World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
ended. It is mostly devoted to plans for the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
and the discussion of post-war politics.
Synopsis
Wells states in his May 1918 preface that the notion of a War to End War had seemed Utopian when he advanced it in 1914, but that in 1918 it had achieved "an air not only of being so practical, but of being so urgent and necessary and so manifestly the sane thing before mankind that not to be busied upon it, not to be making it more widely known and better understood, not to be working out its problems and bringing it about, is to be living outside of the contemporary life of the world."
''In the Fourth Year'' contains eleven chapters on the League of Nations, Allied war aims, and political institutions.
League of Nations
Wells believed that two considerations necessitated the instauration of a "League of Free Nations": "the present geographical impossibility of nearly all the existing European states and empires" and "the steadily increasing disproportion between the tortures and destructions inflicted by
modern warfare
Modern warfare is warfare that is in notable contrast with previous military concepts, methods, and technology, emphasizing how combatants must modernize to preserve their battle worthiness. As such, it is an evolving subject, seen different ...
and any possible advantages that may arise from it."
Wells regarded
American history
The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of Settlement of the Americas, the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Native American cultures in the United States, Numerous indigenous cultures formed ...
as a useful guide for those shaping the League of Nations: "We must begin by delegating owers as the States began by delegating." From the outset, he rejected the notion of equal representation of states: "The preservation of the world-peace rests with the
great power
A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power in ...
s and with the great powers alone." He argued that "the delegates the Allied Powers send to the Peace Conference . . . should be elected ''ad hoc'' upon democratic lines," and proposed that they should be chosen by a body elected for this purpose.
Wells proposed that the League of Nations should have the power (1) "to adjudicate upon all international disputes whatever"; (2) "to define and limit the military and naval and aerial equipment of every country in the world"; to create "an authority that may legitimately call existing empires to give an account of their stewardship," and thus to "supersede Empire"; to exercise "international control of tropical Africa"; to establish "local self-development" in the Middle East "under honestly conceived international control of police and transit and trade"; and to establish "an international control of inter-State shipping and transport rates."
In the final essay in the volume, Wells called on intellectuals and teachers to engage in "the greatest of all propagandas" to make possible "this new world of democracy and the League of Free Nations to which all reasonable men are looking."
War Aims
For Wells, the "essential aim of the war" was "to defeat and destroy military imperialism," and to that end "to change Germany . . . to bring about a Revolution in Germany. We want Germany to become a democratically controlled State."
Political Institutions
Wells regarded the end of the "Teutonic dynastic system in Europe" as an inevitable consequence of Allied victory in World War I. To survive, the
British monarchy
The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional form of government by which a hereditary sovereign reigns as the head of state of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies (the Bailiwi ...
"must speedily undergo the profoundest modification," perhaps by "the Anglicization of the royal family by national marriage."
Analyzing the concept of democracy, Wells noted that in contemporary conditions it is an impossibility, at least as the term was understood by the ancient Greeks who coined it. In current conditions, the term is confusingly embraced both by those who "believe that the common man can govern," and by those who "believe he can't." Wells distinguished ''delegate democracy'' (which governs through a majority vote by delegates) from ''selective democracy'' (which governs by "persons elected by the common man because he believes them to be persons able to govern") and favoured the latter; "I believe that 'delegate democracy' is already provably a failure in the world." Wells endorsed "Proportional Representation" (now known as the
single transferable vote
Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate ...
) as a way to overcome party politics in the selection of worthy individuals.
Reception
''In the Fourth Year'' was widely read. The essays it contains led
Walter Lippmann
Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 – December 14, 1974) was an American writer, reporter and political commentator. With a career spanning 60 years, he is famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of Cold War, coining the te ...
(who had edited the pieces for publication in
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...
) to seek out Wells when he visited England in August 1918, and their meetings influenced the US State Dept. document interpreting President Wilson's
Fourteen Points
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms ...
address. The end of the war came too quickly, however, for Wells's notion of a democratically elected Peace Conference to have any chance of realisation.
A shortened version of the book was published by the League of Free Nations Association.Michael Sherborne, ''H. G. Wells: Another Kind of Life'' (Peter Owen, 2010), pp. 242–43.