Subtitle: A Diplomatico-Political History of the Great War and Its Causes--Diplomacy and International Politics and Diplomatists as Seen at Close Range by an American Newspaperman Who Served in Central Europe as War and Political Correspondent General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1920 Original Publisher: G.A. Geyer Subjects: Diplomacy World War, 1914-1918 Europe United States Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: The Craft Sinister WAR AND DIPLOMACY THE causes of war advanced by the historian seem varied enough. Close and impartial scrutiny, however, discloses that the prime cause of war has been real or fancied necessity -- economic pressure in some instance, political factors in others. It is no simple operation to divide in this instance the real from the fancied. Economic pressure becomes generally a political factor; it is that in all cases when the ultima ratio -- war -- is resorted to. When it is considered that even the material needs of a state are not always a matter of actual want, but may be no more than what is usually understood by the term: Expansion -- the enlargement at the expense of others, of domain, markets or political influence, the task of delimitation appears in its proper proportions. We do not deal here with a simple form of taking. Some other party must lose before the taking can occur. The claims of a population living under intolerable conditions due to overcrowding seem valid enough so long as they are viewed by themselves. They lose, however, much of their weight when contrasted to the position of the people at whose expense more room is to be found for the claimant. The territory in question may not be needed by the second party, but the fact...