning and craft of the contestants. It is the teaching of history, and this war enforces the lesson. And the cost is prohibitive. It cripples all the litigants. The death of ten millions and the mutilation of another twenty millions amongst the best young men of a generation is a terrible bill of costs to pay in a suit for determining the responsibility and penalty for the murder of two persons, however exalted their rank. When you add to that £50,000,000,000 expended in slaughter and devastation, the complete dislocation of the international trade of the world, unemployment on a scale unparalleled in history, the overthrow of free institutions over the greater part of Europe, and the exasperation and perpetuation of international feuds which threaten to plunge the world into an even greater catastrophe, one must come to the conclusion that war is much too costly and barbarous a method of settling quarrels amongst the nations of the earth.
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovTer2sFmEo
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/LloydGeorge.htm
