The wrong policy is the policy which Germany pursued after 1870. Germany made the Triple Alliance an exclusive Alliance, forced the pace in armaments… - Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

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The wrong policy is the policy which Germany pursued after 1870. Germany made the Triple Alliance an exclusive Alliance, forced the pace in armaments, and that policy produced conditions in Europe which led to war in 1914. I am convinced that is the true reading of history. Precisely because of that, I think it would be a grave blunder for the Allies who won the last War to repeat the German policy of 1870, and so far they have not done so. On the contrary, they have pursued what seems to me the right policy—the League of Nations policy and Locarno... They have got Germany coming into the League of Nations—on to the Council—on equal terms; they have got Germany to come into the joint security, both for France and Germany, of the Treaty of Locarno. That was the right policy. If the Government was about to go and make a separate political Entente with France it would be a departure from the right policy.

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About Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

Sir Edward Grey, 3rd Bt., 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (25 April 1862 – 7 September 1933) was British Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Sir Edward Grey, Bt Sir Edward Grey
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Additional quotes by Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

Colonel Roosevelt liked the song of the blackbird so much that he was almost indignant that he had not heard more of its reputation before. He said everybody talked about the song of the thrush; it had a great reputation, but the song of the blackbird, though less often mentioned, was much better than that of the thrush. He wanted to know the reason of this injustice and kept asking the question of himself and me. At last he suggested that the name of the bird must have injured its reputation. I suppose the real reason is that the thrush sings for a longer period of the year than the blackbird and is a more obtrusive singer, and that so few people have sufficient feeling about bird songs to care to discriminate.

If France is beaten in a struggle of life and death, beaten to her knees, loses her position as a great power, becomes subordinate to the will and power of one greater than herself—consequences which I do not anticipate, because I am sure that France has the power to defend herself with all the energy and ability and patriotism which she has shown so often—still, if that were to happen and if Belgium fell under the same dominating influence, and then Holland, and then Denmark, then would not Mr. William Gladstone’s words come true, that just opposite to us there would be a common interest against the unmeasured aggrandizement of any power?

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As far as the forces of the Crown are concerned, we are ready. I believe the Prime Minister and my right honorable friend, the First Lord of the Admiralty, have no doubt what ever that the readiness and the efficiency of those forces were never at a higher mark than they are today, and never was there a time when our confidence was more justified in the power of the Navy to protect our commerce and to protect our shores. The thought is with us always of the suffer and misery entailed, from which no country in Europe will escape by abstention, and from which no neutrality will save us. The amount of harm that must be done by an enemy ship to our trade is infinitesimal, compared with the amount of harm that must be done by the economic condition that is caused on the Continent.

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