"Who Makes War?"

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 22, 1912:
An Editorial In "The Thunderer" Creates a Sensation in England.
    LONDON, Nov. 27.— Quite in the old style of "The Thunderer" is an editorial article on the European situation that appeared in The Times yesterday and that is being reprinted everywhere. It is regarded as one of the most powerful peace appeals ever published in a newspaper. Following are some extracts from it:
    " 'Is there no means of avoiding war?' The question is being asked with some bewilderment by millions of men in this country who want to know what difficulties there are in the present situation which should threaten Europe with a general war. * * *
    "There are no irresistible waves of popular feeling, no gusts of angry passion, such as sweep whole peoples into war before they are well aware of what they are doing. There is no great nation in Europe which to-day has the least desire that millions of men should be torn from their homes and flung headlong to destruction at the bidding of vain ambitions.
    "In England men will learn with amazement and incredulity that war is possible, over the question of a Servian port, or even over the larger issues which are said to lie behind it. Yet that is whither the nations are blindly drifting. Who, then, makes war?
    "The answer is to be found in the Chancelleries of Europe, among the men who have too long played with human lives as pawns in a game of chess, who have become so enmeshed in formulas and the jargon of diplomacy that they have ceased to be conscious of the poignant realities with which they trifle.
    "And thus will war continue to be made until the great masses who are the sport of professional schemers and dreamers say the word which shall bring not eternal peace, for that is impossible, but a determination that wars shall be fought only in a just and righteous and vital cause."
    [The full text of the editorial, "Who Makes War?" is also reprinted here on WWI Diary.]