William Sanday
Published: 2018-01-18
Total Pages: 128
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Excerpt from The Meaning of the War for Germany and Great Britain: An Attempt at Synthesis The time has come, or is coming, when an attempt at balanced and dispassionate statement should be possible. At last we have a quantity of really authentic material, in the shape of the various Government publications the German White Book, the British Blue (or White) Book, the French Yellow Book, It is not merely prejudice to say that the German Book is the least valuable of these. It was hurried through at the beginning of the war and was the first to appear it contains very few documents, and indeed hardly professes to be more than a summary ex parte statement. Most valuable of all is the French Book, which bears striking testimony to the skill with which the French Foreign Office is served. I Shall do my best to base my case mainly on these official publications. But I have tried besides to bring to bear all the literature on which I could lay my hands and in the last few weeks I have had the advantage of access to a number of German books and pamphlets, which have not been generally available. My chief aim has been - I will not say, to bring about a better understanding between this country and Ger many, because at the present moment there is hardly any mutual understanding at all - but at least to pave the way, or begin to pave the way, for some such better understanding in the future. At the same time I do not think that I shall be more likely to succeed in this attempt by trying to water down the opposition between the two sides. I believe the more hopeful course will be found to be, to face this opposition in all its Sharpness, and - only when we have done this to attempt something in the nature of a more permanent balance or synthesis. I Shall, however, in the process of statement, endeavour to reduce each of the two cases to what I conceive to be more nearly its true dimensions, on the strength of such study as I have been personally able to give to it. I will state the British case first then the German and finally, try to draw out what I believe to be the permanent significance of both. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.