Nobel was an ardent advocate of arbitration, though1
not of disarmament, which he thought a foolish demand for the
present. He urged establishment of a tribunal and agreement
among nations for a one-year period of compulsory truce in4
any dispute. He turned up in person, though incognito, at a
Peace Congress in Bern in 1892 and told Bertha von Suttner
that if she could “inform me, convince me, I will do something7
great for the cause”. The spark of friendship between them had
been kept alive in correspondence and an occasional visit over
the years and he now wrote her that a new era of violence10
seemed to be working itself up: “one hears in the distance its
hollow rumble already.” Two months later he wrote again,
“I should like to dispose of my fortune to found a prize to be13
awarded every five years” to the person who had contributed
most effectively to the peace of Europe. He thought that it
should terminate after six awards, “for if in thirty years society16
cannot be reformed we shall inevitably lapse into barbarism”.
Nobel brooded over the plan, embodied it in a will drawn in
1895 which allowed man a little longer deadline, and died the19
following year.
Barbara Tuchman. The proud power. MacMillan Company, 1966, p. 233 (adapted).