"In attaching so much importance to the idea of the League of Nations England was moved in part by a sincere idealism but also by a false idea she had formed of a League of Nations that would overcome cannon with volleys of edifying discourse. Harold Nicolson, a member of the British Parliament, told me he had received the following letter from one of his constituents: "I hope you are for the League of Nations and no foreign entanglements." This confusion of ideas, this incredible self-confidence, this refusal to look reality in the face had produced the effects that might have been foreseen. Having slumbered on her green lawns from 1919 to 1939 England awoke after Munich when it was too late, and she came to the war with almost no army."
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Sources
André Maurois, Tragedy in France (1940), pp. 128-129
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/League_of_Nations
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League of Nations
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