Unquestionably and naturally, in Germany, as everywhere else, the workmen, peasants, and lower middle class are true pacifists, and view the possibil… - Georges Clemenceau

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Unquestionably and naturally, in Germany, as everywhere else, the workmen, peasants, and lower middle class are true pacifists, and view the possibilities of new butcheries with horror. But, on the other hand, we must remember that all the sons of the governing classes, all the young men who attend the high schools, the colleges, and universities of Germany, find there Nationalist or Populist professors who continually din into their ears the Deutschland über Alles. In this lies the great danger to peace, a danger of which the genuine pacifists are well aware. Later on, in a few years, it will be these same young men who will direct the destinies of Germany. Are we not justified in fearing that the mass of the German people, workmen, peasants, lower middle class, faithful to the impulses of its gregarious nature, might allow itself, as in 1914, to be rushed into the whirl of a “fresh and frolicsome war”?

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About Georges Clemenceau

Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who led the nation in the First World War. A leader of the Radical Party, he played a central role in politics during the Third Republic. Clemenceau served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. He was one of the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles at the France Peace Conference of 1919.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Pen Names: Petras Zoufit
Alternative Names: Georges Benjamin Clemenceau Clemenceau
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The real task—and an absolutely new one—was the attempt to make definitely a Europe founded on right. In spite of some people's lack of understanding, to have attempted this will be the glory of the Treaty of Versailles. It is for future Governments to work at this task by some method other than that of eternally giving in. The realization of a Europe founded upon right was the greatest victory of all, the victory that neither Napoleon nor Foch wished to gain, and which required something more than successful strokes of strategy.

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And if our recent victory had merely been one of territorial conquests that were fated to call us out to the battlefield again to meet attempts to take revenge for our revenge, our success of the moment would have been as fruitless as every success before it. What was more to be desired in the interests of Europe striving for civilization was a victor capable of controlling himself so as to replace armed might by right in the fluid equilibrium of a peace capable of enduring.

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