Needless to say, every one of the wars just mentioned was advertised as a defensive, moralistic, and completely national expedition. Bismarck even went so far as to make an unworkable treaty with Austria so that he could claim, when Austria broke it, that he was waging war in defense of the sacredness of treaties. But no one should be deceived by such propaganda. All these wars were waged in order to maintain certain groups in control in the belligerent countries. The third class of wars are those waged to turn attention from unsatisfactory conditions at home. Bismarck made three wars primarily in order to break the bourgeois ranks and overcome particularism in Germany. Napoleon III's expedition to Mexico was merely an effort to please the discontented Catholics at home. Last Spring there were indications that the American government was considering seriously the idea of a war with Japan in order to bring us out of the Depression. If the Five-Year Plan fails in Russia, and disorders break out there similar to the disorders in France in the four months preceding the declaration of war in 1792, we may expect the Russian government to try its hand at a war in order to turn attention from its failure. For this is a natural means of strengthening the hands of a government, of uniting the nation and thus preserving power. It works if you win. But the three types of motive so far considered are not nearly so frequently encountered as the fourth type, the making of war to strengthen and enrich dominating group. Once such a group is firmly in the saddle it always uses the opportunity to further strengthen its own economic and political power. In this class of wars we include all the colonial wars of modern times, the British (opium) war of 1840, thc Boer War, the Franco-British intervention in the Crimean War, Napoleon III's war on Austria in 1859, Russia's numerous wars on Turkey,.the Russo-Japanese War, and our own war on Mexico. Each of thc...
