Book Description

Excerpt from The Diplomacy of the Great War The object of this book is limited. It has the same relation to a treatise on diplomacy that a high school "algebra" has to a text-book in "celestial mechanics." Very little has been written in America on European diplomacy. We have not been interested in the subject. Suddenly the roar of cannon has broken in on our ordinary life and month by month as the War drags on the vital necessity of knowing more about Europe becomes apparent. Many people ask: "What is it all about?" The more determined ask: "Where can we find out about it?" In our larger public libraries there is a great deal of material, but interest in such matters had been so slight that this material was not fully catalogued. What the libraries have to offer in our own language is mostly from English sources and as Great Britain is a party to the dispute it is unadvisable to hear only one side. A general wish is evident among us to do something towards a settlement of the conflict, not merely to hasten the cessation of hostilities, but especially towards the establishment of decent relations between our European cousins after the War. All chance of success in this direction depends on our having some conception of the issues at stake. So it has seemed to me worth the effort to attempt an introductory text-book, a first-year course in European diplomacy, more especially, as for many years the subject has fascinated me. Sooner or later the War will bum itself out. The diplomatists will gather around their traditional "green table" to see what they can save from the general bankruptcy. The news of their proceedings will come to us in fragments, cablegrams to our daily papers, articles on one or another phase of the situation in our magazines. 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.