This war without end is criminal. What is abominable is that they do not want to end it. No, they do not want. Do not try to tell me that there was no way to end it. Emperor Charles [Karl I of Austria-Hungary] offered peace; he is the only decent man to have appeared in this war, and he was not listened to. There was, through him, a chance that could have been seized... Clemenceau called the emperor a "rotten conscience," it's ignoble. Emperor Charles sincerely wanted peace, and therefore was despised by the whole world. [...] A king of France, yes a king, would have had pity on our poor, exhausted, bloodlet nation. However democracy is without a heart and without entrails. When serving the powers of money, it is pitiless and inhuman.

-- Anatole France

quoted in the Wikipedia Article on Karl I