Diplomacy averted war with Germany for forty-three years, but it could not continue to avert war eternally.

War finally broke out with a violence unparalleled in history, and possessing a magnitude proportional to the duration of the preceding peace.

"Long coming long last, short notice soon past" is a sailor's maxim about storms; and it seems not inapplicable to wars.

Certain it is that the frequent wars of savage tribes are far less terrible than the infrequent wars of enlightened powers.
This indicates that, even though a nation may be able to avert war for a long time, war will come some day, in a form which the present war foreshadows; and it suggests the possibility that the longer the war is averted, the more tremendous it will be, the greater the relative unpreparedness of a slothful nation, and the sharper her punishment when war finally breaks upon her..