The War That Will End War

During August 1914, immediately after the outbreak of the war, English author and social commentator H. G. Wells published a number of articles in London newspapers that subsequently appeared as a book entitled The War That Will End War. He blamed the Central Powers for starting the war and argued that only the defeat of German militarism could bring about an end. He used the shorter form, the war to end war, for In the Fourth Year (1918), in which he noted that the phrase got into circulation in the second half of 1914. It became one of the most common catchphrases of the First World War.