Here we list some popular quotes about World War 1.
“Why four great powers should fight over Serbia no fellow can understand.”
– John Burns, working class member of Britain’s Liberal government, July 27, 1914
“My center gives way, my right is pushed back, situation excellent, I am attacking.”
– Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French Army, he supposedly said this during the Battle of the Marne
“What our sword has won in half a year our sword must guard for half a century.”
– Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke, commander German Army, after the German Victory in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. (In looking at the causes of a war one generally goes back to the previous war.)
“A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.”
– Prince Otto von Bismarck, German Chancellor, 1870
“I am fed up with war and the clamor for war and with the perennial armaments. It is high time that the great nations calmed down again and occupied themselves with peaceful pursuits, or there will be an explosion which no one desires and which will be to the detriment of all.”
– German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, June 1913
“[German Acting Foreign Minister, Dr. Alfred Zimmermann] had been surprised that the Emperor of Austria endorsed a policy [demanding the evacuation of Albania by Serbian forces within eight days in October 1913] which, under certain circumstances, might have lead to serious consequences, but he had done so, and that made it clearer still that restraining advice at Vienna on the part of Germany was out of the question.”
– Sir Edward Goschen, British Ambassador to Berlin. In the opinion of S.L.A. Marshall, it is in the last 14 words that lay the seeds of WWI.