I am making no predictions and the Prime Minister is wise in taking that line, but I am perfectly certain that nothing will enable the German Empire … - David Lloyd George

When one recalls the lessons of 1814, 1870 and 1914-18 it is not to be wondered at that those who dwell within daily sight of the scars due to the tearing wounds inflicted by Teutonic hands on their living land should have a natural apprehension lest the same calamities should befall again. Stripped of some of its richest provinces, Germany has still a population 50 per cent above that of France. The German is industrious, intelligent and resourceful, and although he is poor to-day such qualities soon make riches. He will therefore, so Frenchmen realise, once more become a formidable menace. The Teuton is on the French nerves. This accounts for the anxiety to keep him chained by Treaties, impoverished by levies, and overawed by armaments.

I was convinced that the general strike had no revolutionary purpose and that it was not designed to overthrow our institutions, although if persevered in...it might have had that effect. But its aim was entirely to express sympathy and give support to men in another union who were fighting to maintain a standard of life which was certainly not too high for men engaged in so dangerous and often so deadly a trade. However much I disapprove of this weapon, I could not work myself to a pitch of righteous anger against men who, however mistakenly, however unwisely, however wrongly, were acting from no selfish or destructive impulse, but were risking their own livelihood to help their comrades in a desperate plight.

By these atrocities, almost unparalleled in the black record of Turkish rule, the Armenian population was reduced in numbers by well over one million… If we succeeded in defeating this inhuman empire, one essential condition of the peace we should impose was the redemption of the Armenian valleys forever from the bloody misrule with which they had been stained by the infamies of the Turk.