"If I am asked what we are fighting for I reply in two sentences. In the first place, to fulfil a solemn international obligation, an obligation which, if it had been entered into between private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been regarded as an obligation not only of law but of honour, which no self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated. I say, secondly, we are fighting to vindicate the principle which, in these days when force, material force, sometimes seems to be the dominant influence and factor in the development of mankind, we are fighting to vindicate the principle that small nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of international good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and overmastering Power. I do not believe any nation ever entered into a great controversy—and this is one of the greatest history will ever know—with a clearer conscience and a stronger conviction that it is fighting, not for aggression, not for the maintenance even of its own selfish interest, but that it is fighting in defence of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the civilisation of the world."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandAcademics from EnglandMembers of the Parliament of the United KingdomPeople from Leeds
Original Language: English
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Speech in the House of Commons on the declaration of war with Germany (6 August 1914)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._H._Asquith
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H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. As Prime Minister, his Liberal Party government passed social legislation beginning the modern British welfare state and reducing the power of the House of Lords. He was the leader of the country during World War I and formed a wartime coalition with the Conservative Party. He was was forced to resign in favor of David Lloyd George
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