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History and Angell’s Propositions: The Two World Wars

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Norman Angell and the Futility of War

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Abstract

Angell was essentially a writer on war and peace: his fame came to him as such, and he continued to be so regarded, even though his work on the public mind — applicable to domestic as well as international politics — seemed to him in later years to be more important. In effect, he had told the world how to avoid war and preserve peace. It is fitting to examine his views in terms of whether the two world wars confirm or deny what he said.

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Notes and References

  1. Angell, After All, pp. 150 ff.

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  2. Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (1964) p. 24.

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  3. Albert Wohlstetter, ‘Threats and Promises of Peace: Europe and America in the New Era’, Orbis, XVII, 4 (Winter 1974) p. 1114.

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  4. Ibid.

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  5. See, e.g., The British Revolution and the American Democracy (1919) pp. 108–112.

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  6. Angell, ‘Pro-Prussian Peace Talk’, War and Peace (July 1916) p. 154.

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  7. War and Peace (December 1916) p. 34. See Marvin Swartz, The Union of Democratic Control in British Politics during the First World War (1971) pp. 73–8, for further discussion of the campaign carried on by Angell and his associates.

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  8. He did so in the oral history interviews preserved at Columbia University.

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  9. After All, p. 153.

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  10. Angell, The Defence of the Empire (1937) pp. 14–15.

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  11. For articles by Angell giving his ideas on postwar planning, see War and Peace for September 1914 and January 1915, and

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  12. New Republic (16 June 1917).

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  13. Chapter 6 of Marvin Swartz, The Union of Democratic Control, provides material on the kind of opposition he had to meet. An example of personal abuse is George Makgill, ‘The Weapon of Peace: Germany’s Friends in England’, Nineteenth Century (April 1918) pp. 685–697.

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  14. See, e.g., Joseph S. Nye, Jr, and Robert O. Keohane, ‘Transnational Relations and World Politics: a Conclusion’, International Organization, xxv, 3 (Summer 1971) pp. 724–5;

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  15. A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, ‘The Costs of Major Wars: The Phoenix Factor’, American Political Science Review, LXXI, 4 (December 1977) p. 1359;

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  16. and David Baldwin, ‘Interdependence and Power: a Conceptual Analysis’, International Organization, XXXIV, 4 (Autumn 1980) esp. p. 483.

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  17. Alan S. Milward, The New Order and the French Economy (1970)

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  18. War, Economy and Society 1939–1945 (1977).

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  19. See the Introduction to R. B. McCallum, Public Opinion and the Last Peace (1944) pp. 1–22, for an admirable account of ‘approaches to the problem of peace’ between the wars.

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  20. After All, p. 200.

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  21. Ibid., p. 137.

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  22. ‘The Case for Stating Our Terms’, War and Peace (January 1915) pp. 57–9.

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  23. America and the New World-State (1915) pp. 25–7.

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  24. Transcript of oral history interviews, Butler Library, Columbia University, p. 142.

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  25. ‘An Englishman’s Point of View’, in C. R. Fish, N. Angell and C. L. Hussey, The United States and Great Britain (1932) pp. 134–5.

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  26. Ibid., p. 124.

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  27. ‘The Re-Armament Dilemma’, Time and Tide (9 March 1935) p. 328.

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  28. Columbia University oral history transcript, p. 182,

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  29. Ibid., p. 269.

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  30. Cf. McCallum, Public Opinion and the Last Peace: ‘This [League] system broke down from the beginning of the year 1936. Its end can be defined by two precise and clearly marked events, the occupation of Addis Ababa by Italian troops and the occupatior of the Rhineland by German troops … From that time onwards everything was on a razor edge. The Spanish War, the Occupation of Austria and later the Munich settlement, were all terrible dilemmas in which estimates of military power, beyond the reach of the public, were a preponderant factor . …’ (p. viii).

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  31. For a similar though somewhat differently emphasised view of the cogency of Angell’s ideas on interdependence, see Lord Garner, Can Man Find Peace? (1972) pp. 6–7.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    J. D. B. Miller (Professor of International Relations)

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  1. J. D. B. Miller
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© 1986 J. D. B. Miller

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Miller, J.D.B. (1986). History and Angell’s Propositions: The Two World Wars. In: Norman Angell and the Futility of War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07523-2_4

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