The Crimes of England
By G. K. Chesterton
11 Dec, 2019
What Chesterton does is examine the history of England going back several centuries and finds that it was too favorably impressed by the Germans, as opposed to the French, Irish, and other European peoples. This was published after the First World Wa
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What Chesterton does is examine the history of England going back several centuries and finds that it was too favorably impressed by the Germans, as opposed to the French, Irish, and other European peoples. This was published after the First World War had already begun, and its author is trying to see what errors led to this conflagration. Instead of seeing the typical historical causes -- the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the desire of Austria to punish the Serbs, the huge military and naval buildup by the Germans -- he sees a weakness in his country of essentially having the wrong friends. For instance, on the subject of Ireland, he writes:
"The truth about Ireland is simply this: that the relations between England and Ireland are the relations between two men who have to travel together, one of whom tried to stab the other at the last stopping-place or to poison the other at the last inn. Conversation may be courteous, but it will be occasionally forced." Less