“History teaches us and invariably we disregard her lesson that coalitions begin to disintegrate from the moment that the common danger is removed”.
Originally penned by Sir Harold Nicolson in his 1946 seminal work on the Congress of Vienna, it referred to how the changing interests of the three great European Powers slowly tore the continent apart after the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars. It was also a timeous warning about what was bound to happen again after the defeat of Nazi Germany...
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