OLD EUROPE’S SUICIDE
“For History of Times representeth themagnitude of actions and the public facesand deportments of persons, and passethover in silence the smaller passages and motionsof ‘men and matters.’”
—Francis Bacon
General Thomson comes of an English family of soldiers.He is about forty-five years old, and has a careerof active service behind him, having served as subalternfour years in the Boer War, then having passed theStaff-College, and subsequently having been employedby the War Office in Balkan service.
At the very beginning of the Great War he was engagedin Staff work at the French front, and in 1915 to1917 was the British military representative in theBalkans. In the Palestine campaign he saw active servicein the field until the occupation of Jerusalem.
When the Supreme War Council was convened atVersailles, Thomson was recalled and was attached asBritish Military Representative in 1918 remaining untilthe conclusion of its peace negotiations. In 1919 heretired with rank of Brigadier General—Royal Engineers.
He has now entered the field of politics as a memberof the Labour Party and is the selected candidate forParliament, standing for Central Bristol. He was amember of the Labour Party commission which recentlyvisited Ireland; and his services in the intensive campaignwork of the Labour Party in Great Britain haveoccupied the past year.
THE PYRAMID OF ERRORS
OLD EUROPE’S
SUICIDE
OR
THE BUILDING OF A PYRAMID
OF ERRORS
An account of certain events in Europe during
the Period 1912–1919
By
BRIGADIER-GENERAL
CHRISTOPHER BIRDWOOD THOMSON
New York
THOMAS SELTZER
1922
Copyright, 1922, by
THOMAS SELTZER, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ONE
I HAVE ALWAYS CALLED
“La Belle Sagesse,”
WHO GREATLY
LOVES HER COUNTRY AND HER
GARDEN BY
The “Sleeping Waters”.
This book is a retrospect covering the period 1912–1919.It begins with the first Balkan War, and endswith the Peace Conference at Paris. Many of the eventsdescribed have been dealt with by other writers, and theonly justification for adding one more volume to an alreadywell-stocked library, is that the author was aneye-witness of all that he relates and enjoyed peculiaropportunities for studying the situation as a whole. Toimpressions derived from personal contact with ma