[…] Great Britain is at this moment not thinking of peace. That small section of the British people which is in favour of peace is no larger than it was a year ago; it is almost unrepresented in Parliament, and for all practical purposes of government it may be said to be negligible.
[…]
[T]he German Chancellor…appears to think that the Entente Powers, having failed as yet to be the conquerors, are accordingly the conquered, and that it is for them to sue for peace. The answer to this claim is ludicrously simple. It is this – The Entente Powers do not accept the view that they are conquered.
[…]
If by some miracle every Entente gun and every Entente soldier were swept out of existence tomorrow, it would still be for the Entente Fleets, at their good pleasure to determine whether a single German merchant vessel should issue from the Heliogoland Bight. They could wither the whole growth of German oversea trade at the root, and put the clock back for Germany to the days more than half a century ago when Germany was a purely agricultural country.
When the consciousness of these things has been brought home to the German people and their rulers, as it will be, they will perhaps be ready to suggest terms which the Powers of the Entente can accept.
June 1916. Excerpts from ‘The One Condition of Peace by Sir Edward Goschen, formerly British Ambassador at Berlin’. Article originally published in The Times, 23rd June 1916. [SPEC S/D525 (P.C. 34)]. This week’s war: 99.
