He was Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Vice Regal Representative in Canada as the fifth Governor General after Confederation, and in India as the thirteenth Viceroy.
On 29 November 1917, he published a letter in 'The Daily Telegraph' calling for a negotiated end to the 1914-1918 War on the basis of the status quo ante bellum. in which he stated,
We are not going to lose this war, but its prolongation will spell ruin for the civilised world, and an infinite addition to the load of human suffering which already weighs upon it...We do not desire the annihilation of Germany as a great power ... We do not seek to impose upon her people any form of government other than that of their own choice... We have no desire to deny Germany her place among the great commercial communities of the world.
Whilst his proposal was rejected and Landsdowne was roundly denounced as unpatriotic, just look at his prophetic powers. If the War had ended in 1917, it is quite likely that the Great Empires, Austria, Russia, and Germany, would have survived the conflict. The likelihood of Revolution in Russia would have been much less. There would have been no Dolchstoßlegende for Hitler to exploit in his rise to power.
The Second World War quite likely would not have happened, and the Balkan monarchies would have survived, instead of being abolished by the Red Slave-masters. And, those same Balkan countries would have continued under the rule or influence of Austria, so there would have been no Yugoslavia to break down in genocidal ethnic rivalries 75 years later.
And finally, without the Russian Revolution, there would have been no 'Cold War' to blight the world landscape for 40+ years.
All in all, at least in the not so humble opinion of the Old Curmudgeon, the world would have been a much better place had Landsdowne's proposal been successful.
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