![]() ![]() ![]() Both expressed a profound desire for an end to the killing and suffering. This longing was expressed in music, especially the songs Tenting on the Old Camp Ground and When This Cruel War Is Over. By 1863, however, the death or wounding of half a million soldiers had replaced the rage militaire of 1861 with a longing for peace. Both antagonists foresaw these potential consequences in 1861 and embraced war as the only alternative. Confederate victory would destroy the United States and create a precedent for further balkanization of the territory once governed under the Constitution of 1789. Defeat would blot the Confederate States of America from the face of the earth. Both sides in the American Civil War feared that regime change would be the result of losing the war. ![]() In World War II, the Allies demanded the unconditional surrender of Axis governments in order to destroy these governments and install new ones in their place. In World War I, Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Allies would negotiate only with a democratic government in Germany, and the armistice did not go into effect until the kaiser abdicated. In the Napoleonic Wars, the coalition forces finally ended the conflict when they forced Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to abdicate-twice. The difficulties of achieving peace are compounded when the war aims of a belligerent include regime change in the enemy polity. Americans relearned that bitter lesson in Vietnam and, having apparently forgotten it, have been forced to learn it all over again in Iraq. No Peace without Victory, 1861–1865įor at least the past two centuries, nations have found it harder to end a war than to start one. This presidential address was delivered at the 118th annual meeting of the American Historical Association, held in Washington, DC, January 3, 2004. ![]()
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