"If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilization and the progress of our generation. Even though the result disappoint us, must we not base our actions on better expectations, and believe that the prosperity and happiness of one country promotes that of others, that the solidarity of man is not a fiction, and that nations can still afford to treat other nations as fellow-creatures?" - The Economic Consequence of the Peace, Ch. 7 'Redemies', sec. 1 (1920).
Thirteen years later, after Germany had been saddled with crushing war reparations payments which Keynes had shown were impossible for it to meet, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. And we all know where that ended up.
