Ernest Bevin - War Quotes

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There never has been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented…The common man, I think, is the great protection against war.

Ernest Bevin

The fact of it is that all of us agreed to save 6d. in the Income Tax by breaking up the Army in peace-time and not having it prepared when war broke out... I will never be a party to it again.

Ernest Bevin

If anyone asks me who was responsible for the British policy leading up to the war, I should, as a Labour man myself, make a confession and say: "All of us". We refused absolutely to face the facts. When the issue came of arming or rearming millions of people in this country... we refused to face the real issue at a critical moment. But what is the good of blaming anybody? We cannot make our action retrospective whatever we do. We have to start from now and try to do the best we can.

Ernest Bevin

So long as I have any power at all I will never be a party to treating the Army in the future as it has been treated in the past. They broke up in peace-time the very foundations of the Army structure, and expected to build it up during war-time with the enemy at the gates.

Ernest Bevin