The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 7, Issue 1, Winter 2018 | Page 32

peninsula in 2014. The study further suggested that a Russo-Georgian War II was
“likely,” 8 but not as probable as a Crimean-related conflict.
Research that aims to refine these war-predicting tests may benefit from
Frederic Harrison’s analysis, which prophesied the First World War five years
before it began—decades before scientific peace-modeling emerged as a formal
discipline. The past five years of modern centenary historiography
commemorating WWI features very little of Harrison’s March 18, 1909 letter to
the editor of The Times—a British newspaper covering contemporary national
panic arising from the pre-war Anglo-German naval arms race.
This study seeks to help fill this information gap by examining the
content and context of this letter, how it predicted the Great War for Civilization,
Figure 1. Frederic Harrison. Photo by William Downey
and Daniel Downey, ca. 1872-95.
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