Introduction If there are intelligent inhabitants on any planet other than this on which we roll through space, we may imagine them looking down at the earth just now and chuckling as they remark: "Well, they are at it again on the earth. Tribes, races, and nations are again in the melting pot." For, though war seems a serious and terrible thing to us who are in it or close to it, to disinterested observers at a great distance, if there are any, who have been watching war follow war on this globe for generation after generation, the whole thing may seem to indicate the pettiness rather than the greatness of humanity. For the old differences are being settled in the old way. Even some of the scenes and some of the actors in this drama have familiar names: Charleroi, Waterloo, Louvain; von der Goltz, and Pau. One is struck with the futility of the whole thing. Must war succeed war with no apparent permanent result save a preparation of conditions out of which the next war may spring? The remark of Sir Edward Hamley, the English historian, concerning the results of the Crimean War, may seem in its despairing cynicism to be applicable to all wars. "Thus," said the historian, "had the great war been rounded off into an episode having no further connection with the future." Is the great war of to-day, in which hundreds of thousands of lives are being lost, and the happiness of hundreds of thousands of families destroyed -is this a mere episode in the history of man? It is easy to think that it is. It is easy to persuade one's self that the world is growing no better, that men to-day are the brutes of cave days, with a slightly keener intelligence that makes them more dangerous to each other. This is the familiar argument, heard on every street corner, in every club and tavern. The track of history is so long that over the small section of it to which our near-sighted gaze is confined it may seem that man has gained nothing. But to a being with stronger vision-to a Martian with a telescope, if you will-it may be quite plain that man is far ahead of where he was ten thousand or twenty thousand years ago. In our struggle to gain what we call civilization for want of a better word, to supplant barbarism with reason, are we not like a party of explorers pushing through a vast tropical jungle to the sea? Caught in the tangled vegetation, struggling from one thicket only to find another ahead, they may conclude that there is no ocean and stop to die, while a man watching them from a balloon above knows that their goal is just ahead. We, in our march for progress, must keep stout hearts, for we may have come further than we dream. Certainly the burning of a city would not have horrified the world a thousand years ago as the burning of Louvain shocked it the other day. And cynics who gloat over the disregard of nations for the rules of warfare to-day, should remember that it is not long since there was not even a pretension to regulate the game of killing men. As for fixing the responsibility for this war, it is easy and popular to blame one or two men or one or two nations. But that will not do. One or two nations may have planted the germs of trouble, they may have been responsible for the outbreak of the disease in a limited area; but it will not do to blame them for its rapid spread over most of the civilized world. The fault is in the system-the system that demands that nations shall plunge into a war one after another to keep the sides even, to "maintain the balance of power," as the glib phrase goes. 3 667584 Under the system in vogue, under the accepted political philosophy of the militaristic nations, it is eminently right that every nation in the war today should be in it. Once Austria had attacked Servia, the system demanded that Russia should side with the latter. Russia's presence in the fight made it imperative for Germany to plunge in; and to preserve the everlasting balance, England, France, and Japan felt called upon to enter the arena. Other motives may be given, and doubtless exist. England declared she must fight to protect little Belgium. But she was frank in saying that she was not concerned in the fate of small Servia, powerless before great Austria. While Great Britain is to be commended for her defense of Belgium, the fact cannot be ignored that one of her motives at least is similar to an impelling motive of Germany and Japan-to keep the balance of power. Under the militaristic "system" those nations which cannot obtain a preponderance of power for themselves are eager to keep a preponderance of power out of the hands of their rivals. We have tried two methods of keeping the international peace, and both have failed. We have tried putting each nation on its honor not to disturb the peace for unjust cause, or not to disturb it for any cause before submitting the issues to an impartial tribunal. But we are a long way yet from the day when the moral sense of nations will be sufficient guarantee of peace, if indeed, it ever will be. We have also tried the system which would suppress each nation by the threat or use of force by others. This is the system of alliances and balances, which has just been responsible for the development of a world war from a petty local squabble. The third method is the police method. The advocates of this say that, just as individuals are induced to behave by the presence of national or civic police, so nations could be held in line by a strong international police. They point out that, as most individuals prefer private vengeance to the judgments of a law court, so do most nations, and that an international court is comparatively useless without a police arm to drag offenders before it. In the concrete, the proposal is that all peacefully inclined nations unite in a pact to stand together against all turbulent nations, making common cause against the disturbers when the latter refuse to submit to the decrees of arbitration. It is suggested that the united nations disarm to the point where their combined armament gives a fair margin of superiority over the combined armaments of all nations outside the peace pact. The proposal sounds plausible. If it is a dream, it has more elements of practicality in it than the other dreams of peace advocates. Certainly it is worth trying, and, if the effect of the present war is to so disgust the great nations engaged in it with carnage and destruction that a sufficient number agree to enter this experiment for peace to afford it a fair chance of success, the horror and suffering and loss will not have been in vain and the great war will not be "rounded off into an episode having no connection with the future." It is not the purpose of this book, however, to advocate any doctrine or dogma of either peace or war. Its purpose is rather to encourage those into whose hands it may came to look, on their own account, into the possible tendencies and developments of this war, and to give them a little more background upon which to base their own opinions than is given by the daily papers. For certainly a changed Europe will come out of the crucible—indeed a changed world-for the alchemy of war is far-reaching in its effects. The work of past congresses and the decrees of past treaties will be set aside and the map of the world remade. GREGORY MASON. Nine Nations Go To War June 28-A Servian fanatic assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenburg, at Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. July 23-Austria-Hungary sent an ultimatum to Servia demanding the punishment of the assassins and the abandonment of anti-Austrian propaganda in Servia, and demanding a satisfactory reply within forty-eight hours. July 24-Russia joined Servia in asking for an extension of time for the latter's reply to the Austrian ultimatum. July 25-Servia agreed to all the conditions in the ultimatum except that one providing that Austrian officials should participate in the inquiry to be conducted into the assassination of the Archduke. July 26-Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Minister, proposed that a mediation conference be held in London by the diplomatic representatives of Germany, Italy, France and England. France and Italy accepted the proposal, Germany declined it. July 28-Austria-Hungary declared war on Servia. July 29-Belgrade was bombarded by Austro-Hungarian artillery and gunboats. France, Russia and Germany began preparations for war. July 30-Emperor William asked the Czar to stop mobilizing his troops within twenty-four hours. July 31-In a final attempt to stop a European war Czar Nicholas, Emperor William and King George exchanged personal telegrams. The German Government asked France if she would remain neutral in the event of a war between Russia and Germany, and demanded an answer within eighteen hours. August 1-Germany declared war on Russia. Italy announced that she would remain neutral. August 2-German soldiers entered Luxemburg, in violation of her neutrality, and without waiting for a declaration of war other Germans invaded France. At the same time Russians crossed the German frontier. August 3-Germany asked Belgium to permit the passage of German troops through Belgian territory. Belgium refused. August 4-England declared war on Germany and began to mobilize her army and navy. President Wilson proclaimed the neutrality of the United States. The Germans invaded Belgium. August 5-President Wilson, acting under Article III of the Hague Convention, tendered his good offices to the warring nations. August 6-Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia. August 8-Montenegro declared war on Austria-Hungary. Portugal an nounced her readiness to support Great Britain. August 9-Servia declared war on Germany. August 10-France declared war on Austria-Hungary. August 13-England declared war on Austria-Hungary. August 16-Japan asked the Germans to reply by August 23 to an ultimatum which demanded the withdrawal of all German war vessels from Far East waters and the surrender to Japan by September 15 of the territory of Kiauchau. August 23-Japan declared war on Germany. August 25-Austria-Hungary declared war on Japan. 5 |