War & Peace Quote by Eamon de Valera

De Valera is doing the hard thing a wartime statesman rarely gets credit for: insisting that neutrality can be a moral position, not a coward’s loophole. The line opens with an unsentimental diagnosis of war psychology - “each set of belligerents” is “over ready” to turn the world into a loyalty test. That phrasing is strategic. He doesn’t name Britain or Germany; he generalizes the impulse, treating suspicion as a predictable fever of conflict rather than a uniquely Allied grievance. It’s a way to deflate pressure without sounding evasive.

The subtext is Ireland’s tightrope in World War II. “Emergency” Ireland was newly sovereign, economically fragile, militarily outmatched, and still haunted by the long shadow of British rule and partition. De Valera knows neutrality will be read abroad as ingratitude (to the Allies) or quiet sympathy (for the Axis). So he preempts the accusation: yes, we understand how you’re going to frame us. Then he refuses the frame.

The key move is the final clause: “but the course we have followed is a just course.” He doesn’t claim it is popular, safe, or convenient - he claims justice. That’s a heavy word, chosen to elevate policy into principle: sovereignty matters; small states shouldn’t be conscripted by great-power narratives; moral agency isn’t only exercised through joining a war. It’s also a subtle message to domestic audiences: neutrality is not passivity, it’s nationhood performed under duress.