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century ago, stupid and vainglorious politicians
dragged us into war. We started it as a
great, rich empire and ended it as an indebted husk.
Soon afterwards, America’s President Woodrow Wilson told
aides he would wipe Britain ‘off the face of the map’ in another ‘terrible and
bloody war’ unless we ceded our naval supremacy.
And US Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes raged and
shouted at Britain’s ambassador in Washington, Auckland Geddes, that America
had saved Britain’s bacon and we had better be grateful from now on.
In a voice rising to a scream, Mr Hughes declared: ‘You
would not be here to speak for Britain – you would not be speaking anywhere,
England would not be able to speak at all!
'It is the Kaiser who would be heard, if America – seeking
nothing for herself but to save England – had not plunged into the war and won
it!’
These little-known
but important facts should be borne in mind as we look back on this dreadful
episode. I for one have had enough of war poets and trench memoirs. Let’s
have some proper history – who did what to whom and what it cost.
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