I. VILÁGHÁBORÚS KÖNYVEK

LLOYD GEORGE : War memoirs (előszó)

FOREWORD TO NEW EDITION

I HAVE received many communications expressing a hope that my War Memoirs should be published at a price which would bring them within easier reach of readers of average means.

The publication of a popular edition has afforded me an opportunity for checking the statements published in the first edition in the light of public criticisms, of facts brought to 1ight by subsequent writings, and of the numerous letters written to me by men who took an active part in the events I narrate. After a careful perusal of this fresh material I have not found it necessary to revise or correct any of the assertions I made or opinions I expressed in the original narrative.

I have added a sample of the letters that poured in during the last four or five years from eye-witnesses. I have specially chosen for publication a few of those I received on the Passchendaele episode, as the account I gave of that battle has been regarded as the most direct and detailed arraignment of the military command to which I have committed myself in these pages. A fair representative selection of this correspondence is given as an appendix to my Passchendaele chapter.

I aim to tell the naked truth about War as I saw it from the conning-tower at Downing Street. I saw how the incredible heroism of the common man was being squandered to repair the incompetence of the trained inexperts (for they were actually trained not to be expert in mastering the actualities of modern warfare) in the production of equipment, in transport, in tackling the submarine menace, in the narrow, selfish and unimaginative strategy and in the ghastly butchery of a succession of vain and insane offensives. The last great struggle revealed not only the horrid and squalid aspects of war but its muddles; its futilities; its chanciness; its precariousness; its wastefulness of the lives, the treasure and the virtues of mankind—all that demonstrates the supreme stupidity of committing to such a brutal and blunder-headed tribunal as War the determination of issues upon which the happiness and progress of humanity so largely depend.

When all the people that on earth do dwell are gladly scraping the butter off their own and their children's bread in order to keep the god of war fit and sleek, it is necessary to show them clearly what a fool he really is.

KATALÓGUS		TARTALOM