Thanks, Wilfried. Don't stay up at night on my account searching for the quotation but I'd still be interested in seeing it in context if you do come across it.

I take it to mean that countries (well, OK, in his time kings and princes) go to war for specific policy reasons, not just for the hell of it: in practice, it seems to be a still timely call to define war aims before you start a war, and a warning against what we now call "mission creep".

I dragged it in here because I'm uneasy at the direction which the European Union is taking, and the question about the tune which is also our anthem gave me an excuse to sound off. That's me in my gloomy days. When I'm feeling cheerful, I observe that the grindingly slow conduct of business the countless Council working groups is reminiscent of trench warfare, ans is in fact the continuation of war by other (peaceful) means. Admittedly this is the process which has led us to have an anthem without words, and banknotes with "white brand" non-specific cultural symbols, but it's still an improvement on people literally beating each other over the head about symbols. It was also the inspiration which led John Hume to bring about something approaching peace in Northern Ireland.