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Every War must end: War-time Planning for post-war Security, in Britain and America in the Wars of 1914–18 and 1939–45. the Roles of Historical Example and of Professional Historians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

D. C. Watt
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Extract

Any historical contrast between the manner in which the two major wars fought in the first half of the twentieth century came to an end has to start from the same sets of reference points. Neither the war of 1914–18 nor that of 1939–45 was a single war. Each comprised and interrelated set of wars. Their endingsfound the victors unready and surprised, their preparations for the processes of peace-making unrehearsed and unconcerted. The processes of peace-making themselves were therefore long drawn out in time and overtaken by subsequent events.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 28 , December 1978 , pp. 159 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1978

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References

1 P.R.O., FO 371/46306, F 1031/11/61, Memorandum of 16 April 1945.

2 A subject as yet insufficiently explored by historians; but see Feis, H., 1933, Characters in Crisis (Boston, Mass., 1966)Google Scholar.

3 As, for example, Mr. Harold Wilson did of his meeting in 1963 with President John F. Kennedy.

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9 Ibid., pp. 109–66.

10 Reynolds, and Hughes, , Historian as diplomat, p. 20Google Scholar; P.R.O., PREM 4/30/2 and CAB 66/37, WP(43)233.

11 P.R.O., CAB 66/30, WP(42)516 of 8 November 1942; CAB 66/33, WP(43)31 of 16 January 1943.

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13 Minute by G. F. Hudson on report by Sir Eric Teichmann (P.R.O., FO 371/35780, F 5511/74/10).

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15 As, for example, in the work of W. H. Dawson or Sir Raymond Beazley.

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23 Curiously, there has as yet been no collective study of the views of this faction among Roosevelt's advisers, possibly because of the contention, advanced by the leading American ‘revisionist’ historians, that their views represented the main stream in American foreign policy at this time.

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