Toynbee is describing a failure of post-war diplomacy in which political ambition, material power and willingness to act did not coincide. The Western powers possessed the military and financial resources required to pursue their policies in the Near and Middle East, but their populations were increasingly unwilling to bear the costs of further intervention after the First World War.

Western statesmen therefore sought to advance their aims through smaller regional powers, which Toynbee describes as “pawns”. These states could possess strong national ambitions and a willingness to fight, but lacked the resources needed to achieve the larger objectives expected of them. The quotation therefore identifies a basic problem of statecraft: having either the means or the determination to pursue a policy is insufficient if the two do not exist together. In its original context, it is also a criticism of relying on other states to carry out policies that stronger powers are unwilling to pursue themselves.

Full quotation

“The statesmen miscalculated again. Their fellow-countrymen had the means to carry out their policy but not the will; their pawns had the will without the means. They were too weak to perform the role marked out for them, however great the bribe. They could not struggle on to the eighth square and turn into queens. On the contrary, they have displayed an exasperating faculty of making queens out of the opposing pawns. Greek and Turkish armies, fighting French and English battles, have aroused, and always will arouse, more resistance than they can overcome.”