Professor Harry Elmer Barnes in reply to the charge of bellicosity of the German people says:
"England has been way out in front in point of relative bellicosity among the nations, while Germany and the Netherlands stand at the very bottom of the list, next to Denmark."
This conclusion is forced by such findings as those in Professor Quincy Wright's "A Study of War" wherein it is shown that in the period from 1480 to 1940 there were 278 wars involving European countries, whose percentage participation was
as follows (Vol. I, p. 221):
England, 28
France, 26
Spain, 23
Russia, 22
Austria, 19
Turkey, 15
Poland, 11
Sweden, 9
Italy, 9
Netherlands, 8
Germany (including Prussia), 8
Denmark, 7
Likewise Pitirim Sorokin, in Vol. III, Part II of his Social and Cultural Dynamics, shows that from the twelfth century to 1925 the percentage of years in which leading European powers have been at war is as follows (p. 352):
Country/Percent of Years at War
Spain/67%
Poland/58%
England/56%
France/50%
Russia/46%
Holland/44%
Italy/36%
Germany/28%
Sorokin concludes, therefore, "that Germany has had the smallest and Spain the largest per cent of years at war." Of leading modern European states England, France, and Russia thus show nearly twice the bellicosity displayed by the "warloving" Germans.
