First World War
During the First World War his language skills led to his employment as an Intelligence Officer in the Balkans. Later, as an under-secretary in Lloyd George's national government, he helped draft the Balfour Declaration (1917). He also encouraged Ze'ev Jabotinsky in the formation of the Jewish Legion for the British Army in Palestine.
Amery was an opponent of the idea of a League of Nations that was canvassed during the war as he believed that the world was not equal and therefore a League of Nations that treated all states as equals with equal voting rights was absurd. Amery instead believed that the world was tending to larger and larger states, with the outcome resulting in a balanced world of inherently stable units. He contrasted this idea favourably to President Woodrow Wilson's "facile slogan of self-determination".
Read more about this topic: Leo Amery
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“Without the blessing of cowardice, the world would long since have been torn to bits.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“... it is a commonplace that men like war. For peace, in our society, with the feeling we have then that it is feeble-minded to strive except for one’s own private profit, is a lonely thing and a hazardous business. Over and over men have proved that they prefer the hazards of war with all its suffering. It has its compensations.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)