Note 2 — Chapter I · THE BRITISH ARMY AND THE PEACE OF EUROPE

This view was held by no one more strongly than by Lord Roberts. During the last five-and-twenty years the writer has probably seen as much of soldiers as falls to the lot of most civilians, but nowhere, during that period, from the late senior Field-Marshal downwards, has he ever encountered that figment of the pacifist imagination of which we read so much during 1912-1914—"a military clique which desires to create a conscript army on the European model for purposes of aggression on the continent of Europe." The one thought of all soldiers was adequate defence. Their one concern was how to prevent war.... M. Clemenceau once urged that Lord Roberts should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his advocacy of 'conscription' in England. This proposal was made quite seriously.