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From at least the fifteenth century, sovereigns who went to war published “manifestos” setting out their “just causes.” The first known war manifesto was written for Maximilian I, soon to be the Holy Roman Emperor, to defend his resort to arms against Charles VIII on the grounds that the French king stole his wife, Anne of Brittany. The first line declares “there is no one who would not know that the French are roosters.
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Oona A. Hathaway (The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World)