In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918)

In The Fourth Year -
Anticipations of a World Peace
(1918)

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Title: In The Fourth Year Anticipations of a World Peace (1918)
Author: H.G. Wells
Release Date: November 26, 2003 [EBook #10291]
Language: English
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Mr. WELLS has also written the following novels:
LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM KIPPS MR. POLLY THE WHEELS
OF CHANCE THE NEW MACHIAVELLI ANN VERONICA TONO
BUNGAY MARRIAGE BEALBY THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS
THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN THE RESEARCH
MAGNIFICENT MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH THE SOUL

OF A BISHOP
The following fantastic and imaginative romances:
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS THE TIME MACHINE THE
WONDERFUL VISIT THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU THE SEA
LADY THE SLEEPER AWAKES THE FOOD OF THE GODS THE
WAR IN THE AIR THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON IN THE DAYS
OF THE COMET THE WORLD SET FREE
And numerous Short Stories now collected in One Volume under the
title of
THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND
A Series of books upon Social, Religious and Political questions:
ANTICIPATIONS (1900) MANKIND IN THE MAKING FIRST
AND LAST THINGS NEW WORLDS FOR OLD A MODERN
UTOPIA THE FUTURE IN AMERICA AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS
AT THE WORLD WHAT IS COMING? WAR AND THE FUTURE
GOD THE INVISIBLE KING
And two little books about children's play, called:
FLOOR GAMES and LITTLE WARS

IN THE FOURTH YEAR
ANTICIPATIONS OF A WORLD PEACE
BY
H. G. WELLS
AUTHOR OF "MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH," "THE WAR
AND THE FUTURE," "WHAT IS COMING?" "THE WAR THAT
WILL END WAR," "THE WORLD SET FREE," "IN THE DAYS OF
THE COMET," AND "A MODERN UTOPIA"
1918

PREFACE
In the latter half of 1914 a few of us were writing that this war was a
"War of Ideas." A phrase, "The War to end War," got into circulation,
amidst much sceptical comment. It was a phrase powerful enough to
sway many men, essentially pacifists, towards taking an active part in
the war against German imperialism, but it was a phrase whose chief
content was its aspiration. People were already writing in those early

days of disarmament and of the abolition of the armament industry
throughout the world; they realized fully the element of industrial
belligerency behind the shining armour of imperialism, and they
denounced the "Krupp-Kaiser" alliance. But against such writing and
such thought we had to count, in those days, great and powerful
realities. Even to those who expressed these ideas there lay visibly
upon them the shadow of impracticability; they were very "advanced"
ideas in 1914, very Utopian. Against them was an unbroken mass of
mental habit and public tradition. While we talked of this "war to end
war," the diplomatists of the Powers allied against Germany were
busily spinning a disastrous web of greedy secret treaties, were
answering aggression by schemes of aggression, were seeing in the
treacherous violence of Germany only the justification for
countervailing evil acts. To them it was only another war for
"ascendancy." That was three years and a half ago, and since then this
"war of ideas" has gone on to a phase few of us had dared hope for in
those opening days. The Russian revolution put a match to that pile of
secret treaties and indeed to all the imperialist plans of the Allies; in the
end it will burn them all. The greatest of the Western Allies is now the
United States of America, and the Americans have come into this war
simply for an idea. Three years and a half ago a few of us were saying
this was a war against the idea of imperialism, not German imperialism
merely, but British and French and Russian imperialism, and we were
saying this not because it was so, but because we hoped to see it
become so. To-day we can say so, because now it is so.
In those days, moreover, we said this is the "war to end war," and we
still did not know clearly how. We thought in terms of treaties and
alliances. It is largely the detachment and practical genius of the great
English-speaking nation across the Atlantic that has carried the world
on beyond and replaced that phrase by the phrase, "The League of
Nations," a phrase suggesting plainly the organization of a sufficient
instrument by which war may be