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        The World War and What Was Behind It

        or

        The Story of the Map of Europe

        By

        L. P. Bénézet

        SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, EVANSVILLE, INDIANA

[Illustration: The Peace Palace at the Hague]




Preface


This little volume is the result of the interest shown by pupils,
teachers, and the general public in a series of talks on the causes of
the great European war which were given by the author in the fall of
1914. The audiences were widely different in character. They included
pupils of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, students in high
school and normal school, teachers in the public schools, an
association of business men, and a convention of boards of education.
In every case, the same sentiment was voiced: “If there were only some
book which would give us these facts in simple language and illustrate
them by maps and charts as you have done!” After searching the market
for a book of this sort without success, the author determined to put
the subject of his talks into manuscript form. It has been his aim to
write in a style which is well within the comprehension of the children
in the upper grades and yet is not too juvenile for adult readers. The
book deals with the remarkable sequence of events in Europe which made
the great war inevitable. Facts are revealed which, so far as the
author knows, have not been published in any history to date; facts
which had the strongest possible bearing on the outbreak of the war.
The average American, whether child or adult, has little conception of
conditions in Europe. In America all races mix. The children of the
Polish Jew mingle with those of the Sicilian, and in the second
generations both peoples have become Americans. Bohemians intermarry
with Irish, Scotch with Norwegians. In Europe, on the other hand, Czech
and Teuton, Bulgar and Serb may live side by side for centuries without
mixing or losing their distinct racial characteristics. In order that
the American reader may understand the complicated problem of European
peace, a study of races and languages is given in the text, showing the
relationship of Slav, Celt, Latin, and Teuton, and the various
sub-divisions of these peoples. A knowledge of these facts is very
essential to any understanding of the situation in Europe. The author
has pointed out the fact that political boundaries are largely
king-made, and that they have seldom been drawn with regard to the
natural division of Europe by nationalities, or to the wishes of the
mass of the population.

The chapter, entitled “Europe as it Should Be,” with its accompanying
map, shows the boundaries of the various nations as they would look if
the bulk of the people of each nationality were included in a single
political division. In many places, it is, of course, impossible to
draw sharp lines. Greek shades off into Bulgar on one side and into
Skipetar and Serb on the other. Prague, the capital of the Czechs, is
one-third German in its population. There are large islands of Germans
and Magyars in the midst of the Roumanians of Transylvania. These are a
few examples out of many which could be cited. However, the general aim
of the chapter has been to divide the continent into nations, in each
of which the leading race would vastly predominate in population.

It is hoped that the study of this little work will not only throw
light upon the causes of war in general, but will also reveal its
cruelty and its needlessness. It is shown that the history of Europe
from the time of the great invasions by the Germanic tribes has been a
continuous story of government without the consent of the governed.

A preventive for wars, such as statesmen and philanthropists in many
countries have urged, is outlined in the closing chapter. It would seem
as though after this terrible demonstration of the results of armed
peace, the governments of the world would be ready to listen to some
plan which would forever forbid the possibility of another war. Just as
individuals in the majority of civilized countries discovered, a
hundred years ago, that it was no longer necessary for them to carry
weapons in order to insure their right to live and to enjoy protection,
so nations may learn at last that peace and security are preferable to
the fruits of brigandage and aggression. The colonies of America, after
years of jealousy and small differences, followed by a tremendous war,
at last learned this lesson. In the same way the states of Europe will
have to learn it. The stumbling blocks in the way are the remains of
feudal government in Europe and the ignorance and short-sightedness of
the common people in many countries. Ignorance is rapidly waning with
the advance of education, and we trust that feudalism will not long
survive its last terrible crime, the world war of 1914.

Now that the United States has become a belligerent, it is very
essential that our people understand the events that led up to our
participation in the war. So many of our citizens are of a peace-loving
nature, we are so far removed from the militarism of continental
Europe, and the whole war seems so needless and so profitless to those
who have not studied carefully its causes, that there is danger of a
want of harmony with the program of the government if all are not
taught the simple truth of the matter. There is no quicker channel
through which to reach all the people than the public schools. With
this in mind, two entire chapters and part of a third are devoted to
demonstrating why no other course was open to this country than to
accept the war which was forced upon her.

In the preparation of this little work, the author has received many
helpful suggestions from co-workers. His thanks are especially due to
Professor A. G. Terry of Northwestern University and Professor A. H.
Sanford of the Wisconsin State Normal School at La Crosse, who were
kind enough to read through and correct the manuscript before its final
revision. The author is especially indebted to the Committee on Public
Information at Washington, D. C., for furnishing to him authoritative
data on many phases of the war. Acknowledgment is also made to Row,
Peterson and Company for kind permission to use illustrations from
_History Stories of Other Lands_; also to the International Film
Service, Inc., of New York City for the use of many valuable copyright
illustrations of scenes relating to the great war.

L. P. BÉNÉZET.

_Evansville, Indiana,
January 2, 1918_




Contents


 Preface

 I. The Great War
 II. Rome and the Barbarian Tribes
 III. From Chiefs to Kings
 IV. Master and Man
 V. A Babel of Tongues
 VI. “The Terrible Turk”
 VII. The Rise of Modern Nations
 VIII. The Fall of Two Kingdoms
 IX. The Little Man from the Common People
 X. A King-Made Map and Its Trail of Wrongs
 XI. Italy a Nation at Last
 XII. The Man of Blood and Iron
 XIII. The Balance of Power
 XIV. The “Entente Cordiale”
 XV. The Sowing of the Dragon’s Teeth
 XVI. Who Profits?
 XVII. The Spark that Exploded the Magazine
 XVIII. Why England Came In
 XIX. Diplomacy and Kingly Ambition
 XX. Back to the Balkans
 XXI. The War under the Sea
 XXII. Another Crown Topples
 XXIII. The United States at War—Why?
 XXIV. Europe As It Should Be
 XXV. The Cost of It All
 XXVI. What Germany Must Learn

 Pronouncing Glossary
 Index


List of Maps

 I. Distribution of Peoples According to Relationship
 II. Distribution of Languages
 III. Southeastern Europe in 600 B.C.
 IV. Southeastern Europe 975 A.D.
 V. Southeastern Europe 1690
 VI. The Empire of Charlemagne
 VII. Europe in 1540
 VIII. The Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia 1400-1806
 IX. Italy in 525
 X. Italy in 650
 XI. Italy in 1175
 XII. Europe in 1796
 XIII. Europe in 1810
 XIV. Europe in 1815
 XV. Italy Made One Nation—1914—
 XVI. Formation of the German Empire
 XVII. Southeastern and Central Europe 1796
 XVIII. Losses of Turkey During the Nineteenth Century
 XIX. Turkey As the Balkan Allies Planned to Divide It
 XX. Changes Resulting from Balkan Wars 1912-1913
 XXI. The Two Routes from Germany into France
 XXII. The Roumanian Campaign as the Allies Wished It
 XXIII. The Roumanian Campaign as It Turned Out
 XXIV. Europe as It Should Be


List of Illustrations

 I. The Peace Palace at the Hague
 II. Fleeing from Their Homes, Around which a Battle is Raging
 III. A Drill Ground in Modern Europe
 IV. The Forum of Rome as It Was 1600 Years Ago
 V. The Last Combat of the Gladiators
 VI. Germans Going into Battle
 VII. A Hun Warrior
 VIII. Gaius Julius Caesar
 IX. A Frankish Chief
 X. Movable Huts of Early Germans
 XI. Goths on the March
 XII. Franks Crossing the Rhine
 XIII. Men of Normandy Landing in England
 XIV. Alexander Defeating the Persians
 XV. A Knight in Armor
 XVI. A Norman Castle in England
 XVII. A Vassal Doing Homage to His Lord
 XVIII. William the Conqueror
 XIX. A Typical Bulgarian Family
 XX. Mohammed II Before Constantinople
 XXI. A Scene in Salonika
 XXII. Louis XIV
 XXIII. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough
 XXIV. The Great Elector of Brandenburg
 XXV. Frederick the Great
 XXVI. Catharine II
 XXVII. Courtier of Time of Louis XIV
 XXVIII. The Taking of the Bastille
 XXIX. The Palace of Versailles
 XXX. The Reign of Terror
 XXXI. The First Singing of “The Marseillaise”
 XXXII. Charles the Fifth
 XXXIII. The Emperor Napoleon in 1814
 XXXIV. The Retreat from Moscow
 XXXV. Napoleon at Waterloo
 XXXVI. The Congress of Vienna
 XXXVII. Prince Metternich
 XXXVIII. The First Meeting of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel
 XXXIX. Bismarck
 XL. An Attack on a Convoy in the Franco-Prussian War
 XLI. The Proclamation at Versailles of William I as Emperor of Germany
 XLII. Peter the Great
 XLIII. Entrance to the Mosque of St. Sophia
 XLIV. The Congress of Berlin
 XLV. An Arab Sheik and His Staff
 XLVI. A Scene in Constantinople
 XLVII. Durazzo
 XLVIII. A Modern Dreadnaught
 XLIX. Submarine
 L. A Fort Ruined by the Big German Guns
 LI. Russian Peasants Fleeing Before the German Army
 LII. A Bomb-proof Trench in the Western War Front
 LIII. Venizelos
 LIV. The Deutschland in Chesapeake Bay
 LV. Crowd in Petrograd During the Revolution
 LVI. Revolutionary Soldiers in the Duma
 LVII. Kerensky Reviewing Russian Troops
 LVIII. Flight from a Torpedoed Liner
 LIX. President Wilson Reading the War Message
 LX. American Grain Set on Fire by German Agents
 LXI. Polish Children
 LXII. The Price of War
 LXIII. Rendered Homeless by War
 LXIV. Charles XII of Sweden




The Story of the Map of Europe




Chapter I.
The Great War

      The call from Europe.—Friend against friend.—Why?—Death and
      devastation.—No private quarrel.—Ordered by government.—What
      makes government?—The influence of the past.—Four causes of war.


      Among the bricklayers at work on a building which was being
      erected in a great American city during the summer of 1914 were
      two men who had not yet become citizens of the United States.
      Born abroad, they still owed allegiance, one to the Emperor of
      Austria, the other to the Czar of Russia.

Meeting in a new country, and using a new language which gave them a
chance to understand each other, they had become well acquainted. They
were members of the same labor union, and had worked side by side on
several different jobs. In the course of time, a firm friendship had
sprung up between them. Suddenly, on the same day, each was notified to
call at the office of the agent of his government in the city. Next
morning the Russian came to his boss to explain that he must quit work,
that he had been called home to fight for the “Little Father” of the
Russians. He found his chum, the Austrian, there ahead of him, telling
that he had to go, for the Russians had declared war on Austria and the
good Kaiser,[1] Franz Josef, had need of all his young men.

 [1] In the German language, the title Kaiser means Emperor.

      The two chums stared at each other in sorrow and dismay. The
      pitiless arm of the god of war had reached across the broad
      Atlantic, plucking them back from peace and security. With
      weapons put into their hands they would be ordered to kill each
      other on sight.

      A last hand-clasp, a sorrowful “Good luck to you,” and they
      parted.

      Why was this necessary? What was this irresistible force, strong
      enough to separate the two friends and drag them back five
      thousand miles for the purpose of killing each other? To answer
      these two questions is the purpose of this little volume.

      Beginning with the summer of 1914, Europe and parts of Asia and
      Africa were torn and racked with the most tremendous war that the
      world has ever seen. Millions of men were killed. Other millions
      were maimed, blinded, or disfigured for life. Still other
      millions were herded into prison camps or forced to work like
      convict laborers. Millions of homes were filled with grief.
      Millions of women were forced to do hard work which before the
      war had been considered beyond their power. Millions of children
      were left fatherless. What had been the richest and most
      productive farming land in Europe was made a barren waste.
      Thousands of villages and towns were utterly destroyed and their
      inhabitants were forced to flee, the aged, the sick, and the
      infants alike.

      In many cases, as victorious armies swept through Poland and
      Serbia, the wretched inhabitants fled before them, literally
      starving, because all food had been seized for the use of
      fighting men. Dreadful diseases, which cannot exist where people
      have the chance to bathe and keep themselves clean, once more
      appeared, sweeping away hundreds of thousands of victims. The
      strongest, healthiest, bravest men of a dozen different nations
      were shot down by the millions or left to drag out a miserable
      existence, sick or crippled for life. Silent were the wheels in
      many factories which once turned out the comforts and luxuries of
      civilization. There were no men to make toys for the children, or
      to work for mankind’s happiness. The only mills and factories
      which were running full time were those that turned out the tools
      of destruction and shot and shell for the guns. Nations poured
      out one hundred fifty million dollars a day for the purpose of
      killing off the best men in Europe. Had the world gone mad? What
      was the reason for it all?

[Illustration: Fleeing from their Homes, around which a Battle is Raging]

      In 1913 Germans traveled in Russia and Englishmen traveled in
      Germany freely and safely. Germans were glad to trade with
      intercourse Russians, and happy to have Englishmen spend their
      money in Germany. France and Austria exchanged goods and their
      inhabitants traveled within each other’s boundaries. A Frenchman
      might go anywhere through Germany and be welcomed. There was
      nothing to make the average German hate the average Englishman or
      Belgian. The citizen of Austria and the citizen of Russia could
      meet and find plenty of ground for friendship.

      We cannot explain this war, then, on the grounds of race hatred.
      One can imagine that two men living side by side and seeing each
      other every day might have trouble and grow to hate each other,
      but in this great war soldiers were shooting down other soldiers
      whom they had never seen before, with whom they had never
      exchanged a word, and it would not profit them if they killed a
      whole army of their opponents. In many cases, the soldiers did
      not see the men whom they were killing. An officer with a
      telescope watched where the shells from the cannon were falling
      and telephoned to the captain in charge to change the aim a
      trifle for his next shots. The men put in the projectile, closed
      and fired the gun. Once in a while, a shell from the invisible
      enemy, two, three, or four miles away, fell among them, killing
      and wounding. When a regiment of Austrians were ordered to charge
      the Russian trenches, they shot and bayoneted the Russians
      because they were told to do so by their officers, and the
      Russian soldiers shot the Austrians because their captains so
      ordered them. The officers on each side were only obeying orders
      received from their generals. The generals were only obeying
      orders from the government.

      In the end, then, we come back to the governments, and we wonder
      what has caused these nations to fly at each other’s throats. The
      question arises as to what makes up a government or why a
      government has the right to rule its people.

      In the United States, the government officials are simply the
      servants of the people. Practically every man in our country,
      unless he is a citizen of some foreign nation, has a right to
      vote, and in many of the states women, too, have a voice in the
      government. We, the people of the United States, can choose our
      own lawmakers, can instruct them how to vote and, in some states,
      can vote out of existence any law that they the people have made
      which we do not like. In all states, we can show our disapproval
      of what our law-makers have done by voting against them at the
      next election. Such is the government of a republic, a
      “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as
      Abraham Lincoln called it. In the leading British colonies, the
      people rule. Australian citizens voted against forcing men to
      serve in the army. The result was very close and the vote of the
      women helped to decide it. Canada, on the contrary, voted to
      compel her men to go. How is it in Europe? Have the people of
      Germany or Austria the right to vote on war? Were they consulted
      before their governments called them to arms and sent them to
      fight each other? It is plain that in order to understand what
      this war is about, we must look into the story of how the
      different governments of Europe came to be and learn why their
      peoples obey them so unquestioningly.

      We must remember that government by the people is a very new
      thing. One hundred and thirty years ago, even in the United
      States only about one-fourth of the men had the right to vote.
      These were citizens of property and wealth. They did not think a
      poor man was worth considering. In England, a country which
      allows its people more voice in the government than almost any
      other nation in Europe, it is only within the last thirty years
      that all men could vote. There are some European countries, like
      Turkey, where the people have practically no power at all and
      others, like Austria, where they have very little voice in how
      they shall be governed.

      For over a thousand years, the men of Europe have obeyed without
      thinking when their lords and kings have ordered them to pick up
      their weapons and go to war. In many instances they have known
      nothing of the causes of the conflict or of what they were
      fighting for. A famous English writer has written a poem which
      illustrates how little the average citizen has ever known
      concerning the cause of war, and shows the difference between the
      way in which war was looked upon by the men of old and the way in
      which one should regard it. The poem runs as follows:

The Battle of Blenheim

It was a summer evening,
    Old Kaspar’s work was done,
And he before his cottage door
    Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin
    Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
    In playing there had found,
He came to ask what he had found
That was so large and smooth and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
    Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
    And, with a natural sigh—
“’Tis some poor fellow’s skull,” said he,
“Who fell in the great victory.

“I find them in the garden,
    For there’s many hereabout;
And often when I go to plow,
    The plowshare turns them out!
For many a thousand men,” said he,
“Were slain in the great victory.”

“Now tell us what ’twas all about,”
    Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
    With wonder-waiting eyes—
“Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for.”

“It was the English,” Kaspar cried,
    “Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for
    I could not well make out;
But everybody said,” quoth he,
“That ’twas a famous victory.

“My father lived at Blenheim then,
    Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
    And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

“They say it was a shocking sight
    After the field was won—
For many thousand bodies here
    Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

“Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
    And our good Prince Eugene.”
“Why, ’twas a very wicked thing!”
    Said little Wilhelmine.
“Nay, nay, my little girl,” quoth he,
“It was a famous victory.

“And everybody praised the duke
    Who this great fight did win.”
“But what good came of it at last?”
    Quoth little Peterkin.
“Why, that I cannot tell,” said he;
“But ’twas a famous victory.”

—_Robert Southey_.

      Old Kaspar, who has been used to such things all his life, cannot
      feel the wickedness and horror Of the battle. The children, on
      the other hand, have a different idea of war. They are not
      satisfied until they know what it was all about and what good
      came of it, and they feel that “it was a very wicked thing.” If
      the men in the armies had stopped to ask the reason why they were
      killing each other and had refused to fight until they knew the
      truth, the history of the world would have been very different.

      One reason why we still have wars is that men refuse to think for
      themselves, because it is so much easier to let their dead
      ancestors think for them and to keep up customs which should have
      been changed ages ago. People in Europe have lived in the midst
      of wars or preparation for wars all their lives. There never has
      been a time when Europe was not either a battlefield or a great
      drill-ground for armies.

      There was a time, long ago, when any man might kill another in
      Europe and not be punished for his deed. It was not thought wrong
      to take human life. Today it is not considered wrong to kill,
      provided a man is ordered to do so by his general or his king.
      When two kings go to war, each claiming his quarrel to be a just
      one, wholesale murder is done, and each side is made by its
      government to think itself very virtuous and wholly justified in
      its killing. It should be the great aim of everyone today to help
      to bring about lasting peace among all the nations.

[Illustration: A Drill Ground in Modern Europe.]

      In order to know how to do this, we must study the causes of the
      wars of the past. We shall find, as we do so, that almost all
      wars can be traced to one of four causes: (1) the instinct among
      barbarous tribes to fight with and plunder their neighbors; (2)
      the ambition of kings to enlarge their kingdoms; (3) the desire
      of the traders of one nation to increase their commerce at the
      expense of some other nation; (4) a people’s wish to be free from
      the control of some other country and to become a nation by
      itself. Of the four reasons, only the last furnishes a just cause
      for war, and this cause has been brought about only when kings
      have sent their armies out, and forced into their kingdoms other
      peoples who wished to govern themselves.


        Questions for Review


          Why must foreigners in the United States return to their
          native lands when summoned by their governments?

          How is it that war helps to breed diseases?

          Is race hatred a cause of war or a result of it?

          Whom do we mean by the government in the United States?

          Who controls the government in Russia?

          Who in England?

          Who in Germany?

          Who in France?

          In Southey’s poem, how does the children’s idea of the battle
          differ from that of their grandfather? Why?

          Are people less likely to protest against war if their
          forefathers have fought many wars?

          What have been the four main causes of war?




Chapter II.
Rome and the Barbarian Tribes

      New governments in Europe.—Earliest times.—How civilization
      began.—The rise of Rome.—Roman civilization.—Roman cruelty.—The
      German tribes.—The Slavic tribes.—The Celtic tribes.—The Huns and
      Moors.—The great Germanic invasions of the Roman world.


      To search for the causes of the great war which began in Europe
      in 1914, we must go far back into history. It should be
      remembered that many of the governments of today have not lived
      as long as that of our own country. This is, perhaps, a new
      thought to some of us, who rather think that, as America is a new
      country, it is the baby among the great nations. But, one hundred
      and thirty years ago, when the United States was being formed,
      there was no nation called Italy; the peninsula which we now know
      by that name was cut up among nine or ten little governments.
      There was no nation known as Germany; the land which is in the
      present German empire was then divided among some thirty or
      thirty-five different rulers. There was no Republic of France;
      instead, France had a king whose will was law, and the French
      people were cruelly oppressed. There was no kingdom of Belgium,
      no kingdom of Serbia, of Bulgaria, of Roumania. The kingdom of
      Norway was part of Denmark. The Republic of France, as we now
      know it, dates back only to 1871; the Empire of Germany and the
      United Kingdom of Italy to about the same time. The kingdoms of
      Roumania, Serbia, and Bulgaria have been independent of Turkey
      only since 1878. The kingdom of Albania did not exist before
      1913. Most of the present nations of modern Europe, then, are
      very new. The troubles which led to the great war, however,
      originated in the dim twilight of history.

      In the earliest days, there were no separate countries or
      kingdoms. Men gathered together in little bands, each of which
      had its leader. This leader was generally chosen because of his
      bodily strength and courage. He was the best fighter of the
      tribe. The people did not have any lasting homes. They moved
      around from place to place, wherever they could find the best
      hunting and fishing. When two tribes wanted the same hunting
      grounds, they fought, and the weaker party had to give way.
      Selfishness was supreme. If a man wanted anything which belonged
      to his weaker neighbor, he simply beat this neighbor over the
      head with his club, and took it. The stronger tribe attacked the
      weaker, without any thought of whether or not its quarrel was
      just.

      Gradually, in the southern and warmer parts of Europe, the tribes
      began to be more civilized. Towns sprang up. Ships were built.
      Trade came to be one of the occupations. The fighting men needed
      weapons and armor; so there grew up artisans who were skilled in
      working metals. In Egypt and Syria there were people who had
      reached quite a high degree of civilization, and gradually the
      Europeans learned from them better ways of living. First the
      Greeks, then the Etruscans (Ē-trŭs′cans), a people who lived in
      Italy just north of where Rome now is, and finally the southern
      Italians learned that it was possible to live in cities, without
      hunting and plundering. Grazing (the tending of flocks of
      animals) came to be the occupation of many. The owners of sheep
      or cattle drove their flocks from place to place, as grass and
      water failed them where they were. There was no separate
      ownership of land.

      At last came the rise of the city of Rome, which, starting out as
      the stronghold of a little gang of robbers, spread its rule
      gradually over all the surrounding country. By this time, the
      barbarians of northern Europe had gotten past the use of clubs as
      weapons. They, too, had learned to make tools and arms of bronze,
      and those living near civilized countries had obtained swords of
      iron. The club, however, still remained as the sign of authority.
      The large bludgeon of the chief was carried before the tribe as a
      sign of his power over them. You have all seen pictures of a king
      sitting on his throne and holding a wand or stick in his right
      hand. It is interesting to think that this scepter, which the
      present king of England carries on state occasions to remind his
      people of his power, is a relic of the old, old days when his
      grandfather, many times removed, broke the head of his rival for
      leadership in the tribe and set up his mighty club for his
      awestruck people to worship.

      The city of Rome (at first a republic, afterwards an empire)
      spread its rule over all of Italy, over all the shores of the
      Mediterranean Sea, and finally over all the countries of Europe
      south and west of the rivers Danube and Rhine. One of the
      emperors planted a colony north of the Danube near its mouth, and
      the descendants of these colonists are living in that same
      country today. They have not forgotten their origin, for they
      still call themselves Romans (Roumani [Ro͞o-mä′ni]), and talk a
      language greatly resembling the Latin, which was the tongue
      spoken by the Romans of old. With the exception of this country,
      which is now Roumania, the part of Europe north and east of the
      Danube and Rhine was practically free from the Romans. In this
      territory, roving bands wandered around, driving their cattle
      with them and clearing the woods of game.

[Illustration: The Forum (public square) of Rome as it was 1600 years
ago.]

      In some ways, the Romans were a highly civilized people. They had
      schools where their children were taught to read and write, to
      speak Greek, and to work problems in geometry. They had
      magnificent public buildings, fine temples and palaces. They
      built excellent paved roads all over the southern part of Europe,
      and had wonderful systems of aqueducts which supplied their
      cities with pure water from springs and lakes miles away. Their
      dress was made of fine cloth. They knew how to make paper, glass,
      and steel.

      On the other hand, they were a cruel and bloodthirsty people.
      Their favorite amusement was to go to shows where gladiators
      fought, either with each other or with wild beasts. These
      gladiators were generally men from tribes which had fought
      against Rome. They had been captured and brought to that city,
      where they were trained to use certain weapons. Then on holidays,
      with all the people of Rome packed into big amphitheaters, these
      unfortunate captives were forced to fight with each other until
      one man of each pair was killed. It occasionally happened that
      one gladiator might be wounded, and lie helpless on the sand, The
      spectators would then shout to the victorious fighter to take his
      knife and finish what he had begun. In this way what would seem
      to us like cold-blooded murder was committed hundreds of times
      each year, while the fairest ladies and young girls of Rome sat
      and watched with eager interest. Thus, although the Romans had
      all the outward appearance of being civilized, they were savages
      at heart, and had no sympathy for any people who were not of
      their own race.

[Illustration: The Last Combat of the Gladiators]

      In the early days, the Romans prided themselves on their honor.
      They scorned a lie and looked down on anyone who would cheat or
      deceive. They lived hardy lives and would not allow themselves
      luxuries. They rather despised the Greeks, because the latter
      surrounded themselves with comforts in life. The early Romans
      were fighters by nature. They had a certain god named Janus (our
      month January is named after him) and his temple was open only
      when they were engaged in war. It is a matter of history that
      during the twelve hundred years from the first building of Rome
      to the end of the Roman Empire, the temple of Janus was closed on
      but three occasions and then only for a short time.

      About five or six hundred years after the founding of Rome came
      several disastrous wars which killed off a great majority of her
      sturdy fighters. Rome was the victor in all of these wars, but
      she won them at tremendous cost to herself. With the killing off
      of her best and bravest men, a great deal of the old time honesty
      was lost. Very soon, we begin to hear of Roman governors who,
      when put in charge of conquered states, used their offices only
      to plunder the helpless inhabitants and to return to Rome after
      their terms were finished, laden with ill-gotten gains. Roman
      morals, which formerly were very strict, began to grow more lax,
      and in general the Roman civilization showed signs of decay.

      To the north and east of the Roman Empire dwelt a people who were
      to become the leaders of the new nations of Europe. These were
      the free German tribes, which occupied the part of Europe
      bounded, roughly, by the rivers Danube and Rhine, the Baltic Sea,
      and the Carpathian Mountains. In many ways they were much less
      civilized than the Romans. They were clad in skins and furs
      instead of cloth. They lived in rough huts and tents or in caves
      dug in the sides of a hill. They, too, like the Romans, held
      human life cheap, and bloodshed and murder were common among
      them. As a rule, the men scorned to work, leaving whatever labor
      there was, largely to the women, while they busied themselves in
      fighting and hunting, or, during their idle times, in gambling.
      Nevertheless, these people, about the time that the Roman honesty
      began to disappear, had virtues more like those of the early
      Romans. They were frank and honorable. The men were faithful
      husbands and kind fathers, and their family life was very happy.
      They were barbarous and rough, but those of them who were taken
      to Rome and learned the Roman civilization made finer, nobler men
      than Rome was producing about the time of which we speak.

[Illustration: Germans Going Into Battle]

      To the east of these German tribes were the Slavs, a people no
      better civilized, but not so warlike in their nature. As the
      Germans, in later years, moved on to the west, the Slavs, in
      turn, moved westward and occupied much of the land which had been
      left vacant by the Germans.

[Illustration: A Hun Warrior]

      The inhabitants of western Europe, that is, France, Spain, and
      the British Isles, were largely Celts. In fact, all Europe could
      be said to be divided up among four great peoples: There were the
      Latins in Italy, the Celts in western Europe, the Germans in
      central Europe, and the Slavs to the east. All of these four
      families were distantly related, as can be proved by the
      languages which they spoke. The Greeks, while not belonging to
      any one of the four, were also distant cousins of both Germans
      and Latins. Probably all five peoples are descended from one big
      family of tribes.

      In addition to these, there were, from time to time invasions of
      Europe by other nations which did not have any connection by
      blood with Celts, Latins, Greeks, Germans, or Slavs. For
      instance, the ferocious Huns, a people of the yellow race, rushed
      into Europe about 400 A.D., but were beaten in a big battle by
      the Romans and Germans and finally went back to Asia. Three
      hundred years later, a great horde of Moors and Arabs from Africa
      crossed over into Europe by way of the Straits of Gibraltar, and
      at one time threatened to sweep before them all the Christian
      nations. For several hundred years after this, they held the
      southern part of Spain, but were finally driven out.

      Let us now come back to the story of what happened in Europe
      after the Romans had conquered all the country south and west of
      the Danube and Rhine. The wild tribes of the Germans were
      restlessly roaming through the central part of Europe. They were
      not at peace with each other. In fact, constant war was going on.
      Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, who conquered what is now
      France and added it to the Roman world, tells us that one great
      tribe of Germans, the Suevi (Swē′vī), made it their boast that
      they would let no other tribe live anywhere near them. About a
      hundred years B.C., two great German tribes. the Cimbri and the
      Teutones, broke across the Rhine and poured into the Roman lands
      in countless numbers. For seven years they roamed about until at
      last they were conquered in two bloody battles by a Roman
      general, who was Caesar’s uncle by marriage. After this time, the
      Romans tried to conquer the country of the Germans and they might
      have been successful but for a young German chief named Arminius.
      He had lived in Rome as a young man and had learned the Romans’
      method of war; so when an army came against his tribe, he taught
      the Germans how to defend themselves. As a result, the Roman army
      was trapped in a big forest and slaughtered, almost to a man.

[Illustration: Gaius Julius Caesar.  From a bust in the British Museum]

      This defeat ended any thought that the Romans may have had of
      conquering all Germany. For the next one hundred and fifty years,
      Germans and Romans lived apart, each afraid of the other. Then
      came a time when the Germans again became the attacking party.
      Other fiercer and wilder peoples, like the Huns, were assailing
      them in the east and pushing them forward. They finally broke
      over the Rhine-Danube boundary and poured across the Roman Empire
      in wave after wave. Some of these tribes were the Vandals,
      Burgundians, Goths, Franks, and Lombards. The Roman Empire went
      to pieces under their savage attacks.


        Questions for Review


          Why is it that after nations become civilized, people need
          less land to live on?

          Are barbarous tribes more likely to engage in war than
          civilized peoples?

          Explain why clubs were the earliest weapons and why the more
          civilized tribes were better armed than the barbarians.

          Can a people be said to be civilized when they enjoy
          bloodshed and are not moved by the sufferings of others?

          What was it that lowered the morals of the Roman republic?

          In what way were the Germans better men than the later
          Romans?

          What was the religion of the Moors and the Arabs?

          Why did the German tribes invade the Roman empire?




Chapter III.
From Chiefs to Kings

      The early chief a fighter.—The club the sign of power.—Free men
      led by a chief of their own choosing.—The first
      slaves.—Barbarians conquer civilized nations.—A ruling class
      among conquered people.—All men no longer free and equal.—The
      value of arms and armor.—The robber chiefs.—How kings first
      came.—Treaties between tribes follow constant wars.—Tribes unite
      for protection against enemies.—A king is chosen for the time
      being.—Some kings refuse to resign their office when the danger
      is past.—New generations grow up which never knew a kingless
      state.—The word “king” becomes sacred.


      The chiefs of the invading tribes knew no law except the rule of
      the sword. If they saw anything which they wanted, they took it.
      Rich cities were plundered at will. They did not admit any man’s
      ownership of anything. In the old days when the tribes were
      roaming around, there was no private ownership of land.
      Everything belonged to the tribe in common. Each man had a vote
      in the council of the tribe.

      Among these invaders, as with all barbarous tribes, there was no
      such thing as an absolute rule. A chief was obeyed because the
      greater part of his people considered him the best leader in war.
      Often, no doubt, when a chief had lost a battle and the majority
      of the tribe had lost confidence in him, he resigned and let them
      choose a new chief. (For the same reason we frequently hear today
      that the prime minister, or leader of the government, of some
      European country has resigned.) In spite of the fact, then, that
      the chief was stronger than any other man in the tribe, if the
      majority of his warriors had combined against him to put another
      man in his place he could not have withstood them. Government, in
      its beginning, was based upon the consent of the governed. All
      men in the primitive tribe were equal in rank, except as one was
      a better fighter than another, and the chief held the leadership
      in war only because the members of his tribe allowed him to keep
      it.

[Illustration: A Frankish Chief.]

      It must be remembered that in these early days, the people had no
      fixed place of abode. Their only homes were rude huts which they
      could put up or tear down at very short notice; and so when they
      heard of more fertile lands or a warmer climate across the
      mountains to the south they used to pull up stakes and migrate in
      a body, never to return. It was always the more savage and
      uncivilized peoples who were most likely to migrate. The lands
      which they wished to seize they generally found already settled
      by other tribes, more civilized and hence more peaceful, occupied
      in trade and agriculture, having gradually turned to these
      pursuits from their former habits of hunting and fighting.
      Sometimes these more civilized and peace-loving people were able,
      by their better weapons and superior knowledge of the art of
      fortifying, to beat back the invasion of the immigrating
      barbarians. Oftener, though, the rougher, ruder tribes were the
      victors, and settled down among the people they had conquered, to
      rule them, doing no work themselves, but forcing the conquered
      ones to feed and clothe them.

[Illustration: Movable Huts of Early Germans]

      History is full of instances of such conquests, and they were
      taking place, no doubt, ages before the times from which our
      earliest records date. The best examples, however, are to be
      found in the invasions of the Roman Empire by the Germanic tribes
      to which we have referred above. The country between the Rhine
      River and the Pyrenees Mountains, which had been called Gaul when
      the Gauls lived there, became France when the Franks conquered
      the Gauls and stayed to live among them. In like manner, two
      German tribes became the master races in Spain. The Burgundians
      came down from the shores of the Baltic Sea and gave their name
      to their new home in the fertile valley of the Saône (Sōn); the
      Vandals came out of Germany to roam through Spain, finally
      founding a kingdom in Africa; while the Lombards crossed the Alps
      to become the masters of the Valley of the Po, whither the Gauls
      had gone before them, seven hundred years earlier.

[Illustration: Goths on the March]

[Illustration: Franks Crossing the Rhine]

      The island now known as Great Britain, which was inhabited two
      thousand years ago by the Britons and Gaels, Celtic peoples, was
      overrun and conquered in part about 450 A.D. by the Saxons and
      Angles, Germanic tribes, after whom part of the island was called
      Angleland. (The men from the south of England are of the same
      blood as the Saxons in the German army, against whom they had to
      fight in the great war.) Then came Danes, who partially conquered
      the Angles and Saxons, and after them, in 1066 A.D., the country
      was again conquered by the Normans, descendants of some Norsemen,
      who, one hundred and fifty years before, had come down from
      Norway and conquered a large territory in the northwestern part
      of France.

[Illustration: Men of Normandy Landing in England.]

      In some cases, the conquered tribes moved on to other lands,
      leaving their former homes to their conquerors. In this way the
      Britons and Gaels gave up the greater part of their land to the
      Angles and Saxons and withdrew to the hills and mountains of
      Wales, Cornwall, and northern Scotland. In other cases, the
      conquered people and their conquerors inhabited the same lands
      side by side, as the Normans settled down in England among the
      Anglo-Saxons.

      In the early days of savagery, one tribe would frequently make a
      raid upon another neighboring tribe and bring home with it some
      captives who became slaves, working without pay for their
      conquerors and possessing no more rights than beasts of burden.
      (This custom exists today in the interior of Africa, and was
      responsible for the infamous African slave trade. Black captives
      were sold to white traders through the greed of their captors,
      who forgot that their own relatives and friends might be carried
      off and sold across the seas by some other tribe of blacks.)

      When these slaves were kept as the servants of their conquerors,
      their number was very small as compared with that of their
      masters. When, on the other hand, a tribe settled among a people
      whom they had conquered, they often found themselves fewer in
      numbers, and kept their leadership only by their greater strength
      and fighting ability.

      Here there had arisen a new situation: all men were no longer
      equal, led by a chief of their own choosing, but instead, the
      greater part of them now had no voice in the government. They had
      become subjects, working to earn their own living and also, as
      has been said, to support in idleness their conquerors.

      This ability of the few to rule the many and force them to
      support their masters was increased as certain peoples learned
      better than others how to make strong armor and effective
      weapons. Nearly five hundred years before the time of Christ, at
      the battle of Marathon (Măr′ȧ thŏn), the Greeks discovered
      that one Greek, clad in metal armor and armed with a long spear,
      was worth ten Persians wearing leather and carrying a bow and
      arrows or a short sword. One hundred and sixty years later, a
      small army of well-equipped Macedonian Greeks, led by that
      wonderful general, Alexander the Great, defeated nearly forty
      times its number of Persians in a great battle in Asia and
      conquered a vast empire.

[Illustration: Alexander Defeating the Persians]

      In later times, as better and better armor was made, the question
      of wealth entered in. The chief who had money enough to buy the
      best arms for his men could defeat his poorer neighbor and force
      him to pay money as to a ruler. Finally, in the so-called “Middle
      Ages,” before the invention of gunpowder, one knight, armed from
      crown to sole in steel, was worth in battle as much as one
      hundred poorly-armed farmers or “peasants” as they are called in
      Europe.

In the “Dark Ages,”[2] after all these barbarians that we have named
had swarmed over Europe, and before the governments of modern times
were fully grown, there were hundreds of robber chiefs, who, scattered
throughout a country, were in the habit of collecting tribute at the
point of the sword from the peaceful peasants who lived near. This
tribute they collected in some cases, regularly, a fixed amount each
month or year, just as if they had a right to collect it, like a
government tax collector. It might be money or food or fodder, or fuel.
The robber chiefs were well armed themselves and were able to give good
weapons and armor to their men, who lived either in the chief’s castle
or in small houses built very near it. They likewise plundered any
travelers who came by, unless their numbers and weapons made them look
too dangerous to be attacked. But the regular tribute forced from the
peaceful farmers was the chief source of their income. The robber chief
and his men lived a life of idleness when they were not out upon some
raid for plunder, and the honest, industrious peasants worked hard
enough to support both their own families and those of the robbers.

 [2] The “Dark Ages” came before the “Middle Ages.” They were called
 “dark” because the barbarians had extinguished nearly all civilization
 and learning.

[Illustration: A Knight in Armor]

      These robber chiefs had no right but might. They were outlaws,
      and lived either in a country which had no government and laws,
      or in one whose government was too weak to protect its people.
      They were no worse, however, than the so-called feudal barons who
      came after them, who oppressed the people even more, because they
      had on their side whatever law and government existed in those
      days.

      Now let us stop to consider how first there came to be kings. In
      the early days of the human race and also in later days among
      barbarous peoples, the land was very sparsely settled. The reason
      lay in the chief occupations of the men. A small tribe might
      inhabit a great stretch of territory through which they wandered
      to keep within reach of plenty of game. As time went on, however,
      the population increased, and, as agriculture took the place of
      hunting, and homes became more lasting, tribes found themselves
      living in smaller and smaller tracts of land, and hence nearer to
      their neighbors. In some cases, constant fighting went on, just
      as Caesar tells us that two thousand years ago, the Swiss and the
      Germans fought almost daily battles back and forth across the
      Rhine. In other cases, the tribes found it better for all
      concerned to make treaties of peace with their neighbors, and if
      they did not exchange visits and mix on friendly terms, at least
      they did not attack each other.

      Finally, one day there would come to several tribes which had
      treaties with each other a common danger, such as an invasion by
      some horde of another race or nation. Common interest would drive
      them together for mutual protection, and the chief of some one of
      them would be chosen to lead their joint army. In this way, we
      find the fifteen tribes of the Belgians uniting against the Roman
      army led by Julius Caesar, and electing as king over them the
      chief of one of the tribes “on account of his justice and
      wisdom.” Five years later, in the year 52 B.C., we find
      practically all the inhabitants of what is now France united into
      a nation under the leadership of Vercingetorix (Vẽr sin jet′ō
      riks) in one last effort to free themselves from Rome. Five
      hundred years later, the Romans themselves were driven to join
      forces with two of the Germanic tribes to check the swift
      invasion of the terrible Huns.

      In some cases, these alliances were only for a short time and the
      kingships were merely temporary. In other cases, the wars that
      drove the tribes to unite under one great chief or king lasted
      for years or even centuries, so that new generations grew up who
      had never lived under any other government than that of a king.
      Thus when the wars were ended, the tribes continued to be ruled
      by the one man, although the reason for the kingship had ceased
      to be. In the days of the Roman republic, from 500 to 100 B.C.,
      when grave danger arose, the senate, or council of elders,
      appointed one man who was called the dictator, and this dictator
      ruled like an absolute monarch until the danger was past. Then,
      like the famous Cincinnatus, he gave up the position and retired
      to private life. The first lasting kingships, then, began, as it
      were, by the refusal of some dictator to resign when the need for
      his rule was ended.

      By this time, the custom of choosing the son of a chief or king
      to take his father’s place was fairly well settled, and it did
      not take long to have it understood as a regular thing that at a
      king’s death he should be followed by his oldest son. Often there
      were quarrels and even civil wars caused by ambitious younger
      sons, who did not submit to their elder brothers without a
      struggle, but as people grew to be more civilized and
      peace-loving, they found it better to have the oldest son looked
      upon as the rightful heir to the kingship.

      As kingdoms grew larger, and more and more people came to be
      busied in agriculture, trade, and even, on a small scale, in
      manufacture, the warriors grew fewer in proportion, and people
      began to forget that the king was originally only a war leader,
      and that the office was created through military need. They came
      to regard the rule of the king as a matter of course and stopped
      thinking of themselves as having any right to say how they should
      be governed. Kings were quick to foster this feeling. For the
      purpose of making their own positions sure, they were in the
      habit of impressing it upon their people that the kingship was a
      divine institution. They proclaimed that the office of king was
      made by the gods, or in Christian nations, by God, and that it
      was the divine will that the people of the nations should be
      ruled by kings. The great Roman orator, Cicero (Sĭs′erō), in a
      speech delivered in the year 66 B.C., referring to people who
      lived in kingdoms, says that the name of king “seems to them a
      great and sacred thing.” This same feeling has lasted through all
      the ages down to the present time, and the majority of the people
      in European kingdoms, even among the educated classes, still look
      upon a king as a superior being, and are made happy and proud if
      they ever have a chance to do him a service of any sort.


        Questions for Review


          Why was it that in barbarian tribes there was no private
          ownership of land?

          What is meant by saying that government was based upon the
          consent of the governed?

          Was there anything besides love of plunder that induced the
          German tribes to move southward?

          Explain the beginnings of slavery.

          Explain the value of armor in early times.

          What is meant by the “Dark Ages”?

          What is meant by saying that the fighting men were parasites?

          When the first kings were chosen was it intended that they
          should be rulers for life?

          Is it easy for a man in power to retain this power?

          Why is it that most Europeans bow low before a king?




Chapter IV.
Master and Man

      The land is the king’s.—He lends it to barons.—Barons lend it to
      knights and smaller barons.—Smaller barons collect rent for it
      from the peasants.—A father’s lands are lent to his son.—Barons
      pay for the land by furnishing men for the king’s wars.—No
      account is taken of the rights of the peasant.—The peasant, the
      only producer, is despised by the fighting men.—If a baron
      rebels, his men must rebel also.—Dukes against kings.—What killed
      the feudal system.—Feudal wrongs alive today.


      When one great tribe or nation invaded and conquered a country,
      as the Ostrogoths came into Italy in the year 489 A.D., or as the
      Normans entered England in 1066, their king at once took it for
      granted that he owned all the conquered land. In some cases, he
      might divide the kingdom up among his chiefs, giving a county to
      each of forty or fifty leaders. These great leaders (dukes or
      barons, as they were called in the Norman-French language, or
      earls, as the English named them) would in turn each divide up
      his county among several less important chiefs, whom we may call
      lesser or little barons. Each little baron might have several
      knights and squires, who lived in or near his castle and had
      received from him tracts of land corresponding in size, perhaps,
      to the American township and who, therefore, fought under his
      banner in war.

[Illustration: A Norman Castle in England]

      Each baron had under him a strong body of fighting men,
      “men-at-arms,” as they were called, or “retainers,” who in return
      for their “keep,” that is, their food and lodging, and a chance
      to share the plunder gained in war, swore to be faithful to him,
      became his men, and gave him the service called homage. (This
      word comes from _hōmō_, the Latin for “man.”) The lesser baron,
      in turn, swore homage to, and was the “man” of the great baron or
      earl. Whenever the earl called on these lesser chiefs to gather
      their fighting men and report to him, they had to obey, serving
      him as unquestioningly as their squires and retainers obeyed
      them. The earl or duke swore homage to the king, from whom he had
      received his land.

      This, then, was the feudal system (so named from the word
      _feudum_, which, in Latin, meant a piece of land the use of which
      was given to a man in return for his services in war), a system
      which reversed the natural laws of society, and stood it on its
      apex, like a cone balanced on its point. For instead of saying
      that the land was the property of the people of the tribe or
      nation, it started by taking for granted that the land all
      belonged to the king. The idea was that the king did not give the
      land, outright, to his dukes and earls, but that he gave them, in
      return for their faithful support and service in war, the _use_
      of the land during their lifetime, or so long as they remained
      true to him. In _Macbeth_, we read how, for his treason, the
      lands of the thane (earl) of Cawdor were taken from him by the
      Scottish king and given to the thane of Glamis. The lands thus
      lent were called fiefs. Upon the death of the tenant, they went
      back to the king or duke who had given them in the first place,
      and he at once gave them to some other one of his followers upon
      the same terms. It often happened that upon the death of an earl
      or baron his son was granted the lands which his father had held,
      Finally, in many counties, it grew into a custom, and the oldest
      son took possession of his father’s fief, but not without first
      going to the king and swearing homage and fidelity to him.

      Two things must be kept in mind if we are to understand the
      system fully. In the first place, in the division of the lands
      among the barons of the conquering nation, no account was taken
      of the peasants. As they were of the defeated people, their
      rights to the land were not once considered. In many countries,
      the victors thought of them as part and parcel of the conquered
      territory. They “went with” the land and were considered by the
      lord of the county as merely his servants. When one lord turned
      over a farm to another, the farmers were part of the bargain. If
      any of them tried to run away, they were brought back and
      whipped. They tilled the land and raised live stock, giving a
      certain share of their yearly crop and a certain number of
      beeves, hogs, sheep, etc., to the lord, as rent for the land,
      much as the free farmers in other countries paid tribute to the
      robber chieftains. Thus the one class of people who really earned
      their right to live, by producing wealth, were oppressed and
      robbed by all the others. Note this point, for there are wrongs
      existing today that are due to the fact that the feudal system is
      not wholly stamped out in some countries.

[Illustration: A Vassal doing Homage to his Lord]

      In the second place, it must be noted that the king was not the
      direct master of all the people. Only the great lords had sworn
      homage to him. He was lord of the dukes, earls, and barons. The
      less important barons swore homage to the great barons, and the
      knights, squires, retainers, and yeomen swore homage to the
      lesser barons. If a lesser baron had subdivided his fief among
      certain knights and squires, the peasants owed allegiance, not to
      him, but to the squire to whom they had been assigned. Thus, if a
      “man” rebelled against his lord, all of his knights, retainers,
      etc., must rebel also. If, for instance, a great duke refused to
      obey his king and broke his oath of allegiance, all his little
      barons and knights must turn disloyal too, or rather, must remain
      loyal, for their oaths had been taken to support the duke, and
      not the king. History is full of such cases. In many instances,
      dukes became so powerful that they were able to make war on even
      terms with kings. The great Dukes of Burgundy for a time kept the
      kings of France in awe of their power; the Duke of Northumberland
      in 1403 raised an army that almost overthrew King Henry Fourth of
      England; the Duke of York, in 1461, drove Henry Sixth from the
      throne of England and became king in his place.

[Illustration: William the Conqueror]

      A strange case arose when, in 1066, William, who as duke of
      Normandy had sworn homage to the king of France, became, through
      conquest, king of England. His sons, great-grandsons, and
      great-great-grandsons continued for one hundred and fifty years
      to be obliged to swear allegiance to the French kings in order to
      keep the duchy of Normandy. It was as if the Governor of Texas
      had led an army into Mexico, conquered it, and become Emperor of
      that country, without resigning his governorship or giving up his
      American citizenship.

      Two things which tended to break down the feudal system and bring
      more power to the common people were, first, the invention of
      gunpowder, and, second, the rise of towns. A man with a musket
      could bring down a knight in armor as easily as he could the most
      poorly armored peasant. Kings, in fighting to control their great
      lords, gave more freedom to citizens of towns in return for their
      help. The king’s armies came to be recruited largely from
      townspeople, who were made correspondingly free from the feudal
      lords.

      The rule of the feudal system, that each man owed a certain
      amount of military service to his ruler has lasted to the present
      day and is responsible for much of the misery that now exists.
      Kings went to war with each other simply to increase their
      territories. The more land a king had under his control, the more
      people who owed him taxes, and the greater number he could get
      into his army, the greater became his ambition to spread his
      kingdom still farther.


        Questions for Review


          How was it that the king of a tribe could claim to own all
          the land in the country which he had invaded?

          Did the kings, lords, and fighting men contribute anything to
          the welfare of the working classes?

          Would the peasants have been better off if all the fighting
          men, lords, dukes, kings, etc., had suddenly been killed?

          Can you see why in some countries in Europe a man who earns
          his living is looked down upon by the nobles?

          What is meant by saying that the feudal system turns society
          upside down?

          Why did the farmers continue to feed the fighting men?

          Explain how the use of gunpowder in warfare helped to break
          up the feudal system.

          How did the rise of cities also help to do away with the
          feudal system?




Chapter V.
A Babel of Tongues

      The great family of languages.—Few languages in Europe not
      belonging to the family.—The dying Celtic languages.—The three
      branches of the Germanic family.—The influence of the Latin
      tongue on the south of Europe.—The many Slavic peoples.—The map
      as divided by kings without regard to peoples and languages.—The
      strange mixture in Austria-Hungary.—The southeast of Europe.—The
      Greeks and Dacians.—The Roman colonists.—The Slavs.—The
      Volgars.—The Skipetars.—A hopeless mixture.


      In Chapter II it was pointed out that almost all the peoples of
      Europe were related, in one big family of tribes. It is likely
      that the forefathers of the Celts, the Latins, the Germans, the
      Greeks, and the Slavs belonged to one big tribe which had its
      home back in the highlands of Central Asia. As a general rule,
      the relationship of peoples to each other can be told by the
      languages which they speak. If two tribes are related because
      their forefathers once belonged to the same tribe, it is almost
      certain that they will show this relationship in their languages.

      The language of England a thousand years ago was very much like
      the language of the Germans, for the English were originally
      German tribes. Even today, it is easy to see that English is a
      Germanic language. Take the English words house, father, mother,
      brother, water, here, is, etc. The German words which mean the
      same are _haus, vater, mutter, bruder, wasser, hier, ist_. It is
      very plain that the two languages must have come from the same
      source.

      There are professors in European colleges who have spent their
      whole lives studying this relationship of languages. These men
      have proved not only that almost all the languages of Europe are
      related, but that the language of the Persians, and that of some
      of the old tribes in Hindustan also belong to one great family of
      tongues. Let us take the word for mother. In one of the ancient
      languages of Hindustan it was _matr_; in the Greek, it was
      _mātār_; in the Latin _mater_ (mätār); in the Bohemian
      _matka_; in the German _mu̠tter_; in the Spanish mädre; in the
      Norwegian _mōder_, etc. This great family of languages is called
      “the Indo-European group,” because the tribes which spoke them,
      originally inhabitants of Asia, have scattered all over India and
      Europe. The only peoples in Europe whose languages do not belong
      to it are the Finns and Laplanders of the north, the Basques
      (Bȧsks) of the Pyrenees Mountains, the Hungarians, the Gypsies,
      and the Turks.

      The descendants of the old Celtic peoples have not kept up the
      Celtic languages to any great extent. The reason for this is that
      first the Romans and then the Germanic tribes conquered most of
      the lands where the Celts lived. In this way, Spain, Portugal,
      France, and Belgium now talk languages that have grown from the
      Latin, the language of Rome. The Celts in the British Isles now
      all talk English, because the English, who were a Germanic
      people, conquered them and forced them to use their language.
      Patriotic Irishmen and Welshmen (who are descendants of the
      Celtic tribes) are trying to keep alive the Irish and Welsh
      languages, but all of the young people in the British Isles learn
      English, and they are generally content to talk only one
      language. The other Celtic languages which have existed within
      the last one hundred years are the Gaelic of the north of
      Scotland, the Breton of western France, and the Cornish of the
      southwestern corner of England.

      The Germanic languages (sometimes called Teutonic) are found in
      three parts of Europe today. The Scandinavian languages, Danish,
      Norwegian, and Swedish, belong to this family. Western Austria
      and Germany form, with Holland and Western Belgium, a second
      group of German-speaking nations. (The people of eastern Belgium
      are Celts and talk a kind of French.) The third part of Europe
      which uses a Germanic language is England.

      In an earlier chapter we learned how the Celts in France, Spain,
      and Portugal gave up their own languages and used the Latin.
      Latin languages today are found also in the southern and western
      parts of Switzerland, all over Italy, and in Roumania.

      We learned also about the Slavs who lived to the eastward of the
      Germanic tribes. When the Germans moved west, these Slavs
      followed them and occupied the lands which had just been left
      vacant. In this way, we find Slavic peoples talking Slavic
      (sometimes called Slavonic) languages in the parts of Europe to
      the east and south of the Germans. More than half of the
      inhabitants of Austria-Hungary are Slavs, although the Austrians
      proper are a Germanic people, and the Hungarians do not belong to
      the Indo-European family at all. The Serbians and Montenegrins
      are Slavs. The Poles and Russians are Slavs. The Bulgarians speak
      a Slavic language and have some Slavic blood in them, although,
      as will be pointed out later, originally they did not belong to
      the Slavic family.

[Illustration: Map: Distribution Of Peoples According to Relationship]

      The Greeks and Albanians belong to the great Indo-European family
      of tribes, but their languages are not closely related to any of
      the four great branches.

[Illustration: Distribution Of Languages]

      The two maps on pages 65 and 66 are very much alike and yet in
      some respects very different. The first shows how Europe is
      largely inhabited by peoples of the great Indo-European family.
      Those who are descended from the Celts are marked Celtic even
      though today they have given up their Celtic language, as have
      the Cornish in England and the inhabitants of Spain, France,
      eastern Belgium, and the greater part of Ireland. The Bulgarians
      are marked as not belonging to the great family, although they
      speak a Slavic language.

      In the second map, the distribution of languages is shown. You
      will notice that the Celtic languages are found only in small
      parts of the British Isles, and in the westernmost point of
      France. The Bulgarians are here marked Slavic because their
      language belongs to that branch. One of the most curious things
      about the two maps is the presence of little spots like islands,
      particularly made up of German-speaking peoples. There are
      several of these little islands in Russia. They have been there
      for nearly two hundred years. A traveler crossing the southern
      part of Russia is astonished to find districts as large as an
      American county where not a word of Russian is spoken. The people
      are all of Germanic blood, although they live under the
      government of Russia. In the same way, there is a large German
      island in the midst of the Roumanians in Transylvania and another
      between the Slovaks and Poles at the foot of the Carpathian
      Mountains. There is a large Hungarian island in Transylvania
      also, entirely surrounded by Germans and Roumanians. The table on
      the opposite page shows the main branches of the Indo-European
      family that are found in Europe.


        The Indo-European Family of Languages

          (_a_) Hindu branch

          (_b_) Persian branch

          (_c_) Celtic branch
          Gāe′lic (northern Scotland) Welsh Cornish (dead)
          Erse (Irish) Brē′ton (western France)

          (_d_) Latin branch
          Portuguese Spanish French Romansh (southeastern Switzerland)
          Italian Roumanian

          (_e_) Germanic branch
          Norwegian Danish Swedish Dutch Flemish (Belgium)
          Low German High German English

          (_f_) Slavonic branch
          Russian Polish Lettish Lithuanian Old Prussian (dead) Czech
          (Bohemian [pronounced Chĕck]) Slō vak′ (northern Hungary)
          Serbian Bulgarian Slove′nian (southwestern Austria)
          Crōa′tian (southern Austria)
          Ruthē′nian (northeastern Austria-Hungary, and southwestern
          Russia)

 } } Baltic states of Russia }

          (_g_) Greek

          (_h_) Albā′nian

      The main source of the present trouble in Europe is that kings
      and their ministers and generals, like their ancestors, the
      feudal lords, never considered the wishes of the people when they
      changed the boundaries of kingdoms. Austria-Hungary is a good
      example. The Austrians and Hungarians were two very different
      peoples. They had nothing in common and did not wish to be joined
      under one ruler, but a king of Hungary, dying, left no son to
      succeed him, and his only daughter was married to the archduke of
      Austria. This archduke of Austria (a descendant of the counts of
      Hapsburg) was also emperor of Germany and king of Bohemia,
      although the Bohemian people had not chosen him as their ruler.
      The Hungarians, before their union with Austria, had conquered
      certain Slavic tribes and part of the Roumanians. Later Austria
      annexed part of Poland. In this way, the empire became a jumble
      of languages and nationalities. When its congress is called
      together, the official announcement is read in eleven different
      languages. Forty-one different dialects are talked in an area not
      as large as that of the state of Texas.

      We must remember that besides the literary or written languages
      of each country there are several spoken dialects. A man from
      Devonshire, England, meeting a man from Yorkshire in the north of
      the same country, has difficulty in understanding many words in
      his speech. The language of the south of Scotland also is
      English, although it is very different from the English that we
      in America are taught. A Frenchman from the Pyrenees Mountains
      was taught in school to speak and read the French language as we
      find it in books. Yet besides this, he knows a dialect that is
      talked by the country people around him, that can not be
      understood by the peasants from the north of France near the
      Flemish border. The man who lives in the east of France can
      understand the dialect of the Italians from the west of Italy
      much better than he can that of the Frenchman from the Atlantic
      coast.

      In America, with people moving around from place to place by
      means of stage coach, steamboat, and railroad, there has been no
      great chance to develop dialects, although we can instantly tell
      the New Englander, the southerner, or the westerner by his
      speech. It should be remembered that in Europe, for centuries,
      the people were kept on their own farms or in their own towns.
      The result of this was that each little village or city has its
      own peculiar language. It is said that persons who have studied
      such language matters carefully, after conversing with a man from
      Europe, can tell within thirty miles where his home used to be in
      the old country. There are no sharply marked boundaries of
      languages. The dialects of France shade off into those of Spain
      on the one hand and into those of the Flemish and the Italian on
      the other.

[Illustration: Southeastern Europe, 600 B.C.]

      The British Isles furnish us with four or five different
      nationalities. The people of the north of Ireland are really
      lowland Scotch of Germanic descent, while the other three-fourths
      of Ireland is inhabited by Celts. To make the difference all the
      greater, the Celts are almost universally Catholics, while the
      Scotch-Irish are Protestants. The people of the north of Scotland
      are Gaels, a Celtic race having no connection in language or
      blood with the people of the southern half of that country. The
      Welsh are a Celtic people, having no relationship with the
      English, who are a Germanic people. The Welsh and the Cornish of
      Cornwall and the people of highland Scotland are the descendants
      of the ancient Britons and Gaels who inhabited the island when
      Julius Caesar and the Romans first landed there. Then five
      hundred years afterwards, as has already been told, came great
      swarms of Germans (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes), who drove the
      Britons to the west and north, and settled the country now known
      as England. After these, you will recall, came a number of Danes,
      another Germanic people, who settled the east coast of England.
      Two hundred years later, the Normans came from France. These
      Normans had been living in France for a century or two, but had
      come originally from Norway. Normans, Danes, Angles, and Saxons
      all mixed to make the modern English. Together, they fought the
      Scotch, the Welsh and the Irish, and having conquered them,
      oppressed them harshly for many centuries.

[Illustration: Southeastern Europe, 975 A.D.]

      But it is in the southeastern corner of Europe that one finds the
      worst jumble of nationalities. Six hundred years before Christ,
      the Greeks and their rougher cousins, the Thracians, Macedonians,
      and Dacians inhabited this district. When one of the Roman
      Emperors conquered the Dacians about 100 A.D., he planted a large
      Roman colony north of the Danube River. Then came the West Goths,
      who swept into this country, but soon left it for the west of
      Europe. Next came the Slavic tribes who are the ancestors of the
      modern Serbs. Following these, came a large tribe which did not
      belong to the Indo-European family, but was distantly related to
      the Finns and the Turks. These people were called the Volgars,
      for they came from the country around the River Volga. Before
      long, we find them called the Bulgars. (The letters B and V are
      often interchanged in the languages of south-eastern Europe. The
      people of western Europe used to call the country of the Serbs
      Servia, but the Serbs objected, saying that the word _servio_, in
      Latin, means “to be a slave,” and that as they were not slaves,
      they wanted their country to be called by its true name, Serbia.
      The Greeks, on the other hand, pronounce the letter B as though
      it were V.)

      A strange thing happened to the Volgars or Bulgars. They
      completely gave up their Asiatic language and adopted a new one,
      which became in time the purest of the Slavic tongues. They
      intermarried with the Slavs around them and adopted Slavic names.
      They founded a flourishing nation which lay between the kingdom
      of Serbia and the Greek Empire of Constantinople.

      North of the Bulgars lay the country of the Roumani (ro͞o
      mä′nï). These people claimed to be descended from the Roman
      Emperor’s colonists, as was previously told, but the reason their
      language is so much like the Italian is that a large number of
      people from the north of Italy moved into the country nearly a
      thousand years after the first Roman colonists settled there.
      From 900 to 1300 A.D., south-eastern Europe was inhabited by
      Serbians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, and Greeks.

[Illustration: A Typical Bulgarian Family]

      A fifth people perhaps ought to be counted here, the Albanians.
      (See map) This tribe is descended from the Illyrians, who
      inhabited the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea even before the
      time of the Roman Empire. Their language, like the Greek, is a
      branch of the Indo-European family which is neither Latin,
      Celtic, Germanic, nor Slavic. They are distant cousins of the
      Italians and are also slightly related to the Greeks. They are a
      wild, fierce, uncivilized people, and have never known the
      meaning of law and order. Robbery and warfare are common. Each
      village is always fighting with the people of the neighboring
      towns. The Albanians, or Skipetars (skïp′ĕtars) as they call
      themselves, were Christians until they were conquered by the
      Turks about 1460. Since that time, the great majority of them
      have been staunch believers in the Mohammedan religion.


        Questions for Review


          Where did the great Indo-European family of languages have
          its beginning?

          Why is it that the Celtic languages are dying out?

          What killed the Celtic languages in Spain and France?

          What are the three parts of Europe where Germanic languages
          are spoken?

          In what parts of Europe are languages spoken which are
          descended from the Latin?

          Explain the presence in Austria-Hungary of eleven different
          peoples?

          Are the Bulgarians really a Slavic people?




Chapter VI.
“The Terrible Turk”

      The Greek Empire at Constantinople.—The invading Mohammedans.—The
      Ottoman Turks.—The fall of Constantinople.—The enslaving of the
      Bulgars, Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, and Roumanians.—One little
      part of Serbia unconquered.—The further conquests of the
      Turks.—The attack on Vienna.—John Sobieski to the rescue.—The
      waning of the Turkish empire.—The Spanish Jews.—The jumble of
      languages and peoples in southeastern Europe.


      In the last chapter, we referred briefly to the Greek empire at
      Constantinople. This city was originally called Byzantium, and
      was a flourishing Greek commercial center six hundred years
      before Christ. Eleven hundred years after this, a Roman emperor
      named Constantine decided that he liked Byzantium better than
      Rome. Accordingly, he moved the capital of the empire to the
      Greek city, and renamed it Constantinopolis (the word _polis_
      means “city” in Greek). Before long, we find the Roman empire
      divided into two parts, the capital of one at Rome, of the other
      at Constantinople. This eastern government was continued by the
      Greeks nearly one thousand years after the government of the
      western empire had been seized by the invading Germanic tribes.

[Illustration: The Turkish Sultan before Constantinople]

      For years, this Greek empire at Constantinople had been obliged
      to fight hard against the Mohammedans who came swarming across
      the fertile plains of Mesopotamia (mĕs′ō pō tā′ mĭ ā) and
      Asia Minor. (Mesopotamia is the district lying between the Tigris
      (tī′grĭs) and Euphrates (ūfrā′tēz) Rivers. Its name in Greek
      means “between the rivers.”) The fiercest of the Mohammedan
      tribes, the warlike Ottoman Turks, were the last to arrive. For
      several years, they thundered at the gates of Constantinople,
      while the Greek Empire grew feebler and feebler.

      At last in 1453, their great cannon made a breach in the walls,
      and the Turks poured through. The Greek Empire was a thing of the
      past, and all of southeastern Europe lay at the mercy of the
      invading Moslems (another name for “Mohammedans”). The Turks did
      not drive out the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, and Albanians,
      but settled down among them as the ruling, military class. They
      strove to force these peoples to give up Christianity and turn
      Mohammedans, but were successful only in the case of the
      Skipetars of Albania. The Albanians, Serbians, Bulgarians,
      Greeks, and Roumanians remained where they had been, but were
      oppressed by the newcomers.

      For more than two hundred years after the capture of
      Constantinople, the Turks pushed their conquests farther and
      farther into Europe. The entire coast of the Black Sea fell into
      their hands. All of Greece, all of Bulgaria, and all of Roumania
      became part of their empire. Of the kingdom of Serbia, one small
      province remained unconquered. Up in the mountains near the coast
      of the Adriatic gathered the people of one county of the Serbian
      kingdom. As the Turks attacked them, they retreated higher and
      higher up the mountain sides and rolled huge stones down upon the
      invaders. Finally, the Turk became disgusted, and concluded that
      “the game was not worth the candle.” Thus the little nation of
      Montenegro was formed, composed of Serbians who never submitted
      to the Ottoman rule. (The inhabitants of this small country call
      it Tzernagorah (tzẽr nä gō′ra); the Italians call it
      Montenegro. Both of these names mean “Dark Mountain.”)

      Not satisfied with these conquests, the Turks pushed on, gaining
      control of the greater part of the kingdom of Hungary. About
      1682, they were pounding at the forts around Vienna. The heroic
      king of Poland, John Sobieski (sō bĭ ĕs′kĭ), came to the
      rescue of the Austrian emperor with an army of Poles and Germans
      and completely defeated the Turks. He saved Vienna, and ended any
      further advance of the Turkish rule into Europe. (The map on page
      82 shows the high water mark of the Turkish conquests.)

      It must be remembered that the original inhabitants of the
      conquered lands were still living where they always had lived.
      The Turks were very few in number compared with the millions of
      people who inhabited their empire and paid them tribute. Many
      wars were caused by this conquest, but it was two hundred and
      thirty years before the Christian peoples won back their
      territory.

[Illustration: Southeastern Europe 1690 A.D.]

      By the year 1685, the Hungarians had begun to win back part of
      their kingdom. By 1698, almost all of Hungary and Transylvania
      was free from Turkish rule. It will be recalled that a certain
      Count of Hapsburg had become Emperor of Germany, and when we say
      Germany, we include Austria, which had become the home of the
      Hapsburgs. It was shortly after this that the Hapsburg family
      came to be lords of Hungary also, through the marriage of one of
      their emperors with the only daughter of the king of that
      country. (See page 69.)

      In this way, when the province of Bukowina and the territory
      known as the Banat, just north of the Danube and west of what is
      now Roumania, were reconquered from the Turks, it was the joint
      kingdom to which they were attached. (Bukowina has never been a
      part of Hungary. It is still a crown land, or county subject to
      the emperor of Austria personally.)

      During the 15th century, the southeastern part of Europe came to
      be inhabited by a still different people. Not long after
      Ferdinand and Isabella, the king and queen of Spain, had
      conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada (see Chapter II) that
      used to stretch across the southern half of Spain, the Spaniards
      decided to drive out of their country all “unbelievers,” that is,
      all who were not Christians of the Catholic faith. (This happened
      in 1492, the same year that they sent Columbus to America.) The
      Moors retreated into Africa, which was their former home, but the
      millions of Spanish Jews had no homeland to which to return. In
      the midst of their distress, the Sultan of Turkey, knowing them
      to be prosperous and well-behaved citizens, invited them to enter
      his land. They did so by hundreds of thousands.

      The descendants of these people are to be found today throughout
      the Balkan peninsula, though mainly in the large cities. They are
      so numerous in Constantinople that four newspapers are published
      there in the Spanish language, but printed in Hebrew characters.
      The city of Salonika, a prosperous seaport of 140,000 people,
      which used to belong to Turkey but now is part of Greece, has
      over 50,000 of these Jews. They readily learn other tongues, and
      many of them can talk in four or five languages besides their
      native Spanish, which they still use in the family circle.

      Constantinople (called Stamboul by the Turks) is a polyglot city,
      that is, a place of many languages. Greeks, Turks, Armenians,
      Jews, Italians are all found mingled together.


[Illustration: A Scene in Salonicka]

      The main source of trouble in the Balkan peninsula is that the
      races and nationalities are so jumbled together that it is almost
      impossible to say which land should belong to which nation. Take
      the case of Macedonia (the district just northwest of the Aegean
      Sea). It is inhabited largely by Bulgarians, and yet there are so
      many Greeks and Serbs mixed in with the former that at the close
      of the last Balkan war in 1913, Greece and Serbia both claimed it
      as belonging to them because of the “prevailing nationality of
      its inhabitants!” In other words, the Serbians claimed that the
      inhabitants of Macedonia were largely Serbs, the Greeks were
      positive that its people were largely Greeks, while Bulgaria is
      very resentful today because the land was not given to her, on
      the ground that almost all its inhabitants are Bulgarians!

      Religious and racial hatreds have had a great deal to do with
      making the Balkan peninsula a hotbed of political trouble. Right
      in the center of Bulgaria, for example, speaking the same
      language, dressing exactly alike, doing business with each other
      on an equal footing, are to be found the native Bulgarian and the
      descendant of the Turkish conquerors; yet one goes to the Greek
      Orthodox Church to worship and the other to the Mohammedan
      Mosque. With memories of hundreds of years of wrong and
      oppression behind them, Bulgarians and Turks hate and despise
      each other with a fierce intensity. Let us now leave the Balkan
      states, with their seething pot of racial and religious hatred,
      and turn to other causes of European wars.


        Questions for Review


          What became of the Greeks when the Turks captured
          Constantinople?

          Why could one county of Serbia resist the Turks?

          How long after the fall of Constantinople were the Turks
          threatening Vienna?

          Explain how Constantinople has people of so many different
          nationalities.

          Why have the Turk and Bulgarian never been friendly?




Chapter VII.
The Rise of Modern Nations

      How the peasants looked upon war.—War the opportunity of the
      fighting men.—The decreasing power of barons.—The growth of royal
      power.—How four little kingdoms became Spain.—Other kingdoms of
      Europe.—The rise of Russia.—The Holy Roman Empire.—The
      electors.—The rise of Brandenburg.—The elector of Brandenburg
      becomes King of Prussia.—Frederick the Great.—The seizure of
      Silesia and the consequent wars.


      You have already been shown how in the early days of the feudal
      system, the lords, with their squires, knights, and fighting men
      made up a class of the population whose only trade was war, and
      how the poor peasants were compelled to raise crops and live
      stock enough to feed both themselves and the fighting men. These
      peasants had no love for war, as war resulted only in their
      losing their possessions in case their country was invaded by the
      enemy. The fighting men, on the other hand, had nothing to do
      unless war was going on, and as those who were not killed
      returned from a war with rich plunder in case they were
      victorious, they were always looking for a chance to start
      trouble with some neighboring country.

      In those days, kings cared little what their nobles did, so long
      as the nobles furnished them with fighting men in times of war.
      As a result, one county in a certain kingdom would often be at
      war with a neighboring county. The fighting man either was killed
      in battle or he came out of it with increased glory and plunder,
      but the peasants and the common people had nothing to gain by war
      and everything to lose. As we have seen, force ruled the world,
      and the common people had no voice in their government. The
      workers were looked down upon by the members of the fighting
      class, who never did a stroke of work themselves and considered
      honest toil as degrading. In fact, as one writer has said, the
      only respectable trade in Europe in those days was what we today
      would call highway robbery.

      France and England in the 15th Century

      Gradually in most of the European countries the king was able to
      put down the power of his nobles and make himself master over the
      whole nation. In this way a strong central power grew up in
      France. After the death of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in
      1477, no noble dared to question the leadership of the king of
      France. The same thing was true in England after the battle of
      Bosworth in 1485, which resulted in the death of King Richard III
      and the setting of the Tudor family on the throne.

      Spain and Other Kingdoms

      Spain had been divided into four little kingdoms: Leon, Castile,
      Aragon, and Granada, the latter ruled by the Moors. The nation
      marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella of Castile and Leon
      joined the three Christian kingdoms into one, and after 1492,
      when the Moors were defeated and Granada annexed to the realm of
      Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain became one kingdom. About this
      time, also, there had grown up a strong kingdom of Hungary, a
      kingdom of Portugal, a kingdom of Poland, and one of Denmark.
      Norway was ruled by the Danes, but Sweden was a separate kingdom.
      In Russia, Czar Ivan the Terrible (1533-84) had built up a strong
      power which was still further strengthened by Czar Peter the
      Great (1690-1725).

      The Holy Roman Empire

      The rest of the continent of Europe, with the exception of the
      Turkish Empire, formed what was called the Holy Roman Empire, a
      rule which had been founded by Charlemagne (A.D. 800), the great
      Frankish monarch, who had been crowned in Rome by the pope as
      ruler of the western world. (The name “Holy Roman Empire” was not
      used by Charlemagne. We first hear of it under Otto I, the Saxon
      emperor, who was crowned in 962.)

[Illustration: The Empire of Charlemagne]

      This Holy Roman Empire included all of what is now Germany
      (except the eastern third of Prussia), all of what is now
      Bohemia, Austria (but not Hungary), and all of Italy except the
      part south of Naples. There were times when part of France and
      all of the low countries (now Belgium and Holland) also belonged
      to the Empire. (The mountaineers of Switzerland won their
      independence from the Empire in the fourteenth century, and
      formed a little republic.) See map “Europe in 1540.”


[Illustration: Europe in 1540]

      In the Holy Roman Empire, the son of the emperor did not
      necessarily succeed his father as ruler. There were seven
      (afterwards nine) “electors” who, at the death of the ruling
      monarch, met to elect his successor. Three of these electors were
      archbishops, one was king of Bohemia, and the others were counts
      of large counties in Germany like Hanover and Brandenburg. It
      frequently happened that the candidate chosen was a member of the
      family of the dead emperor, and there were three or four families
      which had many rulers chosen from among their number. The most
      famous of these families was that of the Counts of Hapsburg, from
      whom the present emperor of Austria is descended.

[Illustration: Louis XIV]

      This Holy Roman Empire was not a strong government, as the
      kingdoms of England and France grew to be. The kings of Bohemia,
      Saxony, and Bavaria all were subjects of the emperor, as were
      many powerful counts. These men were jealous of the emperor’s
      power, and he did not dare govern them as strictly as the king of
      France ruled his nobles.

      France in the 18th Century

[Illustration: John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough]

      During the 18th century, there were many wars in Europe caused by
      the ambition of various kings to make their domains larger and to
      increase their own incomes. King Louis XIV of France had built up
      a very powerful kingdom. Brave soldiers and skillful generals
      spread his rule over a great part of what is Belgium and
      Luxemburg, and annexed to the French kingdom the part of Germany
      between the Rhine River and the Vosges (Vōzh) Mountains.
      Finally, the English joined with the troops of the Holy Roman
      Empire to curb the further growth of the French kingdom, and at
      the battle of Blenheim (1704), the English Duke of Marlborough,
      aided by the emperor’s army, put an end to the further expansion
      of the French.

[Illustration: The Great Elector of Brandenburg]

      Prussia

      The 18th century also saw the rise of a new kingdom in Europe.
      You will recall that there was a county in Germany named
      Brandenburg, whose count was one of the seven electors who chose
      the emperor. The capital of this county was Berlin. It so
      happened that a number of Counts of Brandenburg, of the family of
      Hohenzollern, had been men of ambition and ability. The little
      county had grown by adding small territories around it. One of
      these counts, called “the Great Elector,” had added to
      Brandenburg the greater part of the neighboring county of
      Pomerania. His son did not have the ability of his father, but
      was a very proud and vain man. He happened to visit King William
      III of England, and was very much offended because during the
      interview, the king occupied a comfortable arm chair, while the
      elector, being simply a count, was given a chair to sit in which
      was straight-backed and had no arms. Brooding over this insult,
      as it seemed to him, he went home and decided that he too should
      be called a king. The question was, what should his title be. He
      could not call himself “King of Brandenburg,” for Brandenburg was
      part of the Empire, and the emperor would not allow it. It had
      happened some one hundred years before, that, through his
      marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Prussia, a Count of
      Brandenburg had come into possession of the district known as
      East Prussia, at the extreme southeastern corner of the Baltic
      Sea. Between this and the territory of Brandenburg lay the
      district known as West Prussia, which was part of the Kingdom of
      Poland. However, Prussia lay outside the boundaries of the
      Empire, and the emperor had nothing to say about what went on
      there. Therefore, the elector sent notice to all the kings and
      princes of Europe that after this he was to be known as the “King
      of Prussia.” It was a situation somewhat like the one we have
      already referred to, when the kings of England were independent
      monarchs and yet subjects of the kings of France because they
      were also dukes of Normandy.

[Illustration: Frederick The Great]

      The son of this elector who first called himself king had more
      energy and more character than his father. He ruled his country
      with a rod of iron, and built up a strong, well-drilled army. He
      was especially fond of tall soldiers, and had agents out all over
      Europe, kidnapping men who were over six feet tall to serve in
      his famous regiment of Guards. He further increased the size of
      the Prussian kingdom.

      His son was the famous Frederick the Great, one of the most
      remarkable fighters that the world has ever seen. This prince had
      been brought up under strict discipline by his father. The old
      king had been insistent that his son should be no weakling. It is
      told that one day, finding Frederick playing upon a flute, he
      seized the instrument and snapped it in twain over his son’s
      shoulder. The young Frederick, under this harsh training, became
      a fit leader of a military nation. When his father died and left
      him a well-filled treasury and a wonderfully drilled army, he was
      fired with the ambition to spread his kingdom wider. Germany, as
      has been said, was made up of a great many little counties, each
      ruled by its petty prince or duke, all owing homage, in a general
      way, to the ruler of Austria, who still was supposed to be the
      head of the Holy Roman Empire.

[Illustration: The Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia, 1400-1806]

      This empire was not a real nation, but a collection of many
      different nationalities which had little sympathy with each
      other. The ruler of Austria was also king of Bohemia and of
      Hungary, but neither country was happy at being governed by a
      German ruler. Then, too, the Croatians, Serbs, Slovenes, and
      Slovaks were unhappy at being ruled, first by the Hungarians and
      then by the emperor, as they were Slavic peoples who wished their
      independence. It so happened that about the time that Frederick
      became king of Prussia in place of his father, the head of the
      House of Austria died, leaving his only child, a daughter, Maria
      Theresa, to rule the big empire. Frederick decided that he could
      easily defeat the disorganized armies of Austria, so he announced
      to the world that the rich province of Silesia was henceforth to
      be his and that he proposed to take it by force of arms.
      Naturally, this brought on a fierce war with Austria, but in the
      end, Frederick’s well-trained troops, his store of money, and
      above all, his expert military ability made the Prussians
      victorious, and at the close of the fighting, almost all of
      Silesia remained a part of the kingdom of Prussia. The Austrians,
      however, were not satisfied, and two more wars were fought before
      they finally gave up trying to recover the stolen state.
      Frederick remained stronger than ever as a result of his
      victories.


        Questions for Review


          Why were the fighting men of the Middle Ages a source of loss
          to a nation in general?

          How was it that Spain became one nation?

          What did Peter the Great do for Russia?

          Why did the Emperor have less power than many kings?

          What was the ambition of Louis XIV of France?

          What effect had the training of his father upon the character
          of Frederick the Great?

          Had Frederick the Great any right to Silesia?




Chapter VIII.
The Fall of the Two Kingdoms

      The Poles, a divided nation.—The three partitions.—Wars and
      revolts as a result.—The disappearance of Lithuania.—The growing
      power of the king of France.—An extravagant and corrupt
      court.—Peasants cruelly taxed and oppressed.—Bankruptcy at
      last.—The meeting of the three estates.—The third estate defies
      the king.—The fall of the Bastille.—The flight and capture of the
      king.—The king beheaded.—Other kings alarmed.—Valmy saves the
      revolution.—The reign of terror.


      In the flat country to the northeast of Austria-Hungary and east
      of Prussia lay the kingdom of Poland, the largest country in
      Europe with the exception of Russia. The Poles, as has been said
      before, were a Slavic people, distant cousins of the Russians and
      Bohemians. They had a strong nobility or upper class, but these
      nobles were jealous of each other, and as a result, the country
      was torn apart by many warring factions. The condition of the
      working class was very miserable. The nobles did not allow them
      any privileges. They were serfs, that is to say, practically
      slaves, who had to give up to their masters the greater part of
      the crops that they raised. In the council of the Polish nobles,
      no law could be passed if a single nobleman opposed it. As a
      result of this jealousy between factions, the Poles could not be
      induced to obey any one leader, and thus, divided, were easy to
      conquer.

      Frederick the Great, regretting the fact that he was separated
      from his land in East Prussia by the county of West Prussia,
      which was part of Poland, proposed to his old enemy, Maria
      Theresa of Austria, and to the Empress Catharine II of Russia
      that they each take a slice of Poland. This was accordingly done,
      in the year 1772. Poor Poland was unable to resist the three
      great powers around her, and the other kings of Europe, who had
      been greedily annexing land wherever they could get it, stood by
      without a protest. Some twenty years later, Prussia and Russia
      each again annexed a large part of the remainder of Poland, and
      two years after this, the three powers divided up among them all
      that was left of the unhappy kingdom. The Poles fought violently
      against this last partition, but they were not united and were
      greatly outnumbered by the troops of the three powers.

      This great crime against a nation was the result of the military
      system; and this in turn was the result of the feudal system,
      which made the king, as commander-in-chief of the army, the
      supreme ruler of his country. The men in the Prussian and
      Austrian armies had no desire to fight and conquer the poor
      Poles. Victory meant nothing to them. They gained no advantage
      from it. To the kings who divided up the countries it simply
      meant an enlargement of their kingdoms, more people to pay taxes
      to them, and more men to draw on for their armies.

[Illustration: Catharine II]

      Instead of crushing out the love of the Poles for their country,
      this wrongful tearing apart has made their national spirit all
      the stronger. There have been revolts and bloody wars, caused by
      Polish uprisings, time and time again, and the Poles will never
      be satisfied until their unhappy country is once more united.

      To the northeast of the Poles live the Lithuanians, whose country
      had been annexed to the Polish kingdom when their duke, who had
      married the daughter of the king of Poland, followed his
      father-in-law on the Polish throne. Lithuania fell to Russia’s
      share in the division, so that its people only changed masters.
      They are a distinct nation, however, possessing a language and
      literature of their own, and having no desire to be ruled by
      either Poles or Russians. If they were to receive justice, they
      would form a country by themselves, lying between Poland and
      Russia proper.

      The Downfall of the French Monarchy

[Illustration: Courtier of time of Louis XIV]

      In the meantime, a great change had come about in France. There,
      for hundreds of years, the power of the king had been growing
      greater, until by the eighteenth century, there was no one in the
      country who could oppose him. He had great fortresses and prisons
      where he sent those who had offended him, shutting them up
      without a trial and not even letting their families know where
      they had been taken. The peasants and working classes had been
      ground down under taxes which grew heavier and heavier. The king
      spent millions of dollars on his palaces, on his armies, on his
      courts. Money was stolen by court officials. Paris was the gayest
      capital in the world, the home of fashion, art, and frivolity and
      the poor peasants paid the bills.

[Illustration: The Taking of The Bastille]

      For years, there had been mutterings. The people were ripe for a
      revolt, but they had no weapons, and there was no one to lead
      them. At last, came a time when there was no money in the royal
      treasury. After all the waste and corruption, nothing was left to
      pay the army and keep up the expenses of the government. One
      minister of finance after another tried to devise some scheme
      whereby the country might meet its debts, but without success.
      The costly wars and wasteful extravagances of the past hundred
      years were at last to bring a reckoning. In desperation, the king
      summoned a meeting of representative men from all over the
      kingdom. There were three classes represented, the nobles, the
      clergy, and what was called “the third estate,” which meant
      merchants, shopkeepers, and the poor gentlemen. A great statesman
      appeared, a man named Mirabeau. Under his leadership, the third
      estate defied the king, and the temper of the people was such
      that the king dared not force them to do his will. In the midst
      of these exciting times, a mob attacked the great Paris prison,
      the Bastille. They took it by storm, and tore it to the ground.
      This happened on the fourteenth of July, 1789, a day which the
      French still celebrate as the birthday of their nation’s liberty.
      All over France the common people rose in revolt. The soldiers in
      the army would no longer obey their officers. The king was
      closely watched, and when he attempted to flee to Germany was
      brought back and thrown into prison. Many of the nobles, in
      terror, fled from the country. Thus began what is known as the
      French Revolution.

[Illustration: The Palace of Versailles]

      As soon as the king was thrown into prison and the people of
      France took charge of their government, a panic arose throughout
      the courts of Europe. Other kings, alarmed over the fate of the
      king of France, began to fear for themselves. They, too, had
      taxed and oppressed their subjects. They felt that this revolt of
      the French people must be put down, and the king of France set
      back upon his throne, otherwise the same kind of revolt might
      take place in their countries as well. Accordingly, the king of
      Prussia, the king of England, and the emperor of Austria all made
      war on the new French Republic. They proposed to overwhelm the
      French by force of arms and compel them to put back their king
      upon his throne.

      Of course, if the soldiers in the armies of these kings had known
      what the object of this war was, they would have had very little
      sympathy with it, but for years they had been trained to obey
      their officers, who in turn obeyed their generals, who in turn
      obeyed the orders of the kings. The common soldiers were like
      sheep, in that they did not think for themselves, but followed
      their leaders. They were not allowed to know the truth concerning
      this attack on France. They did not know the French language, and
      had no way of finding out the real situation, for there were no
      public schools in these countries, and very few people knew how
      to read the newspapers. The newspapers, moreover, were controlled
      by the governments, and were allowed to print only what favored
      the cause of the kings.

      The French, however, knew the meaning of the war. A young French
      poet from Strasbourg on the Rhine wrote a wonderful war song
      which was first sung in Paris by the men of Marseilles, and thus
      has come to be called “La Marseillaise.” It is the cry of a
      crushed and oppressed people against foreign tyrants who would
      again enslave them. It fired the French army with a wonderful
      enthusiasm, and untrained as they were, they beat back the
      invaders at the hard-fought field of Valmy and saved the French
      Republic.

[Illustration: The Reign of Terror]

      The period known as “the reign of terror” now began in earnest. A
      faction of the extreme republican party got control of the
      government, and kept it by terrorizing the more peaceable
      citizens. The brutal wrongs which nobles had put upon the lower
      classes for so many hundred years were brutally avenged. The king
      was executed, as were most of the nobles who had not fled from
      the country. For three or four years, the gutters of the
      principal French cities ran blood. Then the better sense of the
      nation came to the front and the people settled down. A fairly
      good government was organized, and the executions ceased. Still
      the kings of Europe would not recognize the new republic. There
      was war against France for the next twenty years on the part of
      England, and generally two or three other countries as well.

[Illustration: The First Singing of ‘The Marseillaise’]


        Questions for Review


          Why was Poland an easy prey for her neighbors?

          Why did not Spain, France, or England interfere to prevent
          the partition of Poland?

          How did Lithuania come to be joined to Poland?

          What things could the king of France do which would not be
          tolerated in the United States today?

          Why did the people of France submit to the rule of the king?

          Why did the king call together the three “estates”?

          Why do the French celebrate the 14th of July?

          Why did the other kings take up the cause of the king of
          France?

          What was the cause of the reign of terror?




Chapter IX.
The Little Man from the Common People

      The young Corsican.—The war in Italy.—Italy a battlefield for
      centuries.—The victories of Bonaparte.—The first consul.—The
      empire.—The French sweep over Europe.—Kings and emperors beaten
      and deposed.—The fatal Russian campaign.—The first
      abdication.—The return from Elba.—The battle of Waterloo.—The
      feudal lords once more triumphant.


      And now there came to the front one of the most remarkable
      characters in all history. This was Napoleon Bonaparte, a little
      man from the island of Corsica, of Italian parentage, but a
      French citizen, for the island had been forcibly The annexed to
      France shortly before his birth. As a young lieutenant in the
      army, he had seen the storming of the Bastille. Later on, being
      in charge of the cannon which defended the House of Parliament,
      he had saved one of the numerous governments set up during this
      period. A Paris mob was trying to storm this building, as they
      had the castle of the king. As a reward, he had been put in
      charge of the French army in Italy, which was engaged in fighting
      the Austrians.

      In order to understand the situation it is necessity at this
      point to devote some attention to the past history of the Italian
      peninsula.

      Italy had not been a united country since the days of the Roman
      Empire. The southern part of the peninsula had formed, with
      Sicily, a small nation called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
      The northern part had belonged to the Ostrogoths, the Lombards,
      the Franks, and the Holy Roman Empire in turn. The Italian people
      wanted to become one nation, but they were divided up among many
      little princes, each with his separate dominions. The cities of
      Genoa and Venice had each formed a republic, which was strong on
      the sea only, for both cities had large navies and had acquired
      practically all their wealth by their trade with Constantinople,
      Egypt, and the far East. In 1796 the Hapsburg family held the
      control of northern Italy except the lands around the city of
      Venice and the county of Piedmont. The latter formed a separate
      kingdom with the island of Sardinia, much as Sicily was joined
      with the southern end of the peninsula.

      Italy had been the battlefield where Goths, Franks, Huns,
      Lombards, Germans, Austrians, French, and Spaniards had fought
      their battles for the control of the civilized world. (See the
      following maps.) At one time, the Austrian House of Hapsburg
      controlled the greater part of the peninsula. This was especially
      true when Charles V was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
      As a Hapsburg, he was ruler of Austria. As a descendant of
      Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, he was Lord of the Low
      Countries (what is now Holland and Belgium). He was also king of
      Spain, being the oldest living grandson of Ferdinand and
      Isabella. When he became ruler of the two Sicilies, and defeated
      the French king for the control of northern Italy, there were
      only four powers in Europe which were not under his sway: Russia,
      Turkey, Poland, and England. (See map.)

[Illustration: Italy in 525 A.D.]

[Illustration: Italy in 650 A.D.]

[Illustration: Italy in 1175 A.D.]

[Illustration: Charles the Fifth]

      Three hundred years after this, the Austrians were again invading
      Italy, and at the time when Bonaparte entered it (1796), they had
      overrun and controlled the entire valley of the Po. The cause of
      the war was still the deposing of the French monarch. The
      Austrian armies were fighting to force the people of France to
      take back the rule of the hated kings. The armies of France, on
      the other hand, represented the rights of the people to choose
      their own form of government.

      Of course the French, intoxicated by the success of the
      Revolution, were eager to spread the republican form of
      government all over Europe. There was a real possibility that
      they might do so, and the kings were fighting in defense of their
      thrones. (The map shows the conquests of the new republic up to
      this time.)


[Illustration: Europe in 1796]

      Such was the situation when young Bonaparte, twenty-six years of
      age, went down into Italy to take command of the French army. The
      generals, many of them as old as his father, began offering him
      advice, but he impatiently waved them aside and announced that he
      was going to wage war on a plan hitherto unheard of. He made good
      his boast, and after a short campaign in which he inspired his
      ragged, hungry army to perform wonders in fighting, he had driven
      the Austrians out of northern Italy, broken up the Republic of
      Venice, and forced the emperor to make peace with France. After a
      brilliant but unsuccessful campaign in Egypt and Syria, Bonaparte
      returned to France, where, as the popular military hero, he had
      little difficulty in overthrowing the five Directors of the
      French government and having himself elected “First Consul” or
      president of France.

      A new combination of nations now united against the republic, but
      Bonaparte cut to pieces a great Austrian army, and a second time
      compelled his enemies to make peace. He now proposed that the
      French people elect him “emperor of the French” for life, and by
      an overwhelming vote they did so. The empire was very different
      from the other empires and kingships of Europe, since it was
      created by the vote of the people. The other monarchs held their
      thrones by reason of their descent from the chiefs of the
      plundering tribes which invaded Europe during the Dark Ages. By
      this time, the kings had forgotten that they owed their power to
      the swords of their fighting men, and there had grown up a
      doctrine called “The Divine Right of Kings.” In other words, the
      kings claimed that God in his wisdom had seen fit to make them
      rulers over these lands, and that they were responsible to God
      alone. In this way they tried to make it appear that any one who
      attempted to drive a king from his throne was opposed to the will
      of Heaven.

      The victorious French, exulting in their newly-won freedom from
      the tyranny of kings and nobles, were full of warlike pride in
      the wonderful victories gained by their armies under the
      brilliant leadership of Napoleon. (He dropped his last name,
      Bonaparte, when he was elected emperor.) They swept over the
      greater part of Europe and helped to spread the idea that the
      people had rights that all kings were bound to respect, and that
      it was not necessary to be ruled by descendants of the old robber
      chiefs.

      For sixteen years Napoleon did not meet defeat. He beat the
      Austrians and Russians singly; he beat them combined. In two
      fierce battles, he crushed the wonderful Prussian army, which had
      been trained in the military school of Frederick the Great. He
      drove out the king of Spain, the king of the Two Sicilies, the
      kings of several of the small German kingdoms. He made one of his
      brothers king of Spain, another king of Holland, a third king of
      Westphalia (part of western Germany). He set his brother-in-law
      on the throne of Naples. He had his small son crowned king of
      Rome. He took away from Prussia all of her territory except
      Brandenburg, Silesia, Pomerania. and East and West Prussia. He
      reorganized the old Polish kingdom and kings called it the Grand
      Duchy of Warsaw. He forced Austria to give up all claim to
      northern Italy. He annexed to France the land which is now
      Belgium and Holland, and parts of western Germany and Italy. (See
      map entitled “Europe in 1810.”)


[Illustration: Messen Europe in 1810]

      All over Europe, those of the people who had education enough to
      understand what was going on, were astonished to see the old
      feudal kings and princes driven from their thrones and their
      places taken by men sprung from the common people. The father of
      the Bonapartes had been a poor lawyer. Murat, Napoleon’s
      brother-in-law, king of South Italy, was the son of an innkeeper.
      Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s generals, whom the Swedes chose as
      their king, was likewise descended from the lower classes. In
      nations where the working classes had never dreamed of opposing
      the rulers there sprang up a new hope.

[Illustration: The Emperor Napoleon in 1814]

      Bonaparte at last made a fatal mistake. With an army of half a
      million men, he invaded Russia, and established his headquarters
      in Moscow. The Russian people, however, set fire themselves to
      their beautiful city, and the French had to retreat a thousand
      miles through snow and ice, while bands of Russian Cossacks
      swooped down on them from the rear and took a hundred thousand
      prisoners. Encouraged by this terrible blow dealt the French, the
      allied kings of Europe again united in one last effort to drive
      the little Corsican from the throne of France.

      For two years Napoleon held them at bay, making up for his lack
      of soldiers by his marvelous military skill, and by the
      enthusiasm which he never failed to arouse in his troops. In
      1814, however, surrounded by the troops of Austria, Prussia,
      Russia, and England, he had to confess himself beaten. Even
      Bernadotte, his former general, led the Swedish troops against
      him. The allied kings brought back in triumph to Paris the
      brother of the king who had been executed there twenty-two years
      before, and set him on the throne of France. Napoleon was
      banished to the little island of Elba to the west of Italy, and
      the monarchs flattered themselves that their troubles were ended.

[Illustration: The Retreat from Moscow]

      In the spring of the following year, however, Napoleon escaped
      from his island prison and landed on the southern coast of
      France. The king ordered his soldiers to capture their former
      emperor. But the magic of his presence was too much for them, and
      the men who had been sent to put him into chains shed tears of
      joy at the sight of him, and threw themselves at his feet. One
      week later, the king of France had fled a second time from his
      country, and the man chosen by the people was once more at the
      head of the government.

      All the kingdoms of Europe declared war against France, and four
      large armies were headed toward her borders. Napoleon did not
      wait for them to come. Gathering a big force, he marched rapidly
      north into the low countries, where he met and defeated an army
      of Prussians. Another army of English was advancing from
      Brussels. On the field of Waterloo, the French were defeated in
      one of the great battles of the world’s history. The defeated
      Prussians had made a wide circuit and returned to the field to
      the aid of their English allies, while the general whom Napoleon
      had sent to follow the Germans arrived too late to prevent the
      emperor from being crushed. A second time, Napoleon had to give
      up his crown, and a second time King Louis XVIII was brought back
      into Paris and put upon the French throne by the bayonets of
      foreign troops. The people had been crushed, apparently, and the
      old feudal lords were once more in control.

[Illustration: Napoleon at Waterloo]


        Questions for Review


          Had Italy ever been a nation?

          What German tribe ruled Italy in 525? (See map.)

          What tribe ruled Italy in 650? (See map.)

          What part of Italy once belonged to the Holy Roman Empire?
          (See map.)

          What induced the French to elect Bonaparte as First Consul
          and afterward Emperor?

          What led Napoleon to make war on the other rulers?

          What was Napoleon’s great mistake?

          Why did the people welcome him upon his return from Elba?

          What was the effect of the battle of Waterloo?




Chapter X.
A King-Made Map and its Trail of Wrongs

      A meeting of kings and diplomats.—Austrians and English vs.
      Prussians and Russians.—Talleyrand the subtle.—Carving a new
      map.—The people are ignored.—Sowing the seeds of trouble.—Unhappy
      Poland.—Divided Italy.—Revolts of the people.—The outbreaks of
      1848.


      And now the kings and princes, with their ministers of state and
      diplomats, met at Vienna to decide what should be the map of
      Europe. In past years, there had been a great deal of suspicion
      and jealousy among these monarchs. Hardly five years had gone by
      without finding two of them flying at each other’s throats in
      some unjust war or other. Only their great fear of uprisings
      similar to the French Revolution had driven them to act together
      in crushing the French Republic, and the empire voted by the
      people, which had followed it. This famous “Congress of Vienna,”
      which took place 1815, is a fair example of the way in which
      European lands have been cut up and parceled out to various
      monarchs without any regard for the wishes of the people.

[Illustration: The Congress of Vienna]

      Russia and Prussia, proud of the part that their mighty armies
      had had in crushing Napoleon, were arrogantly intending to divide
      the map of Europe as suited them, and it was only by a great deal
      of diplomacy that they were beaten. (The game of diplomacy is
      frequently a polite name for some very cunning deception,
      involving lying and cheating, in which kings and their ministers
      take part.) The Austrians were afraid of the Russian-Prussian
      combination, and they induced England to side with them. England
      did not love Austria, but feared the other two powers. The
      English minister, Lord Castlereagh, finally persuaded the
      Austrians, Prussians, and Russians, to allow the French diplomat,
      Talleyrand, to take part in their final meetings. Now Talleyrand
      was probably the most slippery and tricky diplomat of all Europe.
      He had grown to power during the troublous days of the latter
      part of the French Revolution, and had guessed which party would
      remain in power so skillfully that he always appeared as the
      strong friend of the winning side. Although he had served
      Napoleon during the first years of the empire, he was shrewd
      enough to remain true to King Louis XVIII during the latter’s
      second exile. The Prussian-Russian combination was finally
      obliged to give in, somewhat, to the demands of Austria, England,
      and France. Compare this map with the one given in the preceding
      chapter, and you will see most of the important changes.

      Prussia, which had been cut down to about half its former size by
      Napoleon, got back some of its Polish territory, and was given a
      great deal of land in western Germany along the River Rhine. Part
      of the kingdom of Saxony was forcibly annexed to Prussia also. It
      is needless to say that its inhabitants were bitterly unhappy
      over this arrangement. Austria kept part of her Polish territory,
      and gave the rest of it to Russia.

      The southern part of the Netherlands, which is today called
      Belgium, had belonged to the Hapsburg family, the emperors of
      Austria. As was previously said, it was conquered by the French
      and remained part of France until the fall of Napoleon. It was
      now joined with Holland to make the kingdom of the Netherlands.
      Its people were Walloons and Flemish, almost entirely Catholic in
      their religion, and they very much disliked to be joined with the
      Protestant Dutch of Holland.


[Illustration: Messen Europe in 1815]

      The state of Finland, which had not been strong enough to defend
      itself against its two powerful neighbors, Sweden and Russia, had
      been fought over by these two powers for more than a century. It
      was finally transferred to Russia, and in order to appease
      Sweden, Norway, which had been ruled by the Danes, was torn away
      from Denmark and made part of the kingdom of Sweden. The
      Norwegians desired to remain an independent country, and they
      loved the Swedes even less than they loved the Danes. Therefore,
      this union was another source of trouble. The greater part of the
      kingdom of Poland and all of Lithuania were joined to Russia.

      Russia got back all of the territory she had taken in 1795, and
      in addition large parts of the former shares of Prussia and
      Austria. In order to pay back Austria for the loss of part of
      Poland, she was given all of northern Italy except the counties
      of Piedmont and Savoy near France.

      The German states (and these included both Austria and Prussia)
      were formed into a loose alliance called the German
      Confederation. England’s share of the plunder consisted largely
      of distant colonies, such as South Africa, Ceylon, Trinidad, etc.
      France shrank back to the boundaries which she had had at the
      beginning of the revolution. The kings of France, of the Two
      Sicilies, and of Spain (all of them members of the Bourbon
      family) who had been driven out by Napoleon, were set back upon
      their thrones.

      This arrangement left Italy all split up into nine or ten
      different parts, although its people desired to be one nation. It
      left Austria a government over twelve different nationalities,
      each one of which was dissatisfied. It joined Belgium to Holland
      in a combination displeasing to both. It gave Norway and Finland
      as subject states to Sweden and Russia respectively. It left the
      Albanians, Serbians, Roumanians, Bulgarians, and Greeks all
      subject to the hated Turks. It set upon three thrones, once
      vacant, kings who were hated by their subjects. It divided the
      Poles up among four different governments—for, strange as it may
      seem, the powers could not decide who should own the city of
      Cracow and the territory around it, and they ended by making this
      district a little republic, under the joint protection of
      Austria, Prussia, and Russia. In fact, the Swiss, serene in their
      lofty mountains, were almost the only small people of Europe who
      were left untroubled. The Congress of 1815 had laid the
      foundation for future revolutions and wars without number.

      At first, the Poles were fairly well treated by the Russians, but
      after two or three unsuccessful attempts at a revolution, Poland,
      which, as one of the states of the Russian Empire, was still
      called a kingdom, was deprived of all its rights, and its people
      were forced to give up the use of their language in their
      schools, their courts, and even their churches. In the same
      fashion, the Poles in Prussia were “not even allowed to think in
      Polish,” as one Polish patriot bitterly put it. All through the
      first half of the 19th century, there were uprisings and
      struggles among these people. As a result of one of them, in
      1846, the little Republic of Cracow was abolished, and its
      territory forcibly annexed to Austria.

      The Italian people formed secret societies which had for their
      object the uniting of Italy, and the freeing of its people from
      foreign rulers. All through Germany there were mutterings of
      discontent. The people wanted more freedom from their lords.
      Greece broke out into insurrection against the Turks, and fifteen
      years after the Congress of 1815 won its right to independence.
      Not long afterwards, the southern half of the Netherlands broke
      itself loose from the northern half, and declared to the world
      that it should henceforth be a new kingdom, under the name of
      Belgium. About the same time, the people of France rose up
      against the Bourbon kings, and threw them out “for good.” A
      distant cousin of the king was elected, not “king of France” but
      “citizen king of the French,” and the people were allowed to
      elect men to represent them in a parliament or Congress at Paris.
      In Spain, one revolution followed another. For a short time,
      Spain was a republic, but the people were not well enough
      educated to govern themselves, and the kingdom was restored.

[Illustration: Prince Metternich]

      The statesman who had more to do with the division of territory
      in 1815 than any other was Prince Metternich of Austria. He stood
      for the “divine right of kings,” and did not believe in allowing
      the common people any liberty whatsoever. In 1848, an uprising
      occurred in Austria, and crowds in Vienna, crying, “down with
      Metternich,” forced the aged diplomat to flee. During the same
      year, there were outbreaks in Germany. The people everywhere were
      revolting against the feudal rights of their kings and princes,
      and gaining greater liberty for themselves. In 1848, France,
      also, grew tired of her “citizen king,” and that country a second
      time became a republic. The French made the mistake, however, of
      electing as their president, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of
      the great Napoleon, and in time he did exactly what his uncle had
      done,—persuaded the French people to elect him emperor.


        Questions for Review


          What were the motives of each of the nations represented at
          the Congress of Vienna?

          Why were the Russians and Prussians the leaders of the
          meeting at first?

          Why did the English and Austrians assist each other?

          What had Napoleon done for Poland? (See last chapter.)

          What kings deposed by Napoleon were set back on their
          thrones?

          What were the greatest wrongs done by the Congress?

          How did the Poles protest against the settlement made by the
          Congress?

          What did the Belgians do about it?

          What did the French finally do to the Bourbon kings?




Chapter XI.
Italy a Nation at Last

      The Crimean War curbs Russia.—Cavour plans a United Italy.—War
      against Austria.—Garibaldi, the patriot.—The Kingdom of Sardinia
      becomes part of the new Kingdom of Italy.—Venice and Rome are
      added.—Some Italians still outside the kingdom.


      Meanwhile, Italy, under the leadership of two patriots named
      Mazzini and Garibaldi, was in a turmoil. The Austrians and the
      Italian princes who were subject to them were constantly crushing
      some attempted revolution.

      One thing which helped the cause of the people was that the great
      powers were all jealous of each other. For example, Russia
      attacked Turkey in 1853, but France and England were afraid that
      if Russia conquered the Turks and took Constantinople, she would
      become too powerful for them. Therefore, both countries rushed
      troops to aid Turkey, and in the end, Russia was defeated,
      although thousands of soldiers were killed on both sides before
      the struggle was over.

      You will remember that the counties of Piedmont and Savoy in
      western Italy, together with the island of Sardinia, made up a
      little kingdom known as the “Kingdom of Sardinia.” This country
      had for its prime minister, a statesman named Count Cavour, who,
      like all Italians, strongly hoped for the day when all the people
      living on the Italian peninsula should be one nation. At the time
      of the Crimean War (as the war between Russia on the one side and
      Turkey, France, and England on the other was called) he caused
      his country also to declare war on Russia, and sent a tiny army
      to fight alongside of the English and French. A few years later,
      he secretly made a bargain with Napoleon III. (This was what
      President Bonaparte of France called himself after he had been
      elected emperor.) The French agreed to make war with his country
      against the Austrians. If they won, the Sardinians were to
      receive all north Italy, and in return for France’s help were to
      give France the county of Savoy and the seaport of Nice.

      When Cavour and the French were all ready to strike, it was not
      hard to find an excuse for a war. Austria declared war on
      Sardinia, and, as had been arranged, France rushed to the aid of
      the Italians. Austria was speedily beaten, but no sooner was the
      war finished than the French emperor repented of his bargain. He
      was afraid that it would make trouble for him with his Catholic
      subjects if the Italians were allowed to take all the northern
      half of the peninsula, including the pope’s lands, into their
      kingdom. Accordingly, the Sardinians received only Lombardy in
      return for Savoy and Nice, which they gave to France, and the
      Austrians kept the county of Venetia. A fire once kindled,
      however, is hard to put out. No sooner did the people of the
      other states of northern Italy see the success of Sardinia, than,
      one after another, they revolted against their Austrian princes
      and voted to join the new kingdom of Italy. In this way, Parma,
      Modena, Tuscany, and part of the “States of the Church” were
      added. All of this happened in the year 1859.

      These “States of the Church” came to be formed in the following
      way: The father of the great king of the Franks, Charlemagne, who
      had been crowned western emperor by the pope in the year 800, had
      rescued northern Italy from the rule of the Lombards. He had made
      the pope lord of a stretch of territory extending across Italy
      from the Adriatic Sea to the Mediterranean. The inhabitants of
      this country had no ruler but the pope. They paid their taxes to
      him, and acknowledged him as their feudal lord. It was part of
      this territory which revolted and joined the new kingdom of
      Italy.

      You will remember the name of Garibaldi, the Italian patriot, who
      with Mazzini had been stirring up trouble for the Austrians. They
      finally pursued him so closely that he had to leave Italy. He
      came to America and set up a fruit store in New York City, where
      there were quite a number of his countrymen. By 1854, he had made
      a great deal of money in the fruit business, but had not
      forgotten his beloved country, and was anxious to be rich only in
      order that he might free Italy from the Austrians. He sold out
      his business in New York, and taking all his money, sailed for
      Italy. When the war of 1859 broke out, he volunteered, and fought
      throughout the campaign.

      But the compromising terms of peace galled him, and he was not
      satisfied with a country only half free. In the region around
      Genoa, he enrolled a thousand men to go on what looked like a
      desperate enterprise. Garibaldi had talked with Cavour, and
      between them, they had schemed to overthrow the kingdom of the
      Two Sicilies and join this land to the northern country. Of
      course, Cavour pretended not to know anything about Garibaldi,
      for the king of Naples and Sicily was supposed to be a friend of
      the king of Sardinia. Nevertheless, he secretly gave Garibaldi
      all the help that he dared, and urged men to enroll with him.

[Illustration: The First Meeting of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel]

      With his thousand “red-shirts,” as they were called, Garibaldi
      landed on the island of Sicily, at Marsala. The inhabitants rose
      to welcome him, and everywhere they drove out the officers who
      had been appointed by their king to rule them. In a short time,
      all Sicily had risen in rebellion against the king. (You will
      remember that this family of kings had been driven out by
      Napoleon and restored by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. They
      were Bourbons, the same family that furnished the kings of Spain
      and the last kings of France. They stood for “the divine right of
      kings,” and had no sympathy with the common people.) Crossing
      over to the mainland, Garibaldi, with his little army now swollen
      to ten times its former size, swept everything before him as he
      marched toward Naples. Everywhere, the people rose against their
      former masters, and welcomed the liberator. The king fled in
      haste from Naples, never to return. A vote was taken all over the
      southern half of Italy and Sicily, to decide whether the people
      wanted to join their brothers of the north to make a new kingdom
      of Italy. It was so voted almost unanimously. Victor Emmanuel,
      king of Sardinia, thus became the first king of United Italy. He
      made Florence his capital at first, as the country around Rome
      still belonged to the pope. The pope had few soldiers, but was
      protected by a guard of French troops. However, ten years later,
      in 1870, when war broke out between France and Prussia, the
      French troops left Rome, and the troops of Italy marched quietly
      in and took possession of the city. Rome, for so many years the
      capital, not only of Italy but of the whole Mediterranean world,
      became once more the chief city of the peninsula. The pope was
      granted a liberal pension by the Italian government in order to
      make up to him for the loss of the money from his former lands.
      The dream of Italians for the last 600 years had finally come to
      pass. Italy was again one country, ruled by the popular Victor
      Emmanuel, with a constitution which gave the people the right to
      elect representatives to a parliament or congress. One of the
      worst blunders of the Congress of Vienna had been set right by
      the patriotism of the people of Italy.

      It should be noted, however, that there are still Italians who
      are not part of this kingdom. The county of Venetia, at the
      extreme northeast of Italy, was added to the kingdom in 1866 as
      the result of a war which will be told about more fully in the
      next chapter, but the territory around the city of Trent, called
      by the Italians Trentino, and the county of Istria at the head of
      the Adriatic Sea, containing the important seaports of Trieste,
      Fiume, and Pola, are inhabited almost entirely by people of
      Italian blood. Certain islands along the coast of Dalmatia also
      are full of Italians. To rescue these people from the rule of
      Austria has been the earnest wish of all Italian patriots, and
      was the chief reason why Italy did not join Germany and Austria
      in the great war of 1914.


[Illustration: Messen Italy Made One Nation, 1914]


        Questions for Review


          Why did England and France side with Turkey against Russia?

          What bargain did Cavour make with Napoleon III?

          How did the rest of Italy come to join Sardinia?

          Explain the origin of the “States of the Church.”

          Why did Sicily and Naples revolt against their king?

          What Italians are not yet citizens of the kingdom of Italy?




Chapter XII.
The Man of Blood and Iron

      The people demand their rights—Bismarck, the chief prop of the
      Prussian monarchy—The question of the leadership of the German
      states—The wonderful Prussian army—The war on Denmark—Preparing
      to crush Austria—The battle of Sadowa—Easy terms to the defeated
      nation—Preparing to defeat France—A good example of a war caused
      by diplomats—Prussia’s easy victory—The new German empire—Harsh
      terms of peace—The triumph of feudal government.


      All of this time, the kings of Europe had been engaged in
      contests with their own people. The overthrow of the French king
      at the time of the revolution taught the people of the other
      countries of Europe that they too could obtain their liberties.
      You have already been told how the people of Austria drove out
      Prince Metternich, who was the leader of the party which refused
      any rights to the working classes.

      That same year, 1848, had seen the last king driven out of
      France, had witnessed revolts in all parts of Italy, and had
      found many German princes in trouble with their subjects, who
      were demanding a share in the government, the right of free
      speech, free newspapers, and trial by jury. The empires of
      Austria and Russia had joined with the kingdom of Prussia in a
      combination which was known as the “Holy Alliance.” This was
      meant to stop the further spread of republican ideas and to curb
      the growing power of the common people.

[Illustration: Bismarck]

      Not long after this, there came to the front in Prussia a
      remarkable man, who for the next forty years was perhaps the most
      prominent statesman in Europe. His full name was Otto Eduard
      Leopold von Bismarck-Schönausen, but we generally know him under
      the name of Bismarck. He was a Prussian nobleman, a believer in
      the divine right of kings, the man who more than anybody else is
      responsible for the establishing of the present empire of
      Germany. He once made a speech in the Prussian Diet or council in
      which he said that “blood and iron,” not speeches and treaties,
      would unite Germany into a nation. His one object was a united
      Germany, which should be the strongest nation in Europe. He
      wanted Germany to be ruled by Prussia, Prussia to be ruled by its
      king, and the king of Prussia to be controlled by Bismarck. It is
      marvellous to see how near he came to carrying through his whole
      plan.

      After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Prussia remained among the
      powers of Europe, but was not as great as Austria, Russia,
      England, or France. The German states, some 35 in number, had
      united in a loose alliance called the German Confederation. (This
      union was somewhat similar to the United States of America
      between 1776 and 1789.) Austria was the largest of these states,
      and was naturally looked upon as the leader of the whole group.
      Prussia was the second largest, while next after Prussia, and
      much smaller, came the kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and
      Wurtemburg. Bismarck, as prime minister of Prussia, built up a
      wonderfully strong army. He did this by means of a military
      system which at first made him very unpopular with the people.
      Every man in the nation, rich or poor, was obliged to serve a
      certain number of years in the army and be ready at a moment’s
      notice to join a certain regiment if there came a call to war.

      Having organized this army, and equipped it with every modern
      weapon, Bismarck was anxious to use it to accomplish his purpose.
      There were two counties named Schleswig (shlĕs′vig) and Holstein
      (hōl′stīn) which belonged to the king of Denmark and yet
      contained a great many German people. The inhabitants of
      Schleswig were perhaps half Danes, while those of Holstein were
      more than two-thirds Germans. These Germans had protested against
      certain actions of the Danish government, and were threatening to
      revolt. Taking advantage of this trouble, Prussia and Austria, as
      the leading states of the German Federation, declared war on
      little Denmark. The Danes fought valiantly, but were overwhelmed
      by the armies of their enemies. Schleswig and Holstein were torn
      away from Denmark and put under the joint protection of Austria
      and Prussia.

      This sort of arrangement could not last. Sooner or later, there
      was bound to be a quarrel over the division of the plunder. Now
      Bismarck had a chance to show his crafty diplomacy. He made up
      his mind to crush Austria and put Prussia in her place as the
      leader of the German states. He first negotiated with Napoleon
      III, Emperor of the French, and made sure that this monarch would
      not interfere. Next he remembered that the provinces of Venetia,
      Trentino, and Istria still belonged to Austria, as the Italians
      had failed to gain them in the war of 1859. Accordingly, Bismarck
      induced Italy to declare war on Austria by promising her Venetia
      and the other provinces in return for her aid. Saxony, Bavaria,
      and Hanover were friendly to Austria, but Bismarck did not fear
      them. He knew that his army, under the leadership of its
      celebrated general, von Moltke, was more than a match for the
      Austrians, Bavarians, etc., combined.

      When Bismarck was ready, Prussia and Italy struck. The Austrians
      were successful at first against the Italians, but at Sadowa in
      Bohemia, their armies were beaten in a tremendous battle by the
      Prussians. Austria was put down from her place as the leader of
      the German Confederation, and Prussia took the leadership.
      Hanover, whose king had sided with the Austrians, was annexed to
      Prussia. The king of Prussia and several of his generals were
      anxious to rob Austria of some of her territory, as had been the
      custom in the past whenever one nation defeated another in war.
      Bismarck, however, restrained them. In his program of making
      Prussia the leading military state in Europe, he saw that his
      next opponent would be France, and he did not propose, on
      attacking France, to find his army assailed in the rear by the
      revengeful Austrians. Accordingly, Bismarck compelled the king to
      let Austria off without any loss of territory except Venetia,
      which was given to the Italians. Austria was even allowed to
      retain Trentino and Istria, and was not required to pay a large
      indemnity to Prussia. (A custom which had come down from the
      middle ages, when cities which were captured had been obliged to
      pay great sums of money, in order to get rid of the conquering
      armies, was the payment of a war indemnity by the defeated
      nation. This was a sum of money as large as the conquerors
      thought they could safely force their victims to pay.) The
      Austrians, although they were angry over the manner in which
      Bismarck had provoked the war, nevertheless appreciated the fact
      that he was generous in not forcing harsh terms upon them, as he
      could have done had he wanted to.

      The eyes of all Europe now turned toward the coming struggle
      between Prussia and France. It was plain that it was impossible
      for two men like Bismarck and Emperor Napoleon to continue in
      power very long without coming to blows. It was Bismarck’s
      ambition, as was previously said, to make Prussia the leading
      military nation of Europe, and he knew that this meant a struggle
      with Napoleon. You will remember also that he planned a united
      Germany, led by Prussia, and he felt that the French war would
      bring this about. On the other hand, the French emperor was
      extremely jealous of the easy victory that Prussia and Italy had
      won over Austria. He had been proud of the French army, and
      wanted it to remain the greatest fighting force in Europe. He was
      just as anxious for an excuse to attack Prussia as Bismarck was
      for a pretext to attack him.

      It should be kept in mind that all this time there was no
      ill-feeling between the French people and the Germans. In fact,
      the Germans of the Rhine country were very friendly to France,
      and during Napoleon’s time had been given more liberties and had
      been governed better than under the rule of their former feudal
      lords. All the hostility and jealousy was between the military
      chiefs. Even Bismarck did not dislike the French. He had no
      feeling toward them at all. It was part of his program that their
      military power should be crushed and his program must be carried
      through. Europe, to his mind, was too small to contain more than
      one master military power.

      The four years between 1866 and 1870 were used by Bismarck to
      gain friends for Prussia among other countries of Europe, and to
      make enemies for France. The kingdoms of south Germany (Bavaria,
      Baden, and Wurtemburg), which had sided with Austria during the
      late war, were friendly to France and hostile to Prussia.
      Napoleon III, however, made a proposal in writing to Bismarck
      that France should be given a slice of this south German
      territory in return for some other land which France was to allow
      Prussia to seize. Bismarck pretended to consider this proposal,
      but was careful to keep the original copy, in the French
      ambassador’s own handwriting. (Each nation sends a man to
      represent her at the capital of each other nation. These men are
      called ambassadors. They are given power to sign agreements for
      their governments.) By showing this to the rulers of the little
      south German kingdoms, he was able to turn them against Napoleon
      and to make secret treaties with these states by which they bound
      themselves to fight on the side of Prussia in case a war broke
      out with France. In similar fashion, Bismarck made the Belgians
      angry against the French by letting it be known that Napoleon was
      trying to annex their country also.

      Meanwhile, aided by General von Moltke and Count von Roon (rōn),
      Bismarck had built up a wonderful military power. Every man in
      Prussia had been trained a certain number of years in the army
      and was ready at a moment’s notice to join his regiment. The
      whole campaign against France had been planned months in advance.
      In France on the other hand, the illness and irritability of
      Napoleon III had resulted in poor organization. Men who did not
      wish to serve their time in the army were allowed to pay money to
      the government instead. Yet their names were carried on the
      rolls. In this way, the French army had not half the strength in
      actual numbers that it had on paper. What is more, certain
      government officials had taken advantage of the emperor’s
      weakness and lack of system and had put into their own pockets
      money that should have been spent in buying guns and ammunition.

      When at last Bismarck was all ready for the war, it was not hard
      to find an excuse. Old Queen Isabella of Spain had been driven
      from her throne, and the Spanish army under General Prim offered
      the crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, a cousin of the king
      of Prussia. This alarmed Napoleon, who imagined that if Prussia
      attacked him on the east, this Prussian prince, as king of Spain,
      would lead the Spanish army over the Pyrenees against him on the
      south. France made so vigorous a protest that the prince asked
      the Spaniards not to think of him any longer. This was not enough
      for Napoleon, who now proceeded to make a fatal mistake. The
      incident was closed, but he persisted in reopening it. He sent
      his ambassador to see King William of Prussia to ask the latter
      to assure France that never again should Prince Leopold be
      considered for the position of king of Spain. The king answered
      that he could not guarantee this, for he was merely the head of
      the Hohenzollern family. Prince Leopold, whose lands lay outside
      of Prussia, was not even one of his subjects. The interview
      between the king and the French ambassador had been a friendly
      one. The ambassador had been very courteous to the king, and the
      king had been very polite to the ambassador. They had parted on
      good terms.

[Illustration: An Attack on a Convoy in the Franco-Prussian War.]

      In the meanwhile, Bismarck had been hoping that an excuse for war
      would come from this incident. He was at dinner with General von
      Moltke and Count von Roon when a long telegram came from the
      king, telling of his interview with the French ambassador. In the
      story of his life written by himself, Bismarck tells how, as he
      read the telegram both Roon and Moltke groaned in disappointment.
      He says that Moltke seemed to have grown older in a minute. Both
      had earnestly hoped that war would come. Bismarck took the
      dispatch, sat down at a table, and began striking out the message
      polite words and the phrases that showed that the meeting had
      been a friendly one. He cut down the original telegram of two
      hundred words to one of twenty. When he had finished, the message
      sounded as if the French ambassador had bullied and threatened
      the king of Prussia, while the latter had snubbed and insulted
      the Frenchman. Bismarck read the altered telegram to Roon and
      Moltke. Instantly, they brightened up and felt better. “How is
      that?” he asked. “That will do it,” they answered. “War is
      assured.”

      The telegram was given to the newspapers, and within twenty-four
      hours, the people of Paris and Berlin were shouting for war.
      Napoleon III hesitated, but he finally gave in to his generals
      and his wife who urged him to “avenge the insult to the French
      nation.”

[Illustration: The Proclamation at Versailles of William I as Emperor of
Germany]

      We give this story of the starting of the Franco-Prussian war of
      1870 just to show the tricks of European diplomats. What Bismarck
      did was no worse than what the Frenchman, Talleyrand, would have
      done, or the Austrian, Metternich, or several of the Turkish or
      Russian diplomats. It simply proves how helpless the people of
      European countries are, when the military class which rules them
      has decided, for its own power and glory, on war with some other
      nation.

      The war was short. The forces of France were miserably
      unprepared. The first great defeat of the French army resulted in
      the capture of the emperor by the Prussians and the overthrowing
      of the government in Paris, where a third republic was started.
      One of the French generals turned traitor, thinking that if he
      surrendered his army and cut short the war the Prussians would
      force the French to take Napoleon III back as emperor. Paris was
      besieged for a long time. The people lived on mule meat and even
      on rats and mice rather than surrender to the Germans, but at
      last they were starved out, and peace was made.

[Illustration: Formation of the German Empire]

      In the meantime, another of Bismarck’s plans had been successful.
      In January, 1871, while the siege of Paris was yet going on, he
      induced the kingdoms of Bavaria and Wurtemburg, together with
      Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and all the other little German states to
      join Prussia in forming a new empire of Germany. The king of
      Prussia was to be “German Emperor,” and the people of Germany
      were to elect representatives to the Reichstag or Imperial
      Congress. Although at the outset, the war was between the kingdom
      of Prussia and the empire of France, the treaty of peace was
      signed by the republic of France and the empire of Germany.

      Bismarck was very harsh in his terms of peace. France was
      condemned to pay an indemnity of 5,000,000,000 francs (nearly one
      billion dollars) and certain parts of France were to be occupied
      by the German troops until this money was fully paid. Two
      counties of France, Alsace and Lorraine, were to be annexed to
      Germany. Alsace was inhabited largely by people of German
      descent, but there were many French mingled with them, and the
      whole province had belonged to France so long that its people
      felt themselves to be wholly French. Lorraine contained very few
      Germans, and was taken, contrary to Bismarck’s best judgment,
      because it contained the important city of Metz, which was
      strongly fortified. Here the military chiefs overruled Bismarck.
      The desire among the French for revenge on Germany for taking
      this French-speaking province has proved that Bismarck was right.
      It was a blunder of the worst kind.

      The policy of “blood and iron” had been successful. From a second
      rate power, Prussia had risen, under Bismarck’s leadership, to
      become the strongest military force in Europe. Schleswig had been
      torn from Danish, Holstein from Austrian control. Hanover had
      been forcibly annexed, and Alsace and Lorraine wrested from
      France. The greater part of the inhabitants of these countries
      were bitterly unhappy at being placed under the Prussian military
      rule. Moreover, it must be remembered that a great deal of this
      growth in power had been at the expense of the liberty of the
      common people. The revolution of 1848 had demanded free speech,
      free newspapers, the right to vote, and the right to elect men to
      a congress or parliament, and while some of these rights had been
      granted, still the whole country was under the control of the war
      department. The emperor, as commander-in-chief of the army, could
      suppress any newspaper and dismiss the congress whenever he might
      think this proper. The Reichstag was, as it has been called, a
      big debating society, whose members had the right to talk, but
      were not allowed to pass any laws that were contrary to the
      wishes of the military leaders.


        Questions for Review


          What was the reason for the revolts of 1848 all over Europe?

          What was the object of the “Holy Alliance”?

          What was Bismarck’s purpose in building up a strong army?

          How did Bismarck defeat Austria?

          What is a war indemnity?

          Explain how Bismarck made enemies for Napoleon III.

          Why were the French alarmed when Spain offered its crown to
          Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern?

          What means did Bismarck use to bring on war with France?

          Was Prussia’s victory a good thing for her people?




Chapter XIII.
The Balance of Power

      The recovery of France.—The jealousy of the powers.—The policy of
      uniting against the strongest.—The dream of Russia.—A war of
      liberation.—The powers interfere in favor of the Turk.—The
      Congress of Berlin.—Bismarck’s Triple Alliance.—France and Russia
      are driven together.—The race for war preparation.—The growth of
      big navies.

Under the third republic,[3] France recovered very rapidly from the
terrible blow dealt her by Germany. Her people worked hard and saved
their money. In less than two years, they had paid off the last cent of
the one billion dollar indemnity, and the German troops were obliged to
go home. France had adopted the same military system that Germany had,
and required all of her young men to serve two years in the army and be
ready at a moment’s notice to rush to arms. She began also to build up
a strong navy, and to spread her colonies in Africa and other parts of
the world. This rapid recovery of France surprised and disturbed
Bismarck, who thought that never again, after the war of 1870, would
she become a strong power. He had tried to renew the old “Holy
Alliance” between Germany, Russia, and Austria with the idea of
preventing the spread of republics. These were the three nations which
gave their people very few rights, and which stood for the “divine
right of kings” and for the crushing of all republics. Bismarck called
this new combination the “Drei-kaiser-bund” or three-emperor-bond. He
himself says that the proposed alliance fell to pieces because of the
lies and treachery of Prince Gortchakoff, the Russian Minister of
Foreign Affairs.

 [3] The first republic began in 1792, when King Louis XVI was
 beheaded, the second in 1848 when Louis Philippe, the “citizen king,”
 was driven out.

      An incident which happened in 1875 helped to estrange Germany
      from Russia. As was previously said, Bismarck was astonished and
      alarmed when he saw how quickly France was getting over the
      effects of the war. In 1875, some trouble came up again between
      France and Germany, and Bismarck a second time planned to make
      war on the republic and—complete the task that he had left
      unfinished in 1871. He wanted to reduce France to the rank of a
      second class power, on a par with Spain and Denmark. This time,
      however, England and Russia growled ominously. They notified
      Bismarck that they would not stand by and see France crushed—not
      from any love of France, but because they were jealous of Prussia
      and afraid that the Germans might become too powerful in Europe.
      Accordingly, Bismarck had to give up his idea of war. Prussia was
      strong, but she could not fight England, Russia, and France
      combined. However, he remembered that England and Russia had
      spoiled his plans and waited for a chance to get revenge.

[Illustration: Peter the Great]

      The great object of all European diplomats was to maintain what
      they called “the balance of power.” By this they meant that no
      one country was to be allowed to grow so strong that she could
      defy the rest of Europe. Whenever one nation grew too powerful,
      the others combined to pull her down.

      In the meantime, trouble was again brewing among the Balkan
      nations, which were still subject to the Turks. Revolts had
      broken out among the Serbians, and the people of Bosnia and
      Bulgaria. As has already been told, these nations are Slavic,
      cousins of the Russians, and they have always looked upon Russia
      as their big brother and protector. Any keen-eared, intelligent
      Russian can understand the language of the Serbs, it is so much
      like his own tongue. (Bel-grad, Petro-grad; the word “grad” means
      “city” in both languages.)

Not only was Russia hostile toward the Turks because they were
oppressing the little Slav states, but she had reasons of her own for
wanting to see Turkey overthrown. Ever since the reign of Peter the
Great, Russia had had her eye upon Constantinople. Peter had conquered
the district east of the Gulf of Finland, and had founded St.
Petersburg[4] there, just to give Russia a port which was free of ice.
In the same way, other czars who followed him had fought their way
southward to the Black Sea, seeking for a chance to trade with the
Mediterranean world. But the Black Sea was like a bottle, and the Turks
at Constantinople were able to stop the Russian trade at any time they
might wish to do so. Russia is an agricultural country, and must ship
her grain to countries that are more densely inhabited, to exchange it
for their manufactures.

 [4] Now called Petrograd.

[Illustration: Entrance to the Mosque of St Sophia]

      Therefore, it has been the dream of every Russian czar that one
      day Russia might own Constantinople. Again, this city, in ancient
      days, was the home of the Greek church, as Rome was the capital
      of the western Catholic church. The Russians are all Greek
      Catholics, and every Russian looks forward to the day when the
      great church of St. Sophia, which is now a Mohammedan mosque,
      shall once more be the home of Christian worship. With this plan
      in mind, Russian diplomats were only too happy to stir up trouble
      for the Turks among the Slavic peoples of the Balkan states, as
      Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Montenegro are called. Glance at
      the two following maps of southeastern Europe, and see how Turkey
      had been reduced in size during the two hundred years which
      followed the Turkish defeat at the gates of Vienna by John
      Sobieski and the Austrians. The state of Bessarabia had changed
      hands two or three times, remaining finally in the hands of
      Russia.

      The revolts of the Balkan peoples in 1875 and 1876 were hailed
      with joy among the Russians, and the government at St. Petersburg
      lost no time in rushing to the aid of the Balkan states and
      declaring war on Turkey. After a short but stubbornly contested
      conflict, Russia and the little countries were victors. A treaty
      of peace was signed at San Stephano, by which Roumania, Serbia,
      and Bulgaria were to be recognized by Turkey as independent
      states. The boundaries of Bulgaria were to reach to the Aegean
      Sea, including most of Macedonia, thus cutting off Turkey from
      her county of Albania, except by water. Bear this in mind, for it
      will help you to understand Russia’s later feeling when Bulgaria
      in 1915 joined the ranks of her enemies.

[Illustration: Southeastern and Central Europe, 1706]

[Illustration: Losses of Turkey during the Nineteenth Century]

[Illustration: The Congress of Berlin. Prince Gortchakoff (seated).
Disraeli (with cane). Count Andrassy. Bismarck.]

      The matter was all settled, and Turkey had accepted these terms,
      when once more the diplomats of Europe began to meddle. It will
      be remembered that Russia three years before had prevented a
      second war against France planned by Bismarck. It was very easy
      for him to persuade Austria and England that if Russia were
      allowed to cripple Turkey and set up three new kingdoms which
      would be under her control, she would speedily become the
      strongest nation in Europe. The “balance of power” would be
      disturbed. England and Austria sided with Germany, and a meeting
      of statesmen and diplomats was called at Berlin in 1878 to decide
      once more what should be the map of Europe. Representatives were
      present from all the leading European countries. Even Turkey had
      two men at the meeting, but the three men who really controlled
      were Bismarck, Count Andrassy of Austria, and Lord Beaconsfield
      (Benjamin Disraeli) of England. Russia was robbed of a great part
      of the fruits of her victory. Bulgaria was left partially under
      the control of Turkey, in that she had to pay Turkey a large sum
      of money each year for the privilege of being left alone. Her
      territory was made much smaller than had been agreed to by the
      treaty of San Stephano. In fact less than one-third of the
      Bulgarians were living within the boundaries finally agreed upon
      by the congress. A great part of the Serbians were still left
      under Turkish rule, as were the Greeks of Thessaly and Epirus.
      The two counties of Bosnia and Herzegovina were still to belong
      to Turkey, but as the Turks did not seem to be strong enough to
      keep order there, Austria was to take control of them and run
      their government, although their taxes were still to be paid to
      Turkey. Austria solemnly agreed never to take them from Turkey.
      Russia, naturally, was very unhappy over this arrangement, and so
      were the inhabitants of the Balkan kingdoms, for they had hoped
      that now they were at last to be freed from the oppression of
      their ancient enemies, the Turks. Thus the Congress of Berlin,
      like that of Vienna in 1815 laid the foundation for future wars
      and revolutions.

      Bismarck now set out to strengthen Germany by making alliances
      with other European states. He first made up with his old enemy,
      Austria. Thanks to the liberal treatment that he had given this
      country after her disastrous war of 1866, he was able to get the
      Austrians to join Germany in an alliance which states that if two
      countries of Europe should ever attack one of the two allies, the
      other would rush to her help.

      The Italians were friendly to Germany, for they remembered that
      they had gotten Venetia from Austria through the help of the
      Prussians, but they had always looked upon the Austrians as their
      worst enemies. It was a wonderful thing, then, when Bismarck
      finally induced Italy to join with Austria and Germany in a
      “Dreibund” or “Triple Alliance.”

      The Italian people had been very friendly to the French, and this
      going over to their enemies would never have been possible but
      for an act of France which greatly angered Italy. For many years,
      France had been in control of Algeria on the north coast of
      Africa. This country had once been a nest of pirates, and the
      French had gone there originally to clean them out. Next to
      Algeria on the east is the county of Tunis, which, as you will
      see by the map, is very close to Sicily and Italy. The Italians
      had been looking longingly at this district for some time,
      intending to organize an expedition and forcibly annex it to
      their kingdom. They waited too long, however, and one fine day in
      1881 they found the prize gone,—France had seized this county for
      herself. It was Italy’s anger over this act of France more than
      anything else that enabled Bismarck to get her into an alliance
      with Germany and her ancient enemy, Austria.

      France now saw herself hemmed in on the east by a chain of
      enemies. It looked as though Bismarck might declare war upon the
      republic at any time, and be perfectly safe from interference,
      with Austria and Italy to protect him. Russia, smarting under the
      treatment which she had been given by the Congress of Berlin, was
      full of resentment against Germany. Both the French and the
      Russians felt themselves threatened by Bismarck’s Dreibund, and
      so, in self-defense each country made advance toward the other.
      The result was the “Dual Alliance” between France and Russia,
      which bound either country to come to the aid of the other in
      case of an attack by two powers at once.

      In this way, the balance of power, disturbed by Bismarck’s
      “Dreibund,” was again restored. Many people thought the forming
      of the two alliances a fine thing, “for,” said they, “each party
      is now too strong to be attacked by the other. Therefore, we
      shall never again have war among the great powers.”

      England was not tied up with either alliance. On account of her
      position on an island, and because of her strong navy, she did
      not feel obliged to keep a large standing army such as the great
      powers on the continent maintained.

      These nations were kept in constant fear of war. As soon as
      France equipped her army with machine guns, Germany and Austria
      had to do the same. As soon as the Germans invented a new
      magazine rifle, the Russians and French had to invent similar
      arms for their soldiers. If Germany passed a law compelling all
      men up to the age of forty-five to report for two weeks’ military
      training once every year, France and Russia had to do the same.
      If Italy built some powerful warships, France and Russia had to
      build still more powerful ones. This led to still larger ships
      built by Germany and Italy. If France built a fleet of one
      hundred torpedo boats, the Triple Alliance had to “go her one
      better” by building one hundred and fifty. If Germany equipped
      her army with war balloons, Russia and France had to do the same.
      If France invented a new kind of heavy artillery, Germany and
      Austria built a still bigger gun.

This mad race for war equipment was bad enough when it had to do only
with the five nations in the two alliances about which you have been
told. However, the death of the old emperor of Germany in 1888 brought
to the throne his grandson, the present Kaiser,[5] and he formed a plan
for making Germany the leading nation on the sea as Bismarck had made
her on the land. He saw France and England seizing distant colonies and
dividing up Africa between them. He at once announced that Germany,
too, must have colonies to which to export her manufactures and from
which to bring back tropical products. This meant a strong navy to
protect these colonies, and the race with England was on. As soon as
Germany built some new battleships, England built still others, larger
and with heavier guns. The next year, Germany would build still larger
ships, and the next England would come back with still heavier guns. As
fast as England built ships, Germany built them. Now, each battleship
costs from five to fifteen million dollars, and it does not take long
before a race of this kind sends the taxes too high for people to
stand. There was unrest throughout Europe and murmurs of discontent
were heard among the working classes.

 [5] The present Kaiser’s father reigned only ninety-nine days, as he
 was a very sick man at the time of the old emperor’s death.


        Questions for Review


          How did France pay off her war indemnity so promptly?

          Why did Bismarck’s three-emperor-alliance fail?

          What is meant by “the balance of power”?

          What was the condition of the Serbs, Bulgarians, etc. before
          1878?

          Why did Russia covet Constantinople?

          Why did the powers prevent the treaty of San Stephano from
          being carried out?

          What wrongs were done by the Congress of Berlin?

          Why did Bismarck form the Triple Alliance?

          How was he able to induce Italy to join her old enemy,
          Austria?

          What was the effect of the formation of the Triple Alliance
          on France and Russia?

          What result had the formation of the two alliances on the
          gun-industry?

          How was England brought into the race for war equipment?




Chapter XIV.
The “Entente Cordiale”

      Ancient enemies.—England and France in Africa.—A collision at
      Fashoda.—Germany offers to help France.—Delcassé the
      peacemaker.—A French-English agreement.—Friendship takes the
      place of hostility.—England’s relations with Italy, Russia, and
      Germany.—Germans cultivate the friendship and trade of
      Turkey.—The Morocco-Algeciras incident.—The question of Bosnia
      and Herzegovina.—England joins France and Russia to form the
      “Triple Entente.”—The Agadir incident.


      England and France had never been friendly. There had been wars
      between them, off and on, for five hundred years. The only time
      that they had fought on the same side was in the campaign against
      Russia in 1855, but even then there was no real sympathy between
      them.

      In the year 1882, events happened in Egypt which gave England an
      excuse for interfering with the government of that country. Egypt
      was a part of the Turkish empire, but so long as it paid a
      certain amount of money to Constantinople, the Turks did not care
      very much how it was governed. But now a wild chief of the desert
      had announced himself as the prophet Mohammed come to earth
      again, and a great many of the desert tribesmen had joined him.
      They cut to pieces one or two English armies in Egypt, and killed
      General Gordon, a famous English soldier. It was 1898 before the
      English were able to defeat this horde. Lord Kitchener finally
      beat them and extended the English power to the city of Khartoom
      on the Nile.

[Illustration: An Arab Sheik and His Staff]

      In the meantime, the English millionaire, Cecil Rhodes, had
      formed a plan for a railroad which should run the entire length
      of Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to Cairo. It was England’s
      ambition to control all the territory through which this road
      should run. But the French, too, were spreading out over Africa.
      Their expeditions through the Sahara Desert had joined their
      colonies of Algeria and Tunis to those on the west coast of
      Africa and others along the Gulf of Guinea. In this same year,
      1898, while Lord Kitchener was still fighting the Arabs, a French
      expedition under Major Marchand struggled across the Sahara and
      reached the Nile at Fashoda, several miles above Khartoom.
      Marchand planted the French flag and announced that he took
      possession of this territory for the republic of France.

      The English were very indignant when they heard of what Marchand
      had done. If France held Fashoda, their “Cape to Cairo” railroad
      was cut right in the middle, and they could advance their
      territory no farther up the valley of the Nile. They notified
      France that this was English land. Marchand retorted that no
      Englishman had ever set foot there, and that the French flag
      would never be hauled down after it had once been planted on the
      Nile. Excitement ran high. The French people had no love for
      England, and they encouraged Marchand to remain where he was. The
      English newspapers demanded that he be withdrawn. Germany, which
      had already begun its campaign to wrest from England the leading
      place on the ocean, was delighted at the prospect of a war
      between France and the British. The German diplomats patted
      France on the back, and practically assured her of German help in
      case it came to a war with England.

      Germany now felt that she had nothing more to fear from France.
      The French population was not increasing, while Germany was
      steadily growing in numbers. It was England whom Germany saw
      across her path toward control of the sea.

      There was a man in France, however, who had no thought of making
      up with Germany. The memory of the war of 1870 and of the lost
      provinces of Alsace and Lorraine was very strong with him. This
      was Théophile Delcassé, a little man with a large head and a
      great brain. He refused to be tempted by the offers of German
      help, thinking that England, with its free government, was a much
      better friend for the republic than the military empire of
      Germany could be.

      Just when the trouble was at its height, the English ambassador
      came to see Mr. Delcassé, who at that time was in charge of the
      French foreign office. He had in his pocket an ultimatum, that is
      to say, a final notice to France that she must give in or England
      would declare war on her. As he walked into Delcassé’s presence,
      he began fumbling with the top button of his coat. “Don’t touch
      that button,” said Delcassé quickly. “Drop your hand. You have
      something in your pocket which must not be taken out. It is a
      threat, and if I see it, France will fight. Sit down. Let us talk
      this matter over coolly. Matters will adjust themselves all right
      in the end.” And they did. Delcassé was finally able to quiet the
      French people, to recall Marchand from Fashoda and to persuade
      France to refuse the offer of German friendship. England was
      given a free hand in Egypt, without any interference from the
      French. Naturally the English were very grateful to Delcassé for
      having refused to profit by German help and declare war. In
      return for the French agreement to stay out of Egypt, the English
      promised to help France get control of Morocco.

      Very soon after this, Queen Victoria of England died, and her
      son, Edward VII, became king. He had spent a great deal of time
      in France, and was very fond of the French and was popular with
      them. He saw the growing power of Germany, and knew that England
      could not afford to be without a friend in Europe. He did his
      best to bring about a feeling of friendship between the English
      and the French, and was very successful in doing so. He made
      frequent visits to France, where he was received with great
      cordiality. In return the English entertained the president of
      France in London in a princely fashion. French warships paid
      friendly visits to English waters, and the sailors mingled with
      each other and did their best to understand each other’s
      language. All France, and England as well, welcomed the beginning
      of the “Entente Cordiale,” or friendly understanding between the
      two nations.

      England also went out of her way to cultivate a friendly
      understanding with Italy. With the other nations of Europe
      England had no great friendship. Between England and Russia,
      there had been a hostile feeling for a long time, for the British
      felt that the Russians would like nothing better than to stretch
      their empire from Siberia, down to include British India, or at
      least Afghanistan and Baluchistan, where the British were in
      control.

      The emperor of Germany, on the other hand, was planning for the
      future growth of the trade of his country. Since his coming to
      the throne, Germany had made wonderful progress in the direction
      of manufactures. She had become one of the leading nations of the
      world. One of her chief questions was, where to market these
      goods. In 1896 the emperor paid a visit to Syria and Turkey. He
      was received with great enthusiasm by the Turks, who were glad to
      have one strong friend among the powers of Europe. Soon
      afterwards the Germans began to get more and more of the trade of
      the Ottoman Empire. A German company was given permission by the
      Turks to build a railroad across Turkey to the Persian Gulf
      through Bagdad. German railways ran through Austria-Hungary,
      which was Germany’s ally, to Constantinople and Salonika, the two
      greatest ports of Turkey in Europe. This short overland route to
      Persia was looked upon with suspicion and distrust by the
      English, whose ships up to this time had carried on almost all of
      Europe’s commerce with India and the neighboring countries.

[Illustration: A Scene In Constantinople]

      Germany was reaching out for colonies. She secured land on the
      west coast of Africa and, on the east as well. A tract of land in
      the corner of the Gulf of Guinea also fell to her share. Islands
      in the Pacific Ocean were seized. Her foreign trade was growing
      by leaps and bounds, and she threatened to take away from England
      a great deal of the latter’s commerce.

      The German emperor announced that he must always be consulted
      whenever any changes of territory took place, no matter in what
      part of the earth. Therefore in 1905 when France, with the help
      of Great Britain and Spain, told the sultan of Morocco that he
      had to behave himself, the German emperor in person made a visit
      to Morocco and assured the sultan that he didn’t have to pay any
      attention to France.

      There was a great deal of excitement over this incident, and a
      meeting was held at Algeciras, Spain, where representatives of
      all the great powers came together. In the end, France and
      England were upheld, for even Italy, Germany’s ally, voted
      against the Germans. On the other hand, Delcassé, the Frenchman
      who settled the Fashoda trouble, was compelled to resign his
      position as minister of foreign affairs because the Germans
      objected to him, and the French felt that Germany had humiliated
      them.

      In 1908, the “young Turk” party in Constantinople (the party
      which stood for progress and for more popular government) drove
      the old sultan off his throne, and announced that there should be
      a Turkish parliament, or congress, to which all parts of the
      empire should send representatives.

      You will remember that two counties of the Turkish empire, Bosnia
      and Herzegovina, had been turned over to Austria to rule by the
      Congress of Berlin in 1878. Austria at the time solemnly promised
      that she would never try to annex these provinces. In 1908,
      however, she forgot all about her promise. When Bosnia and
      Herzegovina wanted to elect men to represent them in the new
      Turkish parliament, Austria calmly told them that after this they
      should consider themselves part of the Austrian Empire, that they
      belonged to Turkey no longer.

      The two provinces were inhabited largely by Serbs, and all Serbia
      had looked forward to the day when they should once more be
      joined to herself. These states, like Montenegro, had been part
      of the ancient kingdom of Serbia. As long as they were in dispute
      between Austria and Turkey, Serbia had hopes of regaining them,
      but when Austria thus forcibly annexed them, it seemed to the
      Serbs that they were lost forever.

      Serbia appealed to Russia, for as was said, all the Slavic states
      look upon Russia as their big brother. The Russians were highly
      indignant at this breaking of her promises by Austria, and the
      czar talked of war. His generals and war ministers, however,
      dissuaded him. “Oh, no, your majesty,” said they, “we are in no
      shape to fight Austria and Germany. Our army was badly
      disorganized in the Japanese war three years ago, and we shall
      not be ready for another fight for some time to come.” Russia
      protested, but the German emperor notified her that he stood by
      Austria, and asked Russia if she was ready to fight. Russia and
      France were not ready, and so they were obliged to back down, but
      did so with a bitter feeling toward the “central empires,” as
      Germany and Austria are called.

      It has already been shown that England for a long time had been
      suspicious of Russia, fearing that the northern power was aiming
      at control of India. Of late this hostile feeling had been dying
      out, especially as the friendship between France and Great
      Britain grew stronger. It was impossible for Russia, France’s
      partner in the Dual Alliance, to remain unfriendly to England,
      France’s ally in the “Entente Cordiale.” Both England and Russia
      felt that the growth of Germany and the ambition of her war
      chiefs threatened them more than they had ever threatened each
      other.

      In 1907 Russia and England reached an understanding by which they
      marked off two great parts of Persia for trading purposes, each
      agreeing to stay in her own portion, and not disturb the traders
      of the other country in theirs. After this Russia, England, and
      France were usually found acting together in European diplomacy,
      under the name of the “Triple Entente.” The “balance of power”
      had been leaning toward Germany and her allies, but the English
      navy, added to the scales on the other side, more than balanced
      the advantage in land forces of the Triple Alliance.

      Three years later, Morocco again gave trouble, and France, with
      England’s backing and Spain’s friendship, sent her troops among
      the Moors to enforce law and order. Any one could see that with
      Tunis and Algeria already in French hands, it was only a question
      of a little while before Morocco would be theirs also.

      This time Germany rushed her warship _Panther_ to the Moorish
      port of Agadir. This was a threat against France, and the French
      appealed to England to know whether they could look to her for
      support. Russia was now in much better shape for war than she had
      been three years before, and notified France that she was ready
      to give her support. Therefore, when Mr. Lloyd-George, the little
      Welshman who was really the leader of the British government,
      stood up before a big crowd of English bankers and told the world
      that “to the last ship, the last man, the last penny,” England
      would support France, it was plain that somebody would have to
      back down or else start a tremendous European war.

      It was now Germany’s turn to give way. Strong as she was, she did
      not propose to fight France, Russia, and England combined. So,
      although the French gave Germany a few square miles of land in
      central Africa in return for the Kaiser’s agreement to let France
      have her way in Morocco, the result was a backdown for Germany,
      and it left scars which would not heal.

      During all this period from 1898 to 1914 there were incidents
      happening, any one of which might have started the world war.
      Fashoda, Algeciras, Bosnia, Agadir—each time it seemed as if only
      a miracle could avert the conflict. Europe was like a powder
      magazine. No man knew when the spark might fall that would bring
      on the explosion.


        Questions for Review


          What were the plans of the English regarding Africa?

          How did Major Marchand threaten the peace of Europe?

          Why was Germany ready to help France?

          Why did Delcassé desire to keep peace with England?

          Why was England suspicious of Russia?

          Why did Germany cultivate the friendship of the Turks?

          Why did not the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by
          Austria start a general European war?

          Why did England and Russia become friendly?

          Why did not the Agadir incident bring about a war?




Chapter XV.
The Sowing of the Dragon’s Teeth

      The growth of German trade.—Balkan hatreds.—The wonderful
      alliance against Turkey.—The sympathies of the big nations.—Their
      interference and its results.—A new kingdom.—The second war.—The
      work of diplomacy.—The wrongs and grievances of Bulgaria.


      Germany’s position in Europe was not favorable to her trade. Her
      ships, in order to carry on commerce with the peoples of the
      Mediterranean, had to go a great deal farther than those of
      France or England. As a result, the Germans had been looking
      toward Constantinople and southwestern Asia as the part of the
      world with which their commerce ought to grow. It was Germany’s
      plan to control the Balkan countries and thus have a solid strip
      of territory, including Germany, Austria, the Balkan states, and
      Turkey through which her trade might pass to Asia Minor, Persia,
      and India.

      The feelings of the Balkan peoples for each other has already
      been explained. The Bulgarians hated the Serbians, with whom they
      had fought a bloody war in 1885. The Serbians despised the
      Bulgarians. The Albanians had no love for either nation, while
      the Greeks looked down on all the others. Montenegro and Serbia
      were friends, naturally, since they were inhabited by the same
      kind of people and had once been parts of the original kingdom of
      Serbia.

[Illustration: Turkey As the Four Balkan Allies intended to divide it.
(1912-13)]

      Bulgaria in 1909 announced to the world that she would pay no
      more tribute to Turkey, and after this was to be counted one of
      the independent nations of Europe. The Bulgarians had grown so
      strong and the Turks so weak, that Turkey did not dare go to war,
      so permitted the matter to go unnoticed. The only thing on which
      all the Balkan nations and Greece could agree was their bitter
      hatred of the Turks, who had oppressed and wronged them cruelly
      for the last three hundred and fifty years.

      Russia, always plotting to overthrow Turkey, at last accomplished
      a wonderful bit of diplomacy. She encouraged Bulgaria, Serbia,
      Montenegro, and Greece to forget their old time dislike of each
      other, for the time being, and declare war jointly on Turkey. In
      order that there should not be any quarreling over the spoils
      when the war was over, the four little nations agreed, in a
      secret treaty, that when they got through with Turkey, they would
      divide up the carcass as shown in the opposite map. The head,
      including Constantinople, was to be left for Russia, of course.
      Bulgaria was to take the back and the great part of the body,
      Greece was to annex the drumsticks and the second joint. The rest
      of the body was to go to Serbia with the exception of the very
      tail, including the city of Scutari, which was to be given to
      Montenegro. Serbia was at last to have a seacoast and a chance to
      trade with other nations than Austria. The Serbs had a grudge
      against the Austrians, for the latter, taking advantage of the
      fact that all Serbian trade with Europe had to go through their
      country, had charged them exorbitant prices for manufactured
      goods and paid them very little for their own products in return.
      Bulgaria was to have Kavala (kȧ va′lȧ) as a seaport on the
      Aegean and all the coast of that sea as far as the Gallipoli
      (găl ĭ′po li) peninsula. Greece was to have the important city
      of Salonika (sȧlōni′kȧ), southern Macedonia, and southern
      Albania.

      With this secret agreement between them, the four little states
      went to war with Turkey. In accordance with the new friendship
      sprung up between Germany and the Ottomans, German officers and
      generals were sent to Constantinople to drill the Turkish troops.
      Cannon and machine guns were sent them from German factories, and
      their rifles were fed with German bullets. The four little
      countries, accordingly, turned to France and Russia for
      assistance. Their troops were armed with French cannon and
      machine guns, and their military advisers were French and
      Russians. While the big nations managed to keep out of the war
      themselves, all were strongly interested in one side or the
      other.

      The result was a complete surprise to Austria and Germany. To
      their consternation and disgust, the four little nations made
      short work of the Turkish troops. In eight months, Turkey was
      thoroughly beaten, and the allies were ready to put through their
      program of dividing up the spoils.

      And now, once more, the great powers meddled, and by their
      interference laid the foundation for future wars and misery.
      Austria and Germany saw their path to Constantinople and the east
      cut right in two. Their railroads, instead of passing through a
      series of countries under German control, now were to be cut
      asunder by an arm of Slavic states under Russian protection,
      which would certainly stop German progress toward Asia.

      With the map as it had been before the war of 1912, there was one
      little strip of territory, called the Sanjak of Novibazar,
      between Serbia and Montenegro, which connected Turkey with
      Austria. To be sure, this country was inhabited almost entirely
      by Serbians, but so long as it was under the military control of
      Austria and Turkey, German railway trains bound for the east
      could traverse it. Now Serbia and Montenegro proposed to divide
      this country up between themselves. Serbia, by gaining her
      seaport on the Adriatic, could send her trade upon the water to
      find new markets in Italy, Spain, and France.

[Illustration: Durazzo]

      The Italians had always wanted to control the Adriatic Sea. They
      longed for the time when the cities of Trieste and Pola should be
      turned over to them by Austria. The cities of Durazzo (dū
      rȧt′zō) and Avlona on the Albanian coast were inhabited by many
      Italians, and Italy had always cherished the hope that they might
      belong to her. Therefore, the Italians did not take kindly to the
      Serbian program of seizing this coast. At any rate, as soon as
      the four little countries announced their intention of dividing
      up Turkey in Europe among themselves, Austria, Germany, and Italy
      raised a great clamor.

      Another meeting of representatives of the great powers was held,
      and once more the Germans were able to carry their point. Instead
      of allowing the four little countries to divide up the conquered
      land between them, the powers made a fifth small country, the
      kingdom of Albania, and brought down from Germany a little prince
      to rule over these wild mountaineers. Notice that the Albanians
      were not consulted. The great powers simply took a map, drew a
      certain line on it and said, “This shall be the kingdom of
      Albania, and its king shall be Prince William of Wied.” Again we
      have a king-made map with the usual trail of grievances.

      This arrangement robbed Montenegro of Scutari, robbed Serbia of
      its seaport on the Adriatic, and robbed Greece of the country
      west of Janina (yȧ nï′nȧ). France and Russia did not like this
      program, but they did not feel like fighting the Triple Alliance
      to prevent its being put into effect.

[Illustration: Changes as a Result of the Two Balkan Wars 1912-13]

      The three little countries, separated from a great part of their
      new territory, now turned to Bulgaria, and, practically, said to
      her, “Since we have been robbed of Albania, we will have to
      divide up all over again. You must give us part of your plunder
      in order to ‘make it square.’” Now was the time for the ancient
      ill-feeling between the Bulgarians and their neighbors to show
      itself. In reply to this invitation, Bulgaria said, in so many
      words, “Not a bit of it. Our armies bore the brunt of the fight.
      It was really we who conquered Turkey. Your little armies had a
      very insignificant part in the war. If you want any more land, we
      dare you to come and take it.” And the Bulgarians made a
      treacherous night attack on their recent allies, which brought a
      declaration of war from the three little nations.

      This quarrel, of course, was exactly what Germany and Austria
      wanted. It accomplished their purpose of breaking up this Balkan
      alliance under the protection of Russia. So with Austria and
      Germany egging on Bulgaria, and Russia and France doing their
      best to induce Bulgaria to be reasonable and surrender some land
      to Greece and Serbia, the second Balkan war began in 1913 almost
      before the last cannon discharged in the first war had cooled.

      Again, Europe was astonished, for the victorious Bulgarians, who
      had been mainly responsible for the defeat of the Turks, went
      down to defeat before the Serbians and Greeks on the bloody field
      of Bregalnitza (brĕg′ȧl nĭt zȧ). To add to Bulgaria’s
      troubles, the Turks, taking advantage of the discord among their
      late opponents, suddenly attacked the Bulgarians in the rear and
      stole back the city of Adrianople, which had cost the Bulgarians
      so much trouble to capture. In the meantime, Roumania, which up
      to this point had had no part in any of the fighting, saw all of
      her neighbors growing larger at the expense of Turkey. The
      Roumanian statesmen, asking what was to be their share of the
      spoils, and moved simply by a greedy desire to enlarge their
      kingdom, declared war on Bulgaria also.

      Poor Bulgaria, fighting five nations at once, had to buy peace at
      the best price she could make. She bought off Roumania by giving
      to her a strip of land in the country called the Dobrudja (dō
      brood′jȧ) between the Danube River and the Black Sea. She had to
      agree to a new boundary line with Turkey by which the Turks kept
      Adrianople. She had to give Kavala and the surrounding country to
      Greece and the territory around Monastir (mō nȧ stïr′) to
      Serbia, although these districts were inhabited largely by her
      own people.

      Bulgaria had in vain appealed to her ancient friend and
      protector, Russia. The Russians were disgusted to think that the
      Bulgarians had refused to listen to them when they urged them to
      grant some small pieces of land to Greece and Serbia at the close
      of the first war. They felt that the Bulgarians had been
      headstrong and richly deserved what they got. Therefore, Russia
      refused to interfere now and save Bulgaria from humiliation. In
      the end, Austrian diplomacy had accomplished a great deal of
      mischief. The Balkan alliance under the protection of Russia was
      badly broken up. The old hostility between Serbia and Bulgaria,
      which had been buried for the time being during the first Balkan
      war, now broke out with greater force than ever. Bulgaria sulked,
      feeling revengeful against all of her neighbors, but especially
      angry at Russia, who had always been her friend before.


        Questions for Review


          Why did the Germans desire a road to the east?

          What was the one thing on which the Balkan nations were
          united?

          What was Russia’s purpose in helping to form the Balkan
          Alliance?

          Why did the great powers interfere to prevent the four little
          countries from carrying out their secret agreement?

          What was the cause of the second Balkan war?

          Which powers were glad and which were sorry to see it begin?

          Why was Bulgaria angry with all her neighbors?

[Illustration: A Modern Dreadnaught]




Chapter XVI.
Who Profits?

      The race for power on the sea.—The “naval holiday” declined.—The
      declining birth-rate.—The growth of the Socialists.—The
      militarists of Germany.—How wars cure labor troubles.—The forces
      behind the war game.—Profits and press agents.


      Let us turn back to the great powers of Europe. We spoke of their
      mad race, each nation trying to build more ships and bigger ships
      than its neighbors and to outstrip them in cannon and other
      munitions of war. The German navy had been growing by leaps and
      bounds. From being the sixth largest navy in the world, within
      ten years it had grown to second place. But, fast as the Germans
      built ships, the English built them more rapidly still. England
      built a monstrous battleship called the Dreadnaught, which was
      twice as heavy as any other battleship afloat. Germany promptly
      replied by planning four ships of the dreadnaught class, and
      England came back with some still larger vessels which are known
      as super-dreadnaughts.

      At last, the English first lord of the navy, Mr. Winston
      Churchill, proposed to Germany that each country take a “naval
      holiday.” In other words, he practically said to Germany, “If you
      people will stop building warships for a year, we will also. Then
      at the end of the year, we shall be no worse off or better off
      than we were at the beginning.”

[Illustration: Submarine]

      Germany laughed at this proposal. To her, it showed that England
      could not stand the strain very much longer. “Besides,” said the
      Germans, “it is all very well for England to be satisfied with
      her present navy, which is half again as large as ours. If our
      navy were the strongest in the world, we too would be glad to
      have all nations stop building warships,” and they laid down the
      keels of four new super-dreadnaughts.

      But other things disturbed the peace of mind of the German
      militarists. For a long time, the population of France had not
      been increasing, while Germany almost doubled her numbers from
      1860 to 1900. Now, to their dismay, the German birth-rate began
      to grow less and they saw the population of Russia growing larger
      by 20% every ten years. Again, they learned that Russia was about
      to build a series of railroads near the German frontier which
      would enable them to rush an army to attack Germany at very short
      notice. The Germans already had such railroads in their own
      country, but they did not propose to let their neighbors have
      this advantage also.

      Again, France had recently passed a law forcing every young man
      to put three years in military service instead of two. This would
      increase France’s standing army by 50 per cent. The German
      people, who up to this time had been very docile and very
      obedient to the military rule, were showing signs of discontent.
      The Socialists, a party who represented the working people
      largely, and who were strongly opposed to war, had been growing
      very fast. In the last election, they had gained many
      representatives in the German congress, and had cast over
      4,000,000 votes. The only thing that kept them from having a
      majority in the Reichstag (the German congress) was the fact that
      in some districts, the voters of the other parties combined
      against them. In this way, the military class still held control
      of the German government, but it was afraid that it would not be
      for long.

      With nearly half the able-bodied men in the country spending
      their time drilling and doing guard duty, the other half of the
      population had to earn money enough to support their own families
      and also the families of the men in the army. As one writer has
      put it, “Every workingman in Europe carried a soldier on his back
      who reached down and took the bread out of his platter.”

      The program of Bismarck was still in the minds of the military
      leaders of Germany. The military class must rule Prussia, Prussia
      must rule Germany, and Germany must be the greatest power in
      Europe. To their minds, war between Germany and her allies and
      the rest of Europe must come. Being warriors by trade and having
      nothing else to do, they saw that, if the great war were
      postponed much longer, the chances of Germany’s winning it would
      grow less and less. France and Russia were growing stronger and
      Germany was unable to catch up to England’s navy. It should be
      remembered that this class made up a small part only of the
      German nation. Their influence was all out of proportion to their
      numbers. They controlled the government, and the government
      controlled the schools and the newspapers. The people believed
      what they were told. They were simply parts of the war machine.
      Bismarck’s policy had been to crush his enemies one by one. He
      never entered a war until he was sure that Prussia was bound to
      win it. In like fashion, the German military chiefs of 1914 hoped
      to conquer France and Russia before England was ready. It was the
      old story as told by Shakespeare. “Our legions are brim full, our
      cause is ripe. The enemy increaseth every day. We, at the height,
      are ready to decline.”

      Russia, too, was having her troubles. After the czar had promised
      the nation a constitution and had agreed to allow a duma or
      parliament to be called together, the military class, who were
      trying to keep the common people under control and in ignorance
      as much as possible had been able to prevent the duma from
      obtaining any power. It had much less freedom than the German
      Reichstag. It was permitted to meet and to talk, but not to pass
      laws. If any member spoke his mind freely, he was sent to Siberia
      for life. There were murmurs and threats. There were labor
      troubles and strikes. The people of Russia, especially those
      living in cities, were learning how little freedom they had,
      compared with citizens of other countries, and the time seemed
      ripe for a revolution.

      It has always been the policy of kings to take the minds of their
      people off their own wrongs by giving them some foreign war to
      think about. Although the Russian government did all that it
      could to prevent the war without completely betraying Serbia,
      still the war probably put off the Russian Revolution for two
      years.

      It must be kept in mind that in Germany and especially in Prussia
      there was a class of people who had no trade but war. These were
      the so-called Junkers (Yo͝onkers), direct descendants of the old
      feudal barons. They were owners of rich tracts of land which had
      been handed down to them by their fore-fathers. The rent paid to
      them by the people who lived on their farms supported them richly
      in idleness. Just as their ancestors in the old days had lived
      only by fighting and plundering, so these people still had the
      idea that anything that they could take by force was theirs.

      Bismarck was a Junker of Junkers. He had nothing but contempt for
      the common people and their law-making bodies. In the early days
      when he was Prime Minister of the Prussian kingdom, the Congress
      had refused to vote to raise certain moneys through taxes that
      Bismarck advised, because he wanted to spend all of it in
      preparations for war. In spite of the vote of the representatives
      of the people, Bismarck went right on collecting the money and
      spending it as he wished. Later on, after the Prussian army had
      won its rapid victories, first over the Danes, then over the
      Austrians, and lastly over the French, the Prussian people,
      swollen with pride at what their armies had accomplished, forgave
      Bismarck for riding rough-shod over their liberties. But Bismarck
      was able to do what he did because he had the backing of the king
      and the great land-owning Junker class.

      In 1870 this was the only class in Prussia that had any power. By
      1914, however, a change had come about. The wonderful development
      of Germany’s trade and manufacturing had brought wealth and power
      to the merchant class and these had to be considered when plans
      for war were being formed.

Naturally, the outbreak of war disturbs trade very much, especially
trade with foreign countries. A great deal of the German commerce,
carried on with Great Britain, the United States, South America, and
far distant colonies, had to travel over the ocean. German merchants
would never support a war cheerfully if they thought that their trade
would be interrupted for any length of time. So the Junkers, when they
made up their minds to wage war for the conquest of France and Russia,
persuaded the merchants that after these countries had been conquered
they would be forced to give a big sum of money to Germany which would
more than pay her back for the full cost of the war. Then the Russians
would be compelled, as a result of the war, to promise to trade only
with German merchants and manufacturers, and thus everybody in Germany
would be much richer.[6]

 [6] When England came in, the merchants of Germany were very
 down-hearted, for they saw all their over-seas trade cut off at a
 blow. But the Junkers called together the leading merchants and bribed
 them with promises. In the year 1918 one of the prominent
 manufacturers of Germany made a statement which got out and was
 published in the countries of the Entente. After telling how the blame
 for the war was to be laid at the door of the land-owning, military
 class, he confessed that he personally had been bribed to support the
 war by the promise of thirty thousand acres of Australian land, which
 was to be given to him after Germany had conquered the world. This, of
 course, was pure piracy; the motto of Prussia for some time had been
 that piracy pays.

      There was one class of manufacturers who did not lose trade, but
      gained it through a war. This was composed of the makers of guns
      and munitions. They were clamorously back of the Junkers in their
      demands for war. These people profited by preparation for war.
      They kept inventing newer and stronger guns so that the weapons
      which they had sold the governments one year would be out-of-date
      the next, ready to be thrown on the scrap heap. In this way, the
      factories were kept working over-time and their profits were
      enormous. This money, of course, came out of the taxes of the
      common people.

      Their surplus profits the munition makers invested sometimes in
      newspapers. It was proved in the German Reichstag in 1913 that
      the great gun-makers of Prussia had a force of hired newspaper
      writers to keep up threats of war. They paid certain papers in
      Paris to print articles to make the French people think that the
      Germans were about to attack them. These same gun-makers in
      Berlin tried to persuade the German people that the French were
      on the point of attacking them.

      All of this played into the hands of the Junkers by making people
      all over Europe feel that war could not be avoided. Thus when the
      Junkers were ready to strike and the great war broke out, people
      would say, “At last it has come, the war that we knew was
      inevitable.”


        Questions for Review


          Why did Germany decline to take a “naval holiday”?

          What is meant by “strategic railroads”?

          Why were the military leaders alarmed at the growth of the
          Socialist Party?

          What was the fate of popular government in Russia?

          How did the Junkers owe their power to the feudal system?

          How were the German merchants won over to war?

          What part had the gun-makers in bringing on war?




Chapter XVII.
The Spark that Exploded the Magazine

      The year 1914.—England’s troubles.—Plots for a “Greater
      Serbia.”—The hated archduke.—The shot whose echoes shook the
      whole world.—Austria’s extreme demands.—Russia threatens.—Frantic
      attempts to prevent war.—Mobilizing on both sides.—Germany’s
      tiger-like spring.—The forts of the Vosges Mountains.—The other
      path to Paris.—The neutrality of Belgium.—Belgium defends
      herself.


      The year 1914 found England involved in serious difficulties. Her
      parliament had voted to give home rule to Ireland. There was to
      be an Irish parliament, which would govern Ireland as the Irish
      wanted it governed. Ulster, a province in the northeast of
      Ireland, however, was very unhappy over this arrangement. Its
      people were largely of English and Scotch descent, and they were
      Protestants, while the other inhabitants of Ireland were Celts
      and Catholics. The people of this province were so bitter against
      home rule that they actually imported rifles and drilled
      regiments, saying that they would start a civil war if England
      compelled them to be governed by an Irish parliament.

      There were labor troubles and strikes, also, in England, and
      threatened revolutions in India, where the English government was
      none too popular. Altogether, the German war lords felt sure that
      England had so many troubles of her own that she would never dare
      to enter a general European war.

      Meanwhile, the Serbians, unhappy over the loss of Bosnia and
      Herzegovina to Austria, were busily stirring up the people of
      these provinces to revolt. The military leaders who really ruled
      Austria, were in favor of crushing these attempted uprisings with
      an iron hand.

      One of the leaders of this party, a man who was greatly hated by
      the Bosnians, was the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of the
      emperor and heir to the throne. He finally announced that he was
      going in person to Sarajevo (sä rä yĕ′vō) in Bosnia to look
      into the situation himself. The people of the city warned him not
      to come, saying that his life would be in danger, as he was so
      hated. Being a headstrong man of violent temper, he refused to
      listen to this advice, but insisted on going. His devoted wife,
      after doing her best to dissuade him, finally refused to let him
      go without her.

      When it was known that he was really coming, the Bosnian
      revolutionists laid their plans. They found out just where his
      carriage was to pass, and at almost every street corner, they had
      some assassin with bomb or pistol. One bomb was thrown at him,
      but it exploded too soon, and he escaped. Bursting with
      indignation, he was threatening the mayor for his lax policing,
      when a second assassin, a nineteen year old boy, stepped up with
      a pistol and shot to death the archduke and his wife.

      Many people have referred to this incident as the cause of the
      great European war. As you have been shown, however, this was
      simply the spark that exploded the magazine. With the whole
      situation as highly charged as it was, any other little spark
      would have been enough to set the war a-going.

      The Austrian government sent word to Serbia that the crime had
      been traced to Serbian plotters, some of them in the employ of
      the government. It demanded that Serbia apologize; also that she
      hunt out and punish the plotters at once. And because Austria did
      not trust the Serbians to hold an honest investigation, she
      demanded that her officers should sit in the Serbian courts as
      judges.

      Imagine a Japanese killed in San Francisco, and think what the
      United States would say if the Tokio government insisted that a
      Japanese judge be sent to California to try the case because
      Japan could not trust America to give her justice! The Serbians,
      of course, were in no position to fight a great power like
      Austria-Hungary, and yet, weakened as they were, they could not
      submit to such a demand as this. They agreed to all the Austrian
      demands except the one concerning the Austrian judges in Serbian
      courts. They appealed to the other powers to see that justice was
      done them.

      Russia growled ominously at Austria, whereupon Germany sent a
      sharp warning to Russia that this was none of her affair, and
      that Austria and Serbia must be left to fight it out. In the
      meantime, Serbia offered to lay the matter before the court of
      arbitration at the Hague. (In 1899, at the invitation of the czar
      of Russia, representatives of all the great powers of Europe met
      at the Hague to found a lasting court which should decide
      disputes between nations fairly, and try to do away with wars, to
      as great an extent as possible. The court has several times been
      successful in averting trouble.)

      Great Britain proposed that the dispute between Austria and
      Serbia should be judged by a court composed of representatives of
      France, England, Italy, and Germany. Austria’s reply to the
      proposals of England and Serbia was a notice to the latter
      country that she had just forty-eight hours in which to give in
      completely to the Austrian demands. In the mean-time, Mr.
      Sazanoff, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, was vainly
      pleading with England to declare what she would do in case the
      Triple Alliance started a war with France and Russia.

      Kings and ministers telegraphed frantically, trying to prevent
      the threatened conflict. The story was sent out by Germany that
      Russia was gathering her troops, mobilizing them, as it is
      called. As Russia has so much more territory to draw from than
      any other country, and as her railroads are not many and are
      poorly served, it was figured that it would be six weeks before
      the Russian army would be ready to fight anybody. Germany, on the
      other hand, with her wonderful system of government-owned
      railroads, and the machine-like organization of her army, could
      launch her forces across the frontier at two days’ notice. As
      soon as the Germans began to hear that the Russians were
      mobilizing their troops against Austria, Germany set in motion
      the rapid machinery for gathering her own army. She sent a sharp
      message to Russia, warning the latter that she must instantly
      stop mobilizing or Germany would declare war. Next the Germans
      asked France what she intended to do in case Germany and Austria
      declared war on Russia. France replied that she would act in
      accordance with what seemed to be her best interests. This answer
      did not seem very reassuring, and without any declaration of war,
      the German army rushed for the French frontier.

      Now ever since the war of 1870, France had been building a line
      of great forts across the narrow stretch of ground where her
      territory approached that of Germany. Belfort, Toul, Epinal,
      Verdun, Longwy, they ranged through the mountains northeast of
      France as guardians of their country against another German
      attack. To rush an army into France over this rough country and
      between these great fortresses was impossible. Modern armies
      carry great guns with them which cannot climb steep grades.
      Therefore, if Germany wanted to strike a quick, smashing blow at
      France and get her armies back six weeks later to meet the
      slow-moving Russians, it was plain that she must seek some other
      approach than that through the Vosges Mountains.

[Illustration: A Fort Ruined by the Big German Guns]

      From Aix-La-Chapelle near the Rhine in Germany, through the
      northern and western part of Belgium, there stretches a flat
      plain, with level roads, easy to cross. (See map.) Now, years
      before, Belgium had been promised by France, Prussia, and England
      that no one of them would disturb its neutrality. In other words
      it was pledged that in case of a war, no armed force of any of
      these three nations should enter Belgian territory, nor should
      Belgium be involved in any trouble arising among them. In case
      any one of the nations named or in fact any other hostile force,
      invaded Belgium, the signers of the treaty were bound to rush to
      Belgium’s aid. Belgium, in return, had agreed to resist with her
      small army any troops which might invade her country.

      In spite of the fact that their nation had signed this treaty,
      the Germans started their rush toward France, not through the
      line of forts in the mountains, but across the gently rolling
      plain to the north. They first asked permission of the Belgians
      to pass through their country. On being refused, they entered
      Belgian territory just east of Liége (lï ĕzh′). The Belgians
      telegraphed their protest to Berlin. The Germans replied that
      they were sorry but it was necessary for them to invade Belgium
      in order to attack France. They agreed to do no damage and to pay
      the Belgians for any supplies or food which their army might
      seize. The Belgians replied that by their treaty with France,
      England, and Germany they were bound on their honor to resist
      just such an invasion as this. They asked the Germans how Germany
      would regard them if they were to permit a French army to cross
      Belgian territory to take Germany by surprise. The Germans again
      said that they were sorry, but that if Belgium refused permission
      to their army to cross, the army would go through without
      permission. It was a dreadful decision that Belgium had to make,
      but she did not hesitate. She sent orders to her armies to resist
      by all means the passage of the German troops. The great war had
      begun.

[Illustration: Map showing the Two Routes from Germany to Paris.]

      As we look over the evidence the German war lords must bear the
      blame, almost alone.

      The Austrians had been eager to attack Serbia, even in 1913,
      thinking that this little country had grown too powerful, as a
      result of her victories in the two Balkan wars. But Austria had
      counted on “bluffing” Russia to keep out, as she had been bluffed
      in 1908, and when she saw that this time the Russians meant
      business, she became frightened and sent word that she might be
      willing to settle the question without fighting. But the Germans
      were bent on war, and as they saw their ally wavering, they sent
      their warning that Russian mobilization would be considered a
      ground for war.

      Now this was ridiculous. In 1908, when the trouble over Bosnia
      was at its height, both Austria and Russia had their armies
      mobilized and ready for war for weeks and months. Still no war
      came out of it. It looked as if Germany was hard put to it to
      find an excuse for launching her plan to conquer Europe.


        Questions for Review


          Why did Ulster object to home rule?

          What were the hopes of the Serbians regarding Bosnia?

          Why did Russia interfere between Austria and Serbia?

          Why did Russia mobilize her troops?

          Why was the road through Belgium chosen?




Chapter XVIII.
Why England Came In

      The question of Italy and England.—Italy’s position.—The war with
      Turkey.—Italy declines to join her allies.—England is aware of
      the German plans.—The treaty with Belgium.—The “defensive”
      war.—The “scrap of paper.”—Germany’s rage at England’s
      declaration of war.—England does the unexpected.


      France, Belgium, Russia, and Serbia were combined against Austria
      and Germany. Little Montenegro also rushed to the help of her
      neighbor and kinsman, Serbia. The question was, what would Italy
      and England do. Italy, like Russia and Germany, had been having
      trouble in holding down her people. A revolution had been
      threatened which would overthrow the king and set up a republic.
      The Socialist Party, representing the working class, had been
      growing very strong, and one of their greatest principles was
      that all war is wrong. They felt that the Triple Alliance made by
      the Italian statesmen had never bound the Italian people.
      Throughout the entire peninsula, the Austrians were hated.

      You will remember that France had aroused the Italians’ anger in
      1881 by seizing Tunis. Italy had hoped to snap up this province
      for herself, for the Italian peninsula was crowded with people,
      and as the population increased, it was thought necessary that
      colonies be established to which the people could migrate to have
      more room. Finally in 1911, in order to divert the minds of the
      people from revolutionary thoughts, the government organized an
      expedition to swoop down on Tripoli, which, like Egypt, was
      supposed to belong to Turkey.

      This meant war with the government at Constantinople, and Germany
      and Austria were very angry at Italy, their ally, for attacking
      Turkey, with which the Austrians and Germans were trying to
      establish a firm friendship. However, “self-preservation is the
      first law of nature,” and the Italian king and nobles valued
      their leadership in the nation much more than they dreaded the
      dislike of Germany and Austria.

      The Germans had counted on Italy to join in the attack on Russia
      and France, but the Italian statesmen knew the feelings of their
      people too well to attempt this. Of late years, there had been
      growing up a friendship between the people of Italy and those of
      France, and the Italian generals knew that it would be a
      difficult task to induce their men to fire upon their kinsmen
      from across the Alps. Therefore, when Austria and Germany
      demanded their support in the war, they replied by pointing out
      that the terms of the Triple Alliance bound Italy to go to their
      help only _if they were attacked_. “In this case,” said the
      Italians, “you are the attacking party. The treaty does not bind
      us to support you in any war conquest. What is more, we were not
      consulted before Austria sent to Serbia her impossible demands.
      Expect no help from us.”

      Now the great question arose as to England. The English statesmen
      were not blind to the German plan. They saw that Germany intended
      to crush France first, capturing Paris and dealing the French
      army such an overwhelming blow that it would take it a long time
      to recover. Then the German armies were to be rushed back over
      their marvelous system of government-owned railroads to meet the
      on-coming German tide of Russians.

      The Germans knew that they were well provided with ammunition and
      all war supplies. They knew that they had invented some wonderful
      guns which were large enough to batter down the strongest forts
      in the world. They did not have very much respect for the ability
      of the Russian generals. They had watched them bungle badly in
      the Japanese war, ten years before. If once France were brought
      to her knees, they did not fear Russia. Then after France and
      Russia had been beaten, there would be plenty of time, later on,
      to settle with Great Britain.

      The English statesmen, as we have said, were aware of this plan.
      They saw that if they were to fight Germany, this was the ideal
      time. However, Great Britain, having a government which is more
      in the hands of the people than even that of republican France,
      did not have the system of forcing her young men to do military
      service. Her little army in England was made up entirely of men
      who enlisted in it because they wished to, and because they
      received fair pay. If England were to enter a great war with
      Germany, there must be some very good reason for her doing so.
      Otherwise, her people, who really did not hate the Germans, would
      never enlist to fight against them. The question was, would
      anything happen to make the English people feel that they were
      justified in entering the war on the side of France and Russia.

      You will remember that England, France, and Prussia had promised
      each other to protect Belgium from war. Even in the war of 1870,
      France and Prussia had carefully avoided bringing their troops
      upon Belgian soil. Now, however, with the German army invading
      Belgium, the English statesmen had to decide their course. As
      heads of one of the nations to guarantee Belgium’s freedom, they
      called on Germany to explain this unprovoked invasion. The
      Germans made no answer. They were busily attacking the city of
      Liége. Great Britain gave Germany twenty-four hours in which to
      withdraw her troops. At the end of this time, with Germany paying
      no attention still, England solemnly declared war and took her
      stand alongside of Russia and France.

      The Germans were furious. They had no bitter feeling against the
      French. They realized that France was obliged, by the terms of
      her alliance, to stand by Russia, but they had confidently
      counted on keeping England out of the war. In fact, the German
      ambassador to England had assured the German emperor that England
      had so many troubles, with her uprising in Ireland and threatened
      rebellions in India and South Africa that she would never dare
      fight at this time.

      The English people, on the other hand, were now thoroughly
      aroused. If there is one thing that an Englishman prides himself
      on, it is keeping his word. The word of the English had been
      given, through their government, to Belgium that this little
      country, if it should resist invasion, would be protected, and
      this word they thought must be kept at all hazards. It made no
      difference that, aside from her great navy, England was utterly
      unprepared for the war. Like the decision which Belgium had had
      to make the day before, this was a crucial step for the British
      to take, but to their everlasting honor they did not hesitate. In
      the case of Germany’s declaration of war the German laws say that
      no war can be declared by the Kaiser alone unless it is a
      defensive war. Therefore, as one American writer has pointed out,
      this is the only kind of war that the Kaiser ever declares. The
      German military group, having control of the newspapers, put in a
      lot of stories made up for the occasion about French soldiers
      having crossed the border and shot down Germans on August 2nd.
      They told how French aviators had dropped bombs on certain German
      cities. As a matter of fact, the French soldiers, by orders of
      their government, were drawn back from the frontier a distance of
      six miles in order to avoid any appearance of attacking the
      Germans. The City Council of Nuremburg, one of the cities that
      was said to have been bombed by the French, later gave out a
      formal statement saying that no bombs had fallen on their city
      and no French aviators had been seen near it. But the German
      government gave out this “news” and promptly declared a
      “defensive” war, and the German people had to believe what they
      were told.

      Very different was the case in England. Here was a free people,
      with free schools and free newspapers. Just as every German had
      been taught in the schools of his country that Germany was
      surrounded by a ring of jealous enemies and would one day have to
      fight them all, so the people of England had been taught in their
      schools that war between civilized peoples is a hateful thing and
      must finally disappear from the earth.

      The English labor leaders who themselves protested against the
      war at first, in hopes that the German Socialists would do the
      same, were doomed to be grievously disappointed, for in Germany
      the protests against war were still more feeble. The newspapers,
      with few exceptions, as was previously pointed out, were under
      the control of the military leaders and the manufacturers of war
      materials. These papers persuaded the German people that England,
      through her jealousy of Germany’s great growth in trade, had
      egged on Russia, France, and Serbia to attack Germany and
      Austria, and then had declared war herself on a flimsy pretext.
      At first the entire German nation believed this. Until Prince
      Lichnowsky, the former German ambassador to Great Britain,
      published a story in which he told how the German government had
      forced the war in spite of all that England could do to prevent
      it, the Germans thought, as their war chiefs told them, that the
      war was forced upon Germany by her jealous enemies.

      Thus the military leaders of Germany, descendants of the old
      feudal nobles, were able to make the whole German nation hate the
      English people.

      When the English ambassador to Berlin went to see the chancellor
      (as the prime-minister of the German Empire is called) and told
      him that unless German troops were immediately withdrawn from
      Belgium, England would declare war, for the Belgian government
      had a treaty signed by England promising them protection, the
      German chancellor exclaimed. “What! Would you plunge into this
      terrible war for the sake of a scrap of paper!” The chancellor
      was excited. As you have been told before, the Germans were sure
      that England, being unprepared for the war, would never dare to
      go into it. This threatened to upset all their well-laid plans
      for the conquest of France and then Russia. For the moment the
      chancellor forgot his diplomacy. He blurted out the truth. He
      showed the world that honor had no place in the minds of the
      German war lords. To the English a treaty with Belgium was a
      sacred pledge; to the Germans it was something which could be
      torn up at a moment’s notice if it stood in the way of their
      interests.

      There was a violent outburst against England in all of the
      newspapers of Germany. A German poet wrote a dreadful poem called
      “The Hymn of Hate,” in which he told how while they had no love
      for the Frenchman or the Russian, they had no hate for them
      either. One nation alone they hated—England! “Gott strafe
      England” (may God punish England) became the war cry of the
      Germans.

      Everything had gone according to their pre-arranged plans until
      England decided that her promise given to Belgium stood first,
      even before the terrible loss and suffering of a great war. That
      any nation should put her honor before her comfort and profit,
      had never occurred to the war leaders of Germany.


        Questions for Review


          Why did Italy make war on Turkey in 1911?

          Why did not Italy join in the attack on France?

          What was Germany’s plan?

          How is the English army different from others?

          What reason had England for declaring war?

          Had the German’s expected England to attack them? Give
          reasons for your answer.

          Why did the phrase “scrap of paper” make such a deep
          impression on the world?

          Why did the war lords hate the British so deeply?




Chapter XIX.
Diplomacy and Kingly Ambition

      Turkey throws in her lot with the central empires.—The demands of
      Italy.—She joins the Triple Entente.—The retreat of the
      Russians.—The Balkans again.—Bulgaria’s bargaining.—German
      princes on Balkan thrones.—The central empires bid the highest
      for Bulgarian support.—The attitude of Greece.—Roumania’s hopes.


      To return to the great war. The diplomats of both sides made all
      haste to put pressure upon the governments of the countries which
      were not engaged in the struggle, in order to win them over.
      Germany and Austria worked hard with Italy, with Turkey, and with
      Bulgaria. The Turks were the first to plunge in. The party headed
      by Enver Bey (the young minister of war) saw that a victory for
      Russia and her allies meant the final expulsion of the Turks from
      Europe. Only in the victory of Germany and Austria did this
      faction see any hope for Turkey. It was the latter part of
      October (1914) when Turkish warships, without any provocation,
      sailed into some Russian ports on the Black Sea and blazed away
      with their big guns.

      Some of the older Turkish statesmen were terrified, and did their
      best to get the government at Constantinople to disclaim all
      responsibility for this act of their naval commanders. The “Young
      Turks,” however, were all for war on the side of Germany. What is
      more, Russia, always anxious for an excuse to seize
      Constantinople, would not allow the Turks to apologize for their
      act and keep out of trouble. She declared war on Turkey, and was
      quickly followed by France and England.

      Both sides now set to work on Italy. It was plain that all the
      sympathies of the Italian people were with France and England.
      The six grandsons of Garibaldi formed an Italian regiment and
      volunteered for fighting on the French lines. Two of them were
      killed, and at their funerals in Rome, nearly all the inhabitants
      of the city turned out and showed plainly that they too would
      like to be fighting on the side of France.

      You will remember that Italy wanted very much to gain the
      provinces of Trentino and Istria, with the cities of Trent,
      Trieste (trï ĕs′te), Pola (pō′lä), and Fiume (fē ū′me), all
      inhabited by Italian people. The possession of these counties and
      cities by Austria had been the greatest source of trouble between
      the two nations. Italy now came out boldly, and demanded, as the
      price of her keeping out of the war, that Austria give to her
      this land inhabited by Italians. Germany urged Austria to do
      this, and sent as her special ambassador, to keep Italy from
      joining her enemies, Prince von Bulow, whose wife was an Italian
      lady, and who was very popular with the Italian statesmen.

      For months, von Bulow argued and pleaded, first trying to induce
      Italy to accept a small part of the disputed territory and then,
      when he found this impossible, doing his best to induce Austria
      to give it all. Austria was stubborn. She did not take kindly to
      the plan of giving away her cities. She offered to cede some
      territory if Italy should wait until the end of the war.

      This did not satisfy Italy. She was by no means certain that
      Austria and Germany were going to win the war and was even less
      sure that Austria would be willing, in case of her victory, to
      give up a foot of territory. It seemed to the Italian statesmen
      that it was “now or never” if Italy wished to get within her
      kingdom all of her own people. In the month of May 1915 Italy
      threw herself into the struggle by declaring war on Austria and
      entering an alliance with Russia, France, and England.

[Illustration: Russian peasants fleeing before the German army]

      Meanwhile, the Russians were having difficulties. They had
      millions and millions of men, but not enough rifles to equip them
      all. They had plenty of food but very little ammunition for their
      cannon. Austria and Germany, on the other hand, had been
      manufacturing shot and shells in enormous quantities, and from
      the month of May, when the Russians had crossed the Carpathian
      Mountains and were threatening to pour down on Buda-Pest and
      Vienna, they drove them steadily back until the first of October,
      forcing them to retreat nearly three hundred miles.

      In the meantime, the Balkans again became the seat of trouble.
      You will recall that Bulgaria, who had grown proud because of her
      victory over Turkey in the war of 1912, was too grasping when it
      came to a division of the conquered territory. Thus she brought
      on a second war, in the course of which Greece and Serbia
      defeated her, while Roumania took a slice of her territory and
      the Turks recaptured the city of Adrianople. The czar of Russia
      had done his best to prevent this second Balkan war, even sending
      a personal telegram to Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria and to King
      Peter of Serbia, begging them for the sake of the Slavic race,
      not to let their quarrels come to blows. Bulgaria, confident of
      her ability to defeat Greece and Serbia, had disregarded the
      Russians’ pleadings, and as a result Russia did not interfere to
      save her when her neighbors were robbing her of part of the land
      which she had taken from Turkey.

It will be recalled that Macedonia was the country which Bulgaria had
felt most sorry to lose, as its inhabitants were largely Bulgarian in
their blood, although many Greeks and Serbs were among them. Therefore,
just as Italy strove by war and diplomacy to add Trentino to her
nation, so Bulgaria now saw her chance to gain Macedonia from Serbia.
Accordingly, she asked the four great powers what they would give her
in case she entered the war on their side, and attacked Turkey by way
of Constantinople, while the French and English were hammering at the
forts along the Dardanelles.[7]

 [7] England and France needed wheat, which Russia had in great
 quantities at her ports on the Black Sea. On the other hand France and
 England, by supplying Russia with rifles and ammunition, could strike
 a hard blow at Germany.

      The four powers, after much persuasion and brow-beating, finally
      induced Serbia to agree to give up part of Serbian Macedonia to
      Bulgaria. They further promised Bulgaria to give her the city of
      Adrianople and the territory around it which Turkey had
      reconquered. But Bulgaria was not easily satisfied. She wanted
      more than Serbia was willing to give; she wanted, too, the port
      of Kavala, which Greece had taken from her. This the allies could
      not promise.

      In the meantime, Bulgaria was bargaining with Austria, Germany,
      and Turkey. France, England, and Russia were ready to pay back
      Serbia for the loss of Macedonia, by promising her Bosnia and
      Herzegovina in case they won the war from Austria. In like
      fashion, Austria and Germany promised Bulgaria some Turkish
      territory and also the southern part of the present kingdom of
      Serbia, in case she entered the war on their side.

      Now the king of Bulgaria, or the czar, as he prefers to call
      himself, is a German. (As these little countries won their
      independence from Turkey, they almost always called in foreign
      princes to be their kings. In this way it had come about that the
      king of Greece was a prince of Denmark, the king of Roumania was
      a German of the Hohenzollern family, while the czar of Bulgaria
      was a German of the Coburg family, the same family which has
      furnished England and Belgium with their kings.)

      The Bulgarians themselves are members of the Greek Catholic
      Church, and they have a very high regard for the czar of Russia,
      as the head of that church. Czar Ferdinand had no such feeling,
      however. He wanted to be the most powerful ruler in the Balkan
      states, and it made no difference to him which side helped him to
      gain his object.

[Illustration: A Bomb-Proof Trench in the Western War Front]

      About this time, the Russians had been forced to retreat to a
      line running south from Riga, on the Baltic Sea, to the northern
      boundary of Roumania. The French and English had been pounding at
      the Dardanelles for some months, but the stubborn resistance of
      the Turks seemed likely to hold them out of Constantinople for a
      long time to come. The checked Italians had not been able to make
      much headway against the Austrians through the mountainous Alpine
      country where the fighting was taking place. In the west, the
      Germans were holding firmly against the attacks of the British
      and French. The czar of Bulgaria and his ministers, thinking that
      the German-Austrian-Turkish alliance could win with their help,
      flung their nation into its third war within four years. This
      happened in Octoher, 1915.

      Now at the close of the second Balkan war, when Serbia and Greece
      defeated Bulgaria, they made an alliance, by which each agreed to
      come to the help of the other in case either was attacked by
      Bulgaria. Roumania, too, was friendly to Greece and Serbia,
      rather than to treaty Bulgaria, for the Roumanians knew that
      Bulgaria was very anxious to get back the territory of which
      Roumania had robbed her, in the second Balkan war. In this way,
      the Quadruple Entente (Russia, Italy, France, and England) hoped
      that the entry of Bulgaria into the war, on the side of Germany
      and Turkey, would bring Greece and Roumania in on the other side.

      The Greek people were ready to rush to Serbia’s aid and so was
      the Greek prime minister. The queen of Greece, however, is a
      sister of the German emperor, and through her influence with her
      husband she was able to defeat the plans of Venizelos (vĕn ĭ
      zĕl′ŏs), the prime minister, who was notified by the king that
      Greece would not enter the war. Venizelos accordingly resigned,
      but not until he had given permission to the French and English
      to land troops at Salonika, for the purpose of rushing to the
      help of Serbia. (Greece also was afraid that German and Austrian
      armies might lay waste her territory, as they had Serbia’s,
      before England and France could come to the rescue.)

      Meanwhile poor Serbia was in a desperate state. The two Balkan
      wars had drained her of some of her best soldiers. Twice the
      Austrians had invaded her kingdom in this war, and twice they had
      been driven out. Then came a dreadful epidemic of typhus fever
      which was the result of unhealthful conditions caused by the war.
      Now the little kingdom, attacked by the Germans and Austrians on
      two sides and by the Bulgarians on a third, was literally
      fighting with her back to the wall. She had counted on Greece to
      stand by her promise to help in case of an attack from Bulgaria,
      but we have seen how the German queen of Greece had been able to
      prevent this. Serbia hoped that Roumania, too, would come to her
      help. However, as you have been told, the king of Roumania is a
      German of the Hohenzollern family, a cousin of the emperor, and
      in spite of the sympathy of his people for Italy, France, and
      Serbia, he was able to keep them from joining in the defense of
      the Serbs.

      Now Roumania ought to include a great part of Bessarabia (bes ȧ
      rȧ′bi ȧ), which is the nearest county of Russia, and also the
      greater part of Transylvania and Bukowina (boo kō vï′nȧ),
      which are the provinces of Austria-Hungary that lie nearest; for
      a great part of the inhabitants of these three counties are
      Roumanians by blood and language. They would like to be parts of
      the kingdom of Roumania, and Roumania would like to possess them.
      The Quadruple Entente would promise Roumania parts of
      Transylvania and Bukowina in case she joined the war on their
      side, while the Triple Alliance was ready to promise her
      Bessarabia. Roumania, as was said before, was originally settled
      by colonists sent out from Rome, and in the eleventh century a
      large number of people from the north of Italy settled there. On
      this account, Roumania looks upon Italy as her mother country,
      and it was thought that Italy’s attack upon Austria would
      influence her to support the Entente.

      Each country wanted to be a friend of the winning side, in order
      to share in the spoils. In this way, whenever it looked as if the
      Quadruple Entente did not need her help Roumania was eager to
      offer it, at a price which seemed to the allies too high. When,
      however, the tide turned the other way, she lost her enthusiasm
      for the cause of her friends, fearing what the central empires
      might do to her.


        Questions for Review


          What was the motive of Turkey in joining the war?

          Why were the Russians not sorry to have Turkey declare war on
          them?

          What were the feelings of the Italian people?

          What were the Italian diplomats anxious to gain?

          What were the demands of Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria upon the
          Entente powers?

          Why did Bulgaria join the central empires?

          Why did Greece keep out of the conflict?

          What were Roumania’s hopes?




Chapter XX.
Back to the Balkans

      The troubles of Crete.—The bigotry of the “Young
      Turks.”—Venizelos in Greece.—The pro-German king.—The new
      government at Salonika.—The downfall of Constantine.—The
      ambitions of Roumania.—Pro-Germans in Russia.—Roumania declares
      war.—Russian treachery and German trickery.—The defeat of
      Roumania.


      Greece

      You will remember the name of Eleutherios Venizelos, the prime
      minister of Greece, who tried to get that country to stand by her
      bargain from Crete with Serbia (pages 239-240). Now Venizelos had
      originally come from Crete, a large island inhabited by Greeks,
      but controlled by Turkey for many years (see map). In 1897 the
      Turks had massacred a number of Greek Christians on the island,
      and this act had so enraged the inhabitants of Greece that they
      forced their king to declare war on Turkey.

      Poor little Greece was quickly defeated, but the war called the
      attention of the Great Powers of Europe to the cruelties of the
      Turks, and they never again allowed Crete to be wholly governed
      by them. For over a year Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy
      had their warships in Cretan ports and the government of Crete
      was under their protection.

      Finally they called in, to rule over the island, a Greek prince,
      Constantine, the son of the king. Eight years later he had become
      very unpopular through meddling with Cretan politics—on the wrong
      side—and had to leave.

      The It was at this time that Venizelos came to the front. The
      Cretan government was really independent, like a little kingdom
      without a king, and he was its true ruler. Now all the Greeks had
      looked forward to the time when they might be united in one great
      kingdom. The shores of Asia Minor and the cities along the Aegean
      Sea and the Dardanelles were largely inhabited by Greeks. Crete
      and the islands of the Aegean had once been part of Greece and
      they never would be content until they were again joined to it.
      The Cretan government was ready to vote that the island be
      annexed to Greece, when in 1908 there came the revolution of the
      “Young Turks” which drove the old Sultan from his throne (page
      186).

      The Young Turks at the outset of their crusade against the
      government were tolerant to all the other races and religions in
      their country. At first the Armenians, the Jews, the Albanians,
      the Greeks, and the Bulgarians in the Turkish Empire were very
      happy over the result of the revolution. It looked as if a new
      day were dawning for Turkey, when it would be possible for these
      various races and different religions to live side by side in
      peace.

      No sooner were the young Turks in control of the government,
      however, than they began to change. “Turkey for the Turks, and
      for the Turks only” became their motto. With this in mind they
      massacred Bulgarians and Greeks in Macedonia (page 85) and
      Armenians in Asia Minor. The thought of the loss of Crete roused
      their anger and they began scheming to get it back under Turkish
      rule.

      In 1910 Venizelos, seeing the danger of his beloved island, left
      for Greece, hoping there to stir up the people to oppose the
      Turks and annex Crete. His wonderful eloquence and his
      single-hearted love for his country soon made him as prominent on
      the mainland as he had been in his island home. Before long he
      was chosen as prime minister of Greece.

      He found the country in a very sad condition. The military
      officers were poorly trained. What was worse, they did not know
      this, but imagined that their army was the best in the world. The
      politicians had plundered the people and there was graft and poor
      management throughout the government.

      Venizelos made a wonderful change. He sent to the French republic
      for some of their best generals. These men thoroughly made over
      the Greek army and taught the Greek officers the real science of
      war.

[Illustration: Venizelos (left) with Greek ambassador to England]

      Venizelos soon showed the politicians that he could not be
      frightened, controlled, or bribed. He discharged some incompetent
      officials and forced the others to attend to business. In fact he
      reorganized the whole government service in a way to make every
      department do better work. Few countries in Europe were as well
      managed as was Greece with Venizelos as its prime minister.

      Every Greek hates the Turks and looks forward to the time when no
      man of Greek descent shall be subject to their cruel rule. You
      have been told how the Russians have looked forward to the day
      when Saint Sophia, the great mosque of the Turks, shall once more
      become a Christian cathedral. In the same way the Greeks have
      passionately desired to see Constantinople, which was for over a
      thousand years the capital of their empire, freed from the
      control of the Turk. Little by little, from the time when the
      Greeks first won their independence from Turkey in 1829, the
      boundary of their kingdom has been pushed northward, freeing more
      and more of their people from the rule of the Ottomans.
      Venizelos, aiming to include in the kingdom of Greece as many as
      possible of the people of Greek blood, was scheming night and day
      for the overthrow of the Turkish power in Europe. You have been
      told how the Russian diplomats astonished the world by inducing
      Bulgaria to unite with the Greeks and the Serbs, two nations for
      whom she had no love, in an alliance against the Turks. Many
      people felt that this combination would never have been possible
      without the far-seeing wisdom of of Venizelos. In fact, some
      historians give him the credit of first planning the alliance.

      His greatest trouble was with his own countrymen. The Greeks, as
      you have been told, have always claimed Macedonia as part of
      their country, whereas, in truth, there are more Bulgarians than
      Greeks among its inhabitants. Venizelos, having agreed before the
      attack on Turkey that the greater part of Macedonia should be
      given to Bulgaria, had hard work after the victory in convincing
      his countrymen that this was fair. In fact, the claims of the
      three allies to this district proved the one weak spot in the
      combination. The occupation of this country by Greeks and Serbs
      in the course of the first war against Turkey, while the
      Bulgarians were defeating the main Turkish army just northwest of
      Constantinople, brought on the second war. Bulgaria was not
      willing to give up Macedonia to the Greeks and Serbs, and her
      troops made a treacherous attack on her former allies (June,
      1913) which brought on the declarations of war referred to.

      At the close of the second war, when Bulgaria, attacked by five
      nations at once, had to make peace as best she could, the Greeks
      took advantage of her by insisting on taking, not only Salonika
      but also Kavala, which by all rights should have gone to the
      Bulgars. Venizelos was willing to be generous to Bulgaria, but
      the Greeks had had their heads turned by the extraordinary
      successes of their armies over the Turks and Bulgarians and as a
      result insisted upon being greedy when it came to a division of
      the conquered lands.

      Let us return now to events in Greece after the world war had
      begun: In March, 1915, when the great fleets of France and
      England made their violent attack on the forts of the
      Dardanelles, intending to break through and bombard
      Constantinople, Venizelos was eager to have Greece join the
      conflict against the Turks. He felt sure that Turkey, in the end,
      would lose the war and that her territory in Europe would be
      divided up among the conquering nations. He wanted to get for
      Greece the shores of the Dardanelles and the coast of Asia Minor,
      where a great majority of the inhabitants were people of Greek
      blood. The king of Greece, Constantine, as has been explained, is
      a brother-in-law of the German Kaiser and has always been
      friendly to Germany. He and Venizelos had been good friends while
      both were working for the upbuilding of Greece, but a little
      incident happened shortly after the Balkan wars which led to a
      coolness between them.

      King Constantine, while on a visit to Berlin, stood up at a
      banquet and told the Kaiser and the German generals that the fine
      work of the Greek soldiers in the two wars just fought had been
      due to help which he had received from German military men. This
      statement angered the French very much, for you will remember
      that it was French generals who had trained the Greek army
      officers. Venizelos, very shortly after this, made a trip to
      Paris and there publicly stated that all credit for the fine
      condition of the Greek army was due to the Frenchmen who had
      trained its officers before the war of 1912. This was a direct
      “slap in the face” of the king but it was the truth and everyone
      in Greece knew it. From this time on it was evident to everybody
      that Venizelos was friendly to the French and English, while the
      King was pro-German.

      Accordingly, in March, 1915, when Venizelos urged the Greek
      government to join the war on Turkey, the king refused to give
      the order. Venizelos, who was prime minister, straightway
      resigned, broke up the parliament, and ordered a general
      election. This put the case squarely up to the people of Greece
      and they answered by electing to the Greek parliament one hundred
      eighty men friendly to Venizelos and the Triple Entente as
      against one hundred forty who were opposed to entering the war.

      Venizelos, once more prime minister as a result of this election,
      ordered the Greek army to be mobilized. At this time the fear was
      that Bulgaria, in revenge for 1913, would join the war on the
      side of the Germans and Turks and attack Greece in the rear. In
      order to keep peace with Bulgaria Venizelos was willing to give
      to her the port of Kavala, which Greece had cheated her out of at
      the close of the second Balkan war. He felt that his country
      would gain so much by annexing Greek territory now under the rule
      of the Turks that she could afford to give up this seaport, whose
      population was largely Bulgarian. Constantine opposed this,
      however, and the majority of the Greeks, not being as far-sighted
      as their prime minister, backed the king. When the attack by the
      Central Powers on Serbia took place, as has been told, Venizelos
      a second time tried to get the Greek government to join the war
      on the side of France and England. He said plainly to the king
      that the treaty between Greece and Serbia was not a “scrap of
      paper” as the German Chancellor had called the treaty with
      Belgium, but a solemn promise entered into by both sides with a
      full understanding of what it meant. The king, on the other hand,
      insisted that the treaty had to do with Bulgaria alone and that
      it was not intended to drag Greece into a general European war.
      As a result, he dismissed Venizelos a second time, in spite of
      the fact that twice, by their votes, the Greeks had shown that
      they approved of his policy.

      Now Greece is a limited monarchy. By the terms of the
      constitution the king must obey the will of the people as shown
      by the votes of a majority of the members of parliament. In spite
      of the vote of parliament the king refused to stand by the
      Serbian treaty. From this time on he was violating the law of his
      country and ruling as a czar instead of a monarch with very
      little power, as the Greek constitution had made him.

      Things went from bad to worse. In the meantime the French and
      English had landed at Salonika in order to rush to the aid of the
      hard-pressed Serbs. You have already been told how Venizelos
      arranged this. Their aid, however, had come too late. Before they
      could reach the gallant little Serbian army it had been crushed
      between the Austrians and Germans on one side and the Bulgarians
      on the other, and its survivors had fled across the mountains to
      the coast of Albania. The French and English detachments were not
      strong enough to stand against the victorious armies of Germany,
      Austria, and Bulgaria. They began to retreat through southern
      Serbia. King Constantine notified the Allied governments that if
      these troops retreated upon Greek soil he would send his army to
      surround them and hold them as prisoners for the rest of the war.
      France and England replied by notifying him that if he did this
      they would blockade the ports of Greece and prevent any ships
      from entering her harbors. This act on the part of France and
      England, while it seemed necessary, nevertheless angered the
      proud Greeks and strengthened the pro-German party in Athens. The
      king took advantage of this feeling to appoint a number of
      pro-Germans to important positions in the government. Constantine
      allowed German submarines to use certain ports in Greece as bases
      of supply from which they got their oil and provisions. The Greek
      army was still mobilized, and the small force of French and
      English, which had retreated to Salonika, were afraid that at any
      moment they might receive a stab in the back by order of the
      Greek king.

      In May, 1916, the Germans and Bulgarians crossed the Greek
      frontier and demanded the surrender of several Greek forts. When
      the commander of one of them proposed to fight, the German
      general told him to call up his government at Athens over the
      long distance telephone. He did so and was ordered to give up the
      fort peaceably to the invaders. We have already seen what the
      answer of the Belgians had been on a like occasion. To be sure,
      the French and English were already occupying Greek soil, but
      they had come there under permission of the prime minister of
      Greece to do a thing which Greece herself had solemnly promised
      that she would do, namely, to defend Serbia from the Bulgars.

      This surrender of Greek territory to the hated Bulgarians was too
      much for Venizelos. He gave out a statement to the Greek people
      in which he declared that the king had disobeyed the constitution
      and was ruling as a tyrant; that he was betraying his country to
      the Germans and Bulgars and that all loyal Greeks should refuse
      to obey him. At Salonika, under the protection of the British and
      French, together with the admiral of the Greek navy and one of
      the chief generals in the army, Venizelos set up a new
      government—a republic of Greece.

      Shortly after this the commander of a Greek army corps in eastern
      Macedonia, acting under orders from King Constantine, surrendered
      his men to the Germans, along with all their artillery, stores,
      and the equipment which had been furnished to them by the French
      to defend themselves against the Germans! In the meantime, the
      Bulgarians had seized Kavala.

      The control of the Adriatic Sea had been a matter of jealousy
      between the Italians and Austrians even during the years when
      they were partners in the Triple Alliance. Even before Italy
      entered the war on the side of France and England, her
      government, fearing the Austrians, had sent Italian troops to
      seize Avlona. The Prince of Albania, finding that he was not
      wanted, had deserted that country, and there had been no
      government at all there since the outbreak of the great war.
      However, the presence of this Italian garrison prevented the
      forces of the central powers from advancing southward along the
      Adriatic coast.

      Gradually, France and England increased their forces at Salonika.
      The gallant defender of Verdun, General Sarrail, was sent to
      command the joint army. During the summer of 1916, Italians came
      there to join the French and British. A hundred thousand hardy
      young veterans, survivors of the Serbian army, picked up by
      allied war ships on the coast of Albania, were refitted and
      carried by ship around Greece to Salonika. Here they joined
      General Sarrail’s army, rested and refreshed, and frantic for
      revenge on the Germans and Bulgars. Several thousands of the
      Greek troops, following the leadership of Venizelos, deserted the
      king and joined the allies.

      Meanwhile, in Athens one prime minister after another tried to
      steer the ship of state. The people of Greece were in a turmoil.
      The great majority of them were warm friends of France and
      England—all of them hated the Turks. The pro-German acts of the
      king, however, provoked the French and English to such an extent
      that they frequently had to interfere in Athens. The Greek people
      resented this interference and on one or two occasions fights
      broke out when allied sailors marched through the streets of the
      capital. Matters reached a climax in June, 1917. The governments
      of France, England, and Italy felt that they could stand the
      treacherous conduct of King Constantine no longer. They knew that
      he was assisting Germany in every possible way. They knew that
      their camp was full of spies who were reporting all their
      movements to the Bulgarians. They felt that at the first chance
      he would order his army to attack Sarrail in the rear. They
      finally sent an ultimatum to him ordering him to give up the
      throne to his second son. The oldest son, the crown prince,
      having been educated in Germany and sharing King Constantine’s
      pro-German sentiments, was barred from succeeding his father.
      This seemed a high-handed thing to do but there was no other way
      out of a difficult situation. Constantine had allowed his
      sympathies with his wife’s brother to prevent his country from
      carrying out her solemn treaty; had ruled like an absolute
      monarch; had plotted with all his power for the overthrow of
      Russia, France, and England, the three countries which had won
      Greece its independence in the first place and which still
      desired its people to have the right to rule themselves.

The guns of the allied fleet were pointed at Athens. More than half of
the Greek people favored Venizelos and the Entente as against the king
and Germany. A second[8] time within four months a European monarch who
was out of sympathy with his subjects was forced to resign his crown.

 [8] The first was the Czar of Russia, as is told in a later chapter.

      With Constantine out of the way, there was nothing to prevent the
      return to Athens of Venizelos. With great enthusiasm the people
      hailed his coming, as, once more prime minister, he summoned the
      members of parliament lawfully elected in 1915, and took control
      of the government.

      In July, 1917, the Greek government announced to the world that,
      henceforth, Greece would be found in the war on the side of
      France, Great Britain, and the other nations of the Entente.

      Roumania

      You will recall that when Bulgaria attacked Serbia the Serbs
      hoped for help from Roumania. For they knew that Bulgaria had a
      grudge against Roumania also, because of the Bulgarian territory
      which she had been compelled to give up to her neighbor on the
      north at the close of the second Balkan war. They expected this
      fear of Bulgarian revenge to bring the Roumanians to the rescue.

      You have read how Roumania wished for certain lands in Russia as
      well as in Hungary that are inhabited by her own people. For a
      long time the government at Bukharest hesitated, fearing to
      plunge into the war before the time was ripe, and dreading the
      danger of choosing the wrong side.

      The key to the situation was Russia. If Roumania were to go to
      war she would have to count strongly on the help of her great
      neighbor to the north.

Meanwhile, strange things were happening in Russia. You will remember
that there are two million Germans living in that part of the Russian
domain which borders the Baltic Sea. (The states of Livonia and
Courland were ruled in the olden times by the “Teutonic knights.”)
These Germans are much better educated, on the whole, than the
Russians; they are descendants of old feudal warriors and as such are
men of force and influence in the Russian government. It was a common
thing to find German names, like Witte, Von Plehve, Rennenkampf, and
Stoessel among the list of high officials and generals in Russia. In
this way there were a great many people prominent in the Russian
government, who secretly hoped that Germany would win the war and were
actively plotting with this in view. “There is a secret wire from the
czar’s palace to Berlin,” said one of the most patriotic Russian
generals, explaining why he refused to give out his plans in advance.
Graft and bad management, as well as treachery, were all through the
nation. Train-loads of ammunition intended for the Russian army were
left piled up on the wharves at the northern ports. Guns sent by
England were lost in the Ural mountains. Food that was badly needed by
the men at the front was hoarded by government officials in order to
raise prices for their friends who were growing rich through
“cornering” food supplies.[9]

 [9] When a group of men buy a sufficient amount of any one article so
 as to keep it from being sold in great quantities and make it appear
 that there is not enough to go around, they are said to “corner” the
 market. Three or four men in America at various times have been able
 to corner the wheat market or the corn market or the market for
 cotton.

      The czar of Russia truly desired his country to win the war. On
      the other hand his wife was a cousin of the Kaiser, a German
      princess whose brothers were fighting in the German army, and she
      had little love for her adopted country. The poor little
      Czarevitch, eleven years old, remarked, early in the war, “When
      the Russians are beaten, papa weeps; when the Germans are beaten,
      mamma weeps.” In spite of her German sympathies the Czarina had
      great influence with her husband, and the scheming officials who
      were secretly plotting the downfall of Russia were able to use
      this influence in many ways.

      In 1916, a new prime minister was appointed in Russia—a man named
      Sturmer, of German blood and German sympathies. The Russians,
      after their long retreat in 1915 had gradually gotten back their
      strength, and had piled up ammunition and gathered guns for a new
      attack. This began early in June, 1916, when General Brusiloff
      attacked the Austro-Hungarians in Galicia and Bukowina and drove
      them back for miles and miles, capturing hundreds of thousands of
      prisoners. You will remember that the Bohemians, although
      subjects of Austria- Hungary, are Slavs and have no love for the
      Austrians of German blood who rule them. Two divisions made up of
      Bohemian troops helped General Brusiloff greatly by deserting in
      a body and afterwards re-enlisting in the Russian army.

      In northern France, the British and French had at last gained
      more guns and bigger guns than the Germans had, and by sheer
      weight of metal were pushing the latter out of the trenches which
      they had held for over two years. It seemed to Roumania that the
      turning point of the war had come. With the Russians winning big
      victories over Austria, and the French and English pushing back
      the Germans in the west, it certainly looked as though the end
      were in sight.

Now the king of Roumania, as you have been told is a Hohenzollern, a
distant cousin of the Kaiser of Germany, but, just the opposite from
the case in Greece and Russia, his wife was an English princess, and
she was able to help the party that was friendly to France and Great
Britain. The man who had and worked early and late to get his
countrymen to join the Entente was Take Jonescu, the wisest of the
Roumanian statesmen, the man who predicted at the close of the second
Balkan war that the peace of Europe would again be broken within
fourteen months.[10]

 [10] As an actual fact, there was only twelve and a half months
 between wars.

[Illustration: What The Allies Wished]

      By the summer of 1916, the Roumanians had at last decided that if
      they wanted to get a slice of Bessarabia from Russia and the
      province of Transylvania from Hungary, they must jump into the
      war on the side of the Entente. It is claimed by some that they
      had planned to wait until the following winter in order to get
      their army into the best of condition and training, but that the
      treacherous prime minister of Russia, Sturmer, when he found that
      they were determined to make war on Germany and Austria,
      persuaded them to plunge in at once, knowing that they were
      unprepared and that their inexperienced troops would be no match
      for the veterans of the central powers. At any rate, about the
      first of September Roumania declared war on Austria and joined
      the Entente.

      The French and English had wished the Roumanians to declare war
      first on Bulgaria and, attacking that country from the north
      while General Sarrail attacked it from the south, crush it before
      help could arrive from Germany, much in the fashion in which poor
      Serbia had been caught between Austria and Bulgaria a year
      previously. The Roumanians, however, were eager to “liberate”
      their brothers in Transylvania, and so, urged on by bad advice
      from Russia, they rushed across the mountains to the northwest
      instead of taking the easier road which led them south to the
      conquest of Bulgaria. (See maps.)

[Illustration: Messen How Roumania was crushed]

      Germania, Turkey, and Bulgaria at once declared war on Roumania.
      The battle-field in France, owing to continued rains and wet
      weather, had become one great sea of slimy mud, through which it
      was impossible to drag the cannon. General Brusiloff in Galicia
      had pushed back the Austrians for many miles but a lack of
      ammunition and the arrival of strong German re-inforcements had
      prevented his re-capturing Lemberg. The Russian generals on the
      north, under the influence of the pro-German prime minister, were
      doing nothing. The Italians and Austrians had come to a deadlock.
      The country where they were fighting was so mountainous that
      neither side could advance. North from Salonika came the slow
      advance of General Sarrail. His great problem was to get
      sufficient shells for his guns and food for his men. All the
      time, too, he had to keep a watchful eye on King Constantine,
      lest the latter launch the Greek army in a treacherous attack on
      his rear. For the time being, then, the central powers were free
      to give their whole attention to Roumania.

      Profiting by the mud along the western front and trusting to the
      Russians to do nothing, they drew off several hundred thousand
      men from France and Poland and hurled them all together upon the
      Roumanians. At the same time, another force composed of Turks,
      Bulgarians, and some Germans marched north through the Dobrudja
      to attack Roumania from the south. Thus, the very trick that the
      French wished Roumania to work upon Bulgaria was now worked upon
      her by the central powers. France and England were helpless. They
      sent one of the best of the French generals to teach the
      Roumanians the latest science of war, but men and guns they could
      not send. Look at the map and see how Roumania was shut off from
      all help except what came from Russia. Here Sturmer was doing his
      part to help Germany. Ammunition and troops which were intended
      to rescue Roumania, never reached her. The Germans had spies in
      the Roumanian army and before each battle, knew exactly where the
      Roumanian troops would be and what they were going to do.

      The German gun factories had sold to Roumania her cannon. On each
      gun was a delicate sight with a spirit level—a little glass tube
      supposed to be filled with a liquid which would not freeze. Slyly
      the Germans had filled these tubes with water, intending, in case
      Roumania entered the war on their side, to warn them about the
      “mistake.” When the guns were hauled up into the mountains and
      freezing weather came, these sights burst, making the guns almost
      useless. Overwhelmed from both the northwest and the south, the
      Roumanian army, fighting gallantly, was beaten back mile after
      mile. Great stores of grain were either destroyed or captured by
      the Germans. The western part of Roumania where the great oil
      wells are, fell into the hands of the invaders, as did Bukharest,
      the capital.

      Sturmer had done his work well. Germany, instead of being almost
      beaten, now took on fresh courage. Thanks to Roumanian wheat,
      Roumanian oil, and above all, the glory of the victories, the
      central powers were now in better shape to fight than if Roumania
      had kept out of the war. The German comic papers were full of
      pictures which declared that as England and France had always
      wanted to see a defeated Hohenzollern they might now take a long
      look at King Ferdinand of Roumania.


        Questions for Review


          What was the great disappointment connected with the rise to
          power of the “young Turks”?

          What would you say was the secret of the success of Venizelos
          in Greece?

          What mistake did the Greeks make at the close of the war of
          1913?

          What was the real cause of the strife between Venizelos and
          King Constantine?

          Would King Constantine have been justified in holding as
          prisoners the French and British troops who were driven back
          upon Greek soil?

          What right had Venizelos to set up a republic?

          Was it right for the Entente to force the resignation of King
          Constantine?

          What made Roumania decide to join the Entente?

          How was the Roumanian campaign a great help to the Central
          Powers?




Chapter XXI.
The War Under the Sea

      Britannia rules the waves.—Enter the submarine.—The blockade of
      Germany.—The sinking of the _Lusitania_ and other ships.—The
      trade in munitions of war.—The voyages of the
      _Deutschland_.—Germany ready for peace (on her own terms).—The
      reply of the allies.—Germany’s amazing announcement.—The United
      States breaks off friendly relations.


      You will remember how hard the Germans had worked, building
      warships, with the hope that one day their navy might be the
      strongest in the world. At the outbreak of the great war in 1914
      they were still far behind England in naval power. On the other
      hand, it was necessary for the English to keep their navy
      scattered all over the world. English battleships were guarding
      trade routes to Australia, to China, to the islands of the
      Pacific. The Suez Canal, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Island of
      Malta—all were in English hands, and ships and guns were needed
      to defend them.

      The German navy, on the other hand, with the exception of a few
      cruisers in the Pacific Ocean and two warships in the
      Mediterranean, was gathered in the Baltic Sea, the southeastern
      part of the North Sea, and the great Kiel Canal which connected
      these two bodies of water. It was quite possible that this fleet,
      by making a quick dash for the ports of England, might find there
      only a portion of the English ships and be able to overwhelm them
      before the rest of the English navy should assemble from the far
      parts of the earth.

      Winston Churchill, whose name you have read before, had the
      foresight to assemble enough English vessels in home waters in
      the latter part of the month of July, 1914, to give England the
      upper hand over the fleet of Germany. As a result, finding the
      British too strong, the Germans did not venture out into the high
      seas to give battle. A few skirmishes were fought between
      cruisers, then some speedy German warships made a dash across the
      North Sea to the coast of England, shelled some small towns,
      killed several men, women, and children and returned, getting
      back to the Kiel Canal before the English vessels arrived in any
      number.

      A second raid was attempted a few weeks later but by this time
      the British were on the watch. Two of the best German cruisers
      were sunk and the others barely escaped the fire of the avengers.

      About the first of June, 1916, a goodly portion of the German
      fleet sailed out, hoping to catch the British unawares. They were
      successful in sinking several large ships, but when the main
      British fleet arrived they began in turn to suffer great losses,
      and were obliged to retire. With the exception of these two
      fights and two other battles fought off the coast of South
      America (in the first of which a small English fleet was
      destroyed by the Germans, and in the second a larger British
      fleet took revenge), there have been no battles between the sea
      forces.

      The big navy of England ruled the ocean. German merchant vessels
      were either captured or forced to remain in ports of neutral
      nations. German commerce was swept from the seas, while ships
      carrying supplies to France and the British Isles sailed
      unmolested—for a time. Only in the Baltic Sea was Germany
      mistress. Commerce from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark was kept up
      as usual. Across the borders of Holland and Switzerland came
      great streams of imports. Merchants in these little countries
      bought, in the markets of the world, apparently for themselves,
      but really for Germany.

      However, not for long did British commerce sail unmolested. A new
      and terrible menace was to appear. This was the submarine boat,
      the invention of Mr. John Holland, an American, but improved and
      enlarged by the Germans. In one of the early months of the war
      three British warships, the _Hogue_, the _Cressy_, and the
      _Aboukir_, were cruising about, guarding the waters of the North
      Sea. There was the explosion of a torpedo, and the _Hogue_ began
      to sink. One of her sister ships rushed in to pick up the crew as
      they struggled in the water. A second torpedo struck and a second
      ship was sinking. Nothing daunted by the fate of the other two,
      the last survivor steamed to the scene of the disaster—the German
      submarine once more shot its deadly weapon, and three gallant
      ships with a thousand men had gone down.

      This startled the world. It was plain that battleships and
      cruisers were not enough. While England controlled the surface of
      the sea, there was no way to prevent the coming and going of the
      German submarine beneath the waters. All naval warfare was
      changed in a moment; new methods and new weapons had to be
      employed.

      At the outset of the war the English and French fleets had set up
      a strict blockade of Germany. There were certain substances which
      were called “contraband of war” and which, according to the law
      of nations, might be seized by one country if they were the
      property of her enemy. On the list of contraband were all kinds
      of ammunition and guns, as well as materials for making these.
      England and France, however, added to the list which all nations
      before the war had admitted to be contraband substances like
      cotton, which was very necessary in the manufacture of gun-cotton
      and other high explosives, gasoline—fuel for the thousands of
      automobiles needed to transport army supplies, and rubber for
      their tires. Soon other substances were added to the list.

      An attempt was made to starve Germany into making peace. The
      central empires, in ordinary years, raise only about
      three-fourths of the food that they eat. With the great supply of
      Russian wheat shut off and vessels from North America and South
      America not allowed to pass the British blockade, Germany’s
      imports had to come by way of Holland, Switzerland, and the
      Scandinavian countries. When Holland in 1915 began to buy about
      four times as much wheat as she had eaten in 1913, it did not
      take a detective to discover that she was secretly selling to
      Germany the great bulk of what she was buying apparently for
      herself. In a like manner Switzerland and the Scandinavian
      countries suddenly developed a much greater appetite than before
      the war! The British blockade grew stricter. It was agreed to
      allow these countries to import just enough food for their own
      purposes. The British trusted that they would rather eat the food
      themselves than sell it to Germany even at very high prices. The
      Germans soon began to feel the pinch of hunger. They had
      slaughtered many of their cows for beef and as a result grew
      short of milk and butter.

      To strike back at England, Germany announced that she would use
      her submarines to sink ships carrying food to the British Isles.
      This happened in February, 1915. There was a storm of protest
      from the world in general, but Germany agreed that her submarine
      commanders should warn each ship of its danger and allow the
      captain time to get the passengers and crew into boats before the
      deadly torpedo was shot. Still the crew, exposed to the danger of
      the ocean in open boats, and often cast loose miles from shore,
      were in serious danger.

      The laws of nations, as observed by civilized countries in wars
      up to this time, have said that a blockade, in order to be
      recognized by all nations, had to be successful in doing the work
      for which it was intended. If England really was able to stop
      every boat sailing for German shores, then all nations would have
      to admit that Germany was blockaded; but if the Germans were able
      to sink only one ship out of every hundred that sailed into
      English ports, Germany could hardly be said to be carrying on a
      real blockade of England. In spite of protests from neutral
      nations who were peaceably trying to trade with all the countries
      at war, this sinking of merchantmen by submarines went on.

      In May, 1915, the great steamship _Lusitania_ was due to sail
      from New York for England. A few days before her departure
      notices signed by the German ambassador were put into New York
      papers, warning people that Germany would not be responsible for
      what happened to them if they took passage on this boat. Very few
      people paid any attention to these warnings. With over a thousand
      persons on board the _Lusitania_ sailed, on schedule time.
      Suddenly the civilized world was horrified to hear that a German
      submarine, without giving the slightest warning, had sent two
      torpedoes crashing through the hull of the great steamer, sending
      her to the bottom in short order. A few had time to get into the
      boats, but over eight hundred men, women, and children were
      drowned, of whom over one hundred were American citizens. Strange
      as it may seem, this action caused a thrill of joy throughout
      Germany. Some of the Germans were horrified, as were people in
      neutral countries, but on the whole the action of the German navy
      was approved by the voice of the German people. With a curiously
      warped sense of right and wrong the Germans proclaimed that the
      English and Americans were brutal in allowing women and children
      to go on this boat when they had been warned that the boat was
      going to be sunk! They spoke of this much in the manner in which
      one would speak of the cruelty of a man who would drive innocent
      children and women to march in front of armies in order to
      protect the troops from the fire of their enemies.

      A storm of indignation against Germany burst out all over the
      United States. Many were for immediate war. Calmer plans,
      however, prevailed, and the upshot of the matter was that a stern
      note was sent to Berlin notifying the Kaiser that the United
      States could not permit vessels carrying Americans to be
      torpedoed without warning on the open seas. The German papers
      proceeded to make jokes about this matter. They pictured every
      French and English boat as refusing to sail until at least two
      Americans had been persuaded to go as passengers, so that the
      boat might be under the protection of the United States.

      However, in spite of Germany’s solemn promise that nothing of the
      sort would happen again, similar incidents kept occurring,
      although on a smaller scale. The American steamers _Falaba_ and
      _Gulflight_ were torpedoed without warning, in each case with the
      loss of one or two lives. Finally, the steamer _Sussex_, crossing
      the English Channel, was hit by a torpedo which killed many of
      the passengers. As several Americans lost their lives, once more
      the United States warned Germany that this must not be repeated.
      Germany acknowledged that her submarine commander had gone
      further than his orders allowed him and promised that the act
      should not be repeated—provided that the United States should
      force England to abandon what Germany called her illegal
      blockade. The United States in reply made it plain that while the
      English blockade was unpleasant to American citizens, still it
      was very different from the brutal murder of women and children
      on the high seas. England, when convinced that an American ship
      was carrying supplies which would be sold in the end to Germany,
      merely took this vessel into an English port, where a court
      decided what the cargo was worth and ordered the British
      government to pay that sum to the (American) owners.

      This was resented by the American shippers, but it was not
      anything to go to war over. The United States gave warning that
      she would hold Germany responsible for any damage to American
      ships or loss of American lives.

      All of this time the Germans were accusing the United States of
      favoring the nations of the Entente because they were selling
      munitions of war to them and none to Germany. They said that it
      was grossly unfair for neutral nations to sell to one side when,
      owing to the blockade, they could not sell to the other also.
      When a protest was made by Austria, the United States pointed out
      that a similar case had come up in 1899. At that time the empire
      of Great Britain was at war with two little Dutch Republics in
      South Africa. The Dutch, completely blockaded, could not buy
      munitions in the open market. Nevertheless, this fact did not
      prevent both Austria and Germany from selling guns and ammunition
      to Great Britain. (It must be made plain that the United States
      _government_ was not selling munitions of war to any of the
      warring nations. What Germany wanted and Austria asked was that
      our government should prevent our private companies, as, for
      example our steel mills, from shipping any goods which would
      eventually aid in killing Germans. The United States made it
      plain that our people had no feeling in the matter—that they were
      in business, and would sell to whomsoever came to buy; that it
      was not our fault that the British navy, being larger than the
      German, prevented Germany from trading with us.)

      In the meanwhile explosions kept occurring in the many munition
      factories in the United States that were turning out shells and
      guns for the Allies. Several hundred Americans were killed in
      these explosions, and property to the value of millions of
      dollars was destroyed. It was proved that the Austrian ambassador
      and several of the German diplomats had been hiring men to commit
      these crimes. They were protected from our courts by the fact
      that they were representatives of foreign nations, but the
      President insisted that their governments recall them.

      The Germans made a great point about the brutality of the English
      blockade. They told stories about the starving babies of Germany,
      who were being denied milk because of the cruelty of the English.
      As a matter of fact, what Germany really lacked was rubber,
      cotton, gasoline, and above all, nickel and cobalt, two metals
      which were needed in the manufacture of guns and shells.

      Finally, in the summer of 1916, came a world surprise. A large
      German submarine, the _Deutschland_, made the voyage across the
      Atlantic Ocean and bobbed up unexpectedly in the harbor of
      Baltimore. In spite of all the trouble that the United States had
      had with Germany over the sinking of ships by submarines, the
      crew of this vessel was warmly received, and the cargo of dyes
      which she brought was eagerly purchased. The Germans, in return,
      loaded their ship with the metals and other products of which
      Germany was so short. As one American newspaper said, the
      _Deutschland_ took back a cargo of nickel and rubber to the
      starving babies of Germany. Once more the _Deutschland_ came,
      this time to New London, and again her crew was welcomed with
      every sign of hospitality.

[Illustration: The Deutschland in Chesapeake Bay]

      In December, 1916, at the close of the victorious German campaign
      against Roumania, the central powers, weary of war and beginning
      to feel the pinch of starvation and the drain on their young men,
      made it known that as they had won the war they were now ready to
      treat for peace. This message carried with it a threat to all
      countries not at war that if they did not help to force the
      Entente to accept the Kaiser’s peace terms, Germany could not be
      held responsible for anything that might happen to them in the
      future.

      President Wilson, always apprehensive that something might draw
      the United States into the conflict, grasped eagerly at this
      opportunity, and in a public message he asked both sides to state
      to the world on what terms they would stop the war.

      The Germans and their allies did not make a clear and definite
      proposal. On the other hand, the nations of the Entente, in no
      uncertain terms, declared that no peace would be made unless the
      central powers restored what they had wrongfully seized, paid the
      victims of their unprovoked attack for the damage they had done,
      and guaranteed that no such act should ever be committed in the
      future. They also declared that the Poles, Danes, Czechs,
      Slovaks, Italians, Alsatians, and Serbs should be freed from the
      tyrannous governments which now enslaved them. In plain language
      this meant that the central powers must give back part of
      Schleswig to Denmark, allow the kingdom of Poland to be restored
      as it once had been; permit the Bohemians and Slovaks to form an
      independent nation in the midst of Austria-Hungary; allow the
      people of Alsace and Lorraine the right of returning to France;
      annex the Italians in Austria-Hungary to Italy, and permit the
      Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina to join their cousins to the
      southeast in one great Serbian nation.

      When these terms were published the German government exclaimed
      that while they had been willing to make peace and perhaps even
      give back the conquered portions of Belgium and northern France
      in return for the captured German colonies in Africa and the
      Pacific Ocean, with the payment of indemnities to Germany, now it
      was plain that the nations of the Entente intended to wipe out
      utterly the German nation and dismember the empire of
      Austria-Hungary; and that since Germany had offered her enemies
      an honorable peace and they had refused, the only thing left for
      the central powers to do was to fight to the bitter end and _use
      any means whatsoever to force their enemies to make peace_.

      In other words, here were the two conflicting claims: Germany
      said, “We have won the war. Don’t you recognize the fact that you
      have been beaten? Give us back our colonies, organize a kingdom
      of Poland, out of the part of Russian Poland which we have
      conquered, as a separate kingdom under our protection, but don’t
      expect us to join to this any part of Austrian or Prussian
      Poland. (Prussian and Austrian Poland are _ours_. You wouldn’t
      expect _us_ to give up any part of _them_, would you?) Allow us
      to keep the port of Antwerp and maintain our control over the
      Balkan peninsula. We will restore to you northern France, most of
      Belgium, and even part of Serbia. See what a generous offer we
      are making!”

      The Allied nations replied, in effect: “You now have gotten
      three-fourths of what you aimed at when you began the war. If we
      make peace now, allowing you to keep the greater part of what you
      have conquered, you will be magnanimous and give back a small
      portion of it if we in turn surrender all your lost colonies.
      Hardly! We demand, on the other hand, that you recompense, as far
      as you can, the miserable victims of your savage attack for the
      death and destruction that you have caused; that you put things
      back as you found them as nearly as possible; that you make it
      plain to us that never again will we have to be on guard against
      the possibility of a ruthless invasion by your army; that you
      give to the peoples whom you and your allies have forcibly
      annexed or retained under your rule a chance to choose their own
      form of government.”

      Then said the Germans to the world, “You see! They want to wipe
      us out of existence and cut the empire of our allies into small
      bits. Nothing is left but to fight for our existence, and, as we
      are fighting for our existence, all rules hitherto observed in
      civilized warfare are now called off!”

      In the latter part of January, 1917, the German government
      announced that, inasmuch as they had tried to bring about an
      honorable peace (which would have left them still in possession
      of three-fourths the plunder they had gained in the war) and this
      peace offer had been rejected by the Entente, all responsibility
      for anything which might happen hereafter in the war would have
      to be borne by France, England, etc., and not by Germany. It was
      stated that Germany was fighting for her existence, and that when
      one’s life is at stake all methods of fighting are permissible.
      Germany proposed, therefore, to send out her submarines and sink
      _without warning_ all merchant ships sailing toward English or
      French ports.

      In a special note to the United States, the German government
      said that once a week, at a certain time, the United States would
      be permitted to send a passenger vessel to England, provided that
      this boat were duly inspected and proved to have no munitions of
      war or supplies for England on board. It must be painted all over
      with red, white, and blue stripes and must be marked in other
      ways so that the German submarine commanders would know it. (It
      must be remembered that Germany insisted that she was fighting
      for the freedom of the seas!)

      Now, at all times, it has been recognized that the open seas are
      free to all nations for travel and commerce. This proposal, to
      sink without warning all ships on the ocean, was a bit of
      effrontery that few had imagined even the German government was
      capable of.

      President Wilson had been exceedingly patient with Germany. In
      fact, a great majority of the newspaper and magazine writers in
      the country had criticized him for being too patient. The great
      majority of the people of the United States were for peace,
      ardently. The government at Washington knew this. Nevertheless,
      this last announcement by Germany that she proposed to kill any
      American citizens who dared to travel on the sea in the
      neighborhood of England and France seemed more than a
      self-respecting nation could endure. The Secretary of State sent
      notice to Count Von Bernstorff, the German ambassador, to leave
      this country. Friendly relations between the imperial government
      of Germany and the United States of America were at an end.


        Questions for Review


          How did the submarine boat change methods of warfare?

          What is contraband of war?

          Was it right to prevent the importation of food into Germany?

          Why would a nation which manufactured a great deal of war
          material object to the sale of such material to fighting
          nations by nations at peace?

          Show how this rule, if carried out, would have a tendency to
          make all nations devote too much work to the preparation of
          war supplies.

          Show the difference between the British blockade and the
          sinking of ships by German submarines.

          Would the blowing up of American factories by paid agents of
          the German government have been a good enough reason for the
          United States to have declared war?

          How did the voyages of the _Deutschland_ prove that the
          United States wanted to be fair to both sides in the war?

          What reasons had Austria and Germany for wishing peace in
          December 1916?

          Why did President Wilson ask the warring nations to state
          their aims in the war?

          How did Germany try to justify the sinking of ships without
          warning?




Chapter XXII.
Another Crown Topples

      The unnatural alliance of the Czar and the free peoples.—The
      first Duma and the revolt of 1905.—The Zemptsvos and the people
      against the pro-German officials.—The death of Rasputin and other
      signs of unrest.—The revolution of March 1917.—The Czar becomes
      Mr. Romanoff.—Four different governments within eight
      months.—Civil war and a German effort for peace.


      It will be recalled that the great war was caused in the first
      place by the unprovoked attack of Austria on Serbia and the
      unwillingness of Russia to stand by and see her little neighbor
      crushed, and that England came in to make good her word, pledged
      to Belgium, to defend that small country from all hostile
      attacks. Thus the nations of the Entente posed before the world
      as the defenders of small nations and as champions of the rights
      of peoples to live under the form of government which they might
      choose. You will remember that when the central powers said that
      they were ready to talk peace terms the nations of the Entente
      replied that there could be no peace as long as the Danes, Poles,
      and Alsatians were forcibly held by Germany in her empire and as
      long as Austria denied the Ruthenians, Roumanians, Czechs,
      Slovaks, Serbs, and Italians in their empire the right either to
      rule themselves or to join the nations united to them by ties of
      blood and language. France and Great Britain especially were fond
      of saying that it was a war of the free peoples against those
      enslaved by military rule—a conflict between self-governed
      nations and those which were oppressing their foreign subjects.
      Replying to this the central powers would always point to Russia.
      Russia, said they, oppressed the Poles and Lithuanians, the
      Letts, the Esthonians, the Finns. She, as well as
      Austria-Hungary, has hundreds of thousands of Roumanians within
      her territories. Her people had even less political freedom than
      the inhabitants of Austria and Germany.

      The nations of the Entente did not reply to these charges of the
      Germans. There was no reply to make; it was the truth. In fact
      there is no doubt that French and British statesmen were afraid
      of a Russian victory. They did not want the war to be won by the
      one nation in their group which had a despotic form of
      government. On the other hand the high officials in Russia were
      not any too happy at the thought of their alliance with the free
      peoples of western Europe. Germany was much more their ideal of a
      country governed in the proper manner than was France. As you
      have been told, many of the nobles of the Russian court were of
      German blood and secretly desired the victory of their
      fatherland, while many Russians of the party who wanted to keep
      all power out of the hands of the common people were afraid of
      seeing Germany crushed, for fear their own people would rise up
      and demand more liberty.

      You will recall that there had been unrest in Russia at the time
      of the outbreak of the war; that strikes and labor troubles were
      threatened, so that many people thought the Czar had not been at
      all sorry to see the war break out, in order to turn the minds of
      his people away from their own wrongs.

      At the close of the disastrous war with the Japanese in 1905, the
      cry from the Russian people for a Congress, or some form of
      elective government, had been so strong that the Czar had to give
      in. So he called the first Duma. This body of men, as has been
      explained, could talk and could complain, but could pass no laws.
      The first Duma had had so many grievances and had talked so
      bitterly against the government, that it had been forced to break
      up, and Cossack troops were called in to put down riots among the
      people at St. Petersburg, which they did with great ferocity. All
      this time there had been growing, among the Russian people, a
      feeling that they were being robbed and betrayed by the grand
      dukes and high nobles. They distrusted the court. They felt that
      the Czar was well-meaning, but weak, and that he was a mere
      puppet in the hands of his German wife, his cousins the grand
      dukes, and above all a notorious monk, called Rasputin. This
      strange man, a son of the common people, had risen to great power
      in the court. He had persuaded the Empress that he alone could
      keep health and strength in the frail body of the crown prince,
      the Czarevitch, and to keep up this delusion he had bribed one of
      the ladies in waiting to pour a mild poison into the boy’s food
      whenever Rasputin was away from the court for more than a few
      days. The poor little prince, of course, was made sick;
      whereupon, the Empress would hurriedly send for Rasputin, upon
      whose arrival the Czarevitch “miraculously” got well. In this
      manner this low-born fakir obtained such a hold over the Czar and
      Czarina that he was able to appoint governors of states, put
      bishops out of their places, and even change prime ministers.
      There is no doubt that the Germans bribed him to use his
      influence in their behalf. It is a sad illustration of the
      ignorance of the Russian people as a whole, that such a man could
      have gotten so great a power on such flimsy pretenses.

      The real salvation of the Russians came through the Zemptsvos.
      These were little assemblies, one in each county in Russia,
      elected by the people to decide all local matters, like the
      building of roads, helping feed the poor, etc. They had been
      started by Czar Alexander II, in 1862. Although the court was
      rotten with graft and plotting, the Zemptsvos remained true to
      the people. They finally all united in a big confederation, and
      when the world war broke out, this body, really the only
      patriotic part of the Russian government, kept the grand dukes
      and the pro-Germans from betraying the nation into the hands of
      the enemy.

      It was a strange situation. The Russian people through the
      representatives that they elected to these little county
      assemblies were patriotically carrying out the war, while the
      grand dukes and the court nobles, who had gotten Russia into this
      trouble, were, for the most part, hampering the soldiers, either
      through grafting off the supplies and speculating in food, or
      traitorously plotting to betray their country to the Germans.
      With plenty of food in Russia, with millions of bushels of grain
      stored away by men who were holding it in order to get still
      higher prices, there was not enough for the people of Petrograd
      to eat.

      As you were told in a previous chapter, the German, Sturmer, was
      made prime minister, probably with the approval of the monk,
      Rasputin. Roumania, depending on promises of Russian help, was
      crushed between the armies of the Germans on the one side and the
      Turks and Bulgars on the other, while trainload after trainload
      of the guns and munitions which would have enabled her armies to
      stand firm was sidetracked and delayed on Russian railroads.
      “Your Majesty, we are betrayed,” said the French general who had
      been sent by the western allies to direct the army of the king of
      Roumania, when his pleas for ammunition were ignored and promise
      after promise made him by the Russian prime minister was broken.

      Of all the countries in Europe, with the possible exception of
      Turkey, Russia had been the most ignorant. The great mass of the
      people had had no schooling and were unable to read and write. It
      was easier for the grand dukes and nobles to keep down the
      peasants and to remain undisturbed in the ownership of their
      great estates if the people knew nothing more than to labor and
      suffer in silence. There was a class of Russians, however, the
      most patriotic and the best educated men in the state, who were
      working quietly, but actively, to make conditions better. Then
      too, the Nihilists, anarchists who had been working (often by
      throwing bombs) for the overthrow of the Czar, had spread their
      teachings throughout the country. Students of the universities,
      writers, musicians, and artists, had preached the doctrines of
      the rights of man. While outwardly the government appeared as
      strong as ever, really it was like a tree whose trunk has rotted
      through and through, and which needs only one vigorous push to
      send it crashing to the ground.

      It is generally in large cities that protests against the
      government are begun. For one thing, it is harder, in a great mob
      of people, to pick out the ones who are responsible for starting
      the trouble. Then again it is natural for people to make their
      protests in capital cities where the government cannot fail to
      hear them. A third reason lies in the fact that in large cities
      there are always a great number of persons who are poor and who
      are the first ones to feel the pinch of starvation, when hard
      times arise or when speculators seize upon food with the idea of
      causing the prices to rise. Starvation makes these people
      desperate—they do not care whether they live or not—and, as a
      result, they dare to oppose themselves to the police and the
      soldiers.

      There had been murmurs of discontent in Petrograd for a long
      time. This was felt not only among the common people, but also
      among the more patriotic of the upper classes. In the course of
      the winter of 1916-17, the monk, Rasputin, as a result of a plot,
      was invited to the home of a grand duke, a cousin of the Czar.
      There a young prince, determined to free Russia of this pest,
      shot him to death and his body was thrown upon the ice of the
      frozen Neva.

      About this time the lack of food in Petrograd, the result largely
      of speculation and “cornering the market,” had become so serious
      that the government thought it wise to call in several regiments
      of Cossacks to reinforce the police.

      These Cossacks are wild tribesmen of the plains who enjoy a
      freedom not shared by any other class in Russia. They are
      warriors by trade and their sole duty consists in offering
      themselves, fully equipped, whenever the government has need of
      their services in war. They were of a different race, originally,
      than the Russians themselves, although by inter-marrying they now
      have some Slavic blood in their veins. Their appearance upon the
      streets of Petrograd was almost always a threat to the people.
      Enjoying freedom themselves and liking nothing better than the
      practice of their trade—fighting—they had had little or no
      sympathy with the wrongs of the populace, and so were the
      strongest supporters of the despotic rule of the Czar. At times
      when the Czar did not dare to trust his regular soldiers to
      enforce order in Petrograd or Moscow, for fear the men would
      refuse to fire upon their own relatives in the mob, the Cossacks
      could always be counted upon to ride their horses fearlessly
      through the people, sabering to right and left those who refused
      to disperse.

[Illustration: Crowd in Petrograd during the Revolution]

      The second week of March, 1917, found crowds in Petrograd
      protesting against the high prices of food and forming in long
      lines to demand grain of the government. As day succeeded day,
      the crowds grew larger and bolder in their murmurings. Cossacks
      were sent into the city, but for some strange reason they did not
      cause fear as they had in times past. Their manner was different.
      Instead of drawing their sabers, they good naturedly joked with
      the people as they rode among them to disperse the mobs, and were
      actually cheered at times by the populace. The crowds grew larger
      and more boisterous. Regiment after regiment of troops was called
      in. The police fired upon the people when the latter refused to
      go home. Then a strange thing happened. A Cossack, his eyes
      flashing fire, rode at full tilt up the street toward a policeman
      who was firing on the mob, and shot him dead on the spot. A shout
      went up from the people: “The Cossacks are with us!” New
      regiments of troops were brought in. The men who composed them
      knew that they were going to be ordered to fire upon their own
      kind of people—their own kin perhaps, whose only crime was that
      they were hungry and had dared to say so. One regiment turned
      upon its officers, refusing to obey them, and made them
      prisoners. Another and another joined the revolting forces. It
      was like the scenes in Paris on the 14th of July, 1789. The
      people had gathered to protest, and, hardly knowing what they
      did, they had turned their protests into a revolution. Regiments
      loyal to the Czar were hastily summoned to fire upon their
      revolting comrades. They hesitated. Leaders of the mob rushed
      over to them, pleading with them not to fire. A few scattering
      volleys were followed by a lull, and, then with a shout of joy,
      the troops last remaining loyal threw down their arms and rushed
      across to embrace the revolutionists. At a great meeting of the
      mob a group of soldiers and working men was picked out to call
      upon the Duma and ask this body to form a temporary government.
      Another group was appointed to wait upon Nicholas II and tell him
      that henceforth he was not the Czar of all the Russias, but plain
      Nicholas Romanoff. Messengers were sent to the fighting fronts to
      inform the generals that they were no longer to take orders from
      the Czar, but from the representatives of the free people of
      Russia. With remarkable calmness, the nation accepted the new
      situation. Within two days a new government had been formed,
      composed of some of the best men in the great empire. The Czar
      signed a paper giving up the throne in behalf of himself and his
      young son and nominating his brother Michael to take his place.
      Michael, however, was too wise. He notified the people that he
      would accept the crown only if they should vote to give it to
      him; and this the people would not do.

[Illustration: Revolutionary soldiers holding a conference in the Duma]

      The government, as formed at first, with its ministers of
      different departments like the American cabinet, was composed of
      citizens of the middle classes—lawyers, professors of the
      universities, land-owners, merchants were represented—and at the
      head of the ministry was a prince. This arrangement did not
      satisfy the rabble. The radical socialists, most of whom owned no
      property and wanted all wealth divided up among all the people,
      were not much happier to be ruled by the moderately well-to-do
      than they were to submit to the rule of the nobles. The council
      of workingmen and soldiers, meeting in the great hall which had
      formerly housed the Duma, began to take upon themselves the
      powers of government. Someone proclaimed that now the Russian
      people should have peace, and when Prof. Milioukoff, foreign
      minister for the new government, assured France and England that
      Russia would stick by them to the last, a howling crowd of
      workingmen threatened to mob him. “No annexations and no
      indemnities,” was the cry of the socialists. “Let us go back to
      conditions as they were before the war. Let each nation bear the
      burden of its own losses and let us have peace.” After a stormy
      session, the new government agreed to include in its numbers
      several representatives of the soldiers and workingmen. Prof.
      Milioukoff resigned and Alexander Kerensky, a radical young
      lawyer, became the real leader of the Russian government.

[Illustration: Kerensky (standing in automobile) reviewing Russian
troops]

      Germany and Austria, meanwhile, had eagerly seized the advantage
      offered by Russia’s internal troubles. Their troops were ordered
      to make friends with the Russians in the trenches opposite. They
      played eagerly upon the new Russian feeling of the brotherhood of
      man and freedom and equality, to do away with fighting on the
      east, thus being able to transfer to the western front some of
      their best regiments. As a result the French and English, after
      driving the Germans back for many miles in northern France were
      at last brought to a standstill. The burden of carrying the whole
      war seemed about to fall more heavily than ever upon the armies
      in the west. Talk of a separate peace between Russia and the
      central powers grew stronger and stronger. The Russian troops
      felt that they had been fighting the battles of the Czar and the
      grand dukes and they saw no reason why they should go on shooting
      their brother workingmen in Germany.

      At this point Kerensky, who had been made minister of war, set
      out to visit the armies in the field. Arriving at the battle
      grounds of eastern Galicia he made rousing speeches to the
      soldiers and actually led them in person toward the German
      trenches. The result was a vigorous attack all along the line
      under Generals Brusiloff and Korniloff which swept the Germans
      and Austrians back for many miles, and threatened for a time to
      recapture Lemberg. German spies, however, and agents of the peace
      party were busy among the Russian soldiers. They soon persuaded a
      certain division to stop fighting and retreat. The movement to
      the rear, begun by these troops, carried others with it, and for
      a time it seemed as though the whole Russian army was going to
      pieces. Ammunition was not supplied to the soldiers. The
      situation was serious and called for a strong hand. Kerensky was
      made prime minister and the members of the government and the
      council of workingmen and soldiers voted him almost the powers of
      a Czar. He was authorized to give orders that any deserters or
      traitors be shot, if need be, without trial. Under his rule the
      Russian army began to re-form, and the situation improved.

      In November, 1917, a faction of the extreme Socialists called the
      Bolsheviki (Bŏl-shĕ-vï′kï) won over the garrisons of
      Petrograd and Moscow, seized control of the government, forcing
      Kerensky to flee, and threatened to make peace with Germany.
      These people are, for the most part, the poor citizens of large
      cities. They have few followers outside of the city population,
      for the average Russian in the country is a land owner, and he
      does not take kindly to the idea of losing his property or
      dividing it with some landless beggar from Petrograd.

      The revolt of the Bolsheviki, then, simply added to the confusion
      in the realm of Russia. That unhappy country was torn apart by
      the fights of the different factions. Finland demanded its
      independence, and German spies and agents encouraged the
      Ruthenians living in a great province called the Ukraine, to do
      the same. The Cossacks withdrew to the country to the north of
      the Crimean peninsula, and the only Russian armies that kept on
      fighting were those in Turkey. These forces had been gathered
      largely from the states between the Black and Caspian Seas.
      Having suffered persecution in the old days, they had hated the
      Turks for ages and needed no orders from Petrograd to induce them
      to take revenge.

      Finally the Bolshevik government agreed to a peace with the
      central powers which gave Germany and Austria everything that
      they wanted. The Russian armies were disbanded and the Germans
      and Austrians were free to turn their fighting men back to the
      western front. In the meantime, the Ruthenian republic, now
      called the Ukraine, was allowed by the Bolsheviki to make a
      separate peace with Germany and Austria. The troops of the
      Germans and Austrians began joyously to pillage both Russia and
      the Ukraine, hunting for the food that was so scarce in the
      central empires. However, for a whole year hardly anybody in
      Russia had been willing to do a stroke of work. The fields had
      gone untilled while the peasants, drunk with their new freedom,
      and without a care for the morrow, lived off the grain that had
      been saved up during the past years. As a result, whatever grain
      the enemy found proved spoiled and mouldy, hardly fit to feed to
      hogs. As the Germans went about, taking anything that they wished
      and as food grew scarce, the unrest in Russia grew greater.

      The Bolshevik government had not set up a democracy—a government
      where all the people had equal rights: they had set up a tyranny
      of the lower classes. The small land owners, the tradesmen, the
      middle classes were not allowed any voice in the government. When
      the first National Assembly or Congress was elected and called
      together, the Bolsheviki finding that they did not control a
      majority of its members, disbanded it by force.

      Little by little people began to oppose this rule. They objected
      to being robbed of their rights by the rabble just as much as by
      the Czar.

      When the Russian armies were disbanded, there were some troops
      that refused to throw down their arms. Among them were the
      regiments of Czecho-Slovaks. These men had been forced, against
      their will, to serve in the Austrian army. They were from the
      northern part of the Austrian empire, Bohemia and Moravia. They
      were Slavs, related to the Russians, speaking a language very
      much like Russian, hating the Germans of Austria and anxious to
      free their country from the empire of the Hapsburgs. When General
      Brusiloff made his big attack in June, 1916, these men had
      deserted the Austrian army and re-enlisted as Russians. They
      could not get back to Austria for the Austrians would shoot them
      as deserters. Of course, the Austrian and the German generals
      would make no peace with them. Therefore, this army, 200,000
      strong, kept their own officers and their order and their arms
      and refused to have anything to do with the cowardly peace made
      by the Bolsheviki. Several thousand of them made their way across
      Siberia, across the Pacific Ocean, across America, across the
      Atlantic to France and Italy, where they are fighting by the
      thousands in the armies of the Entente. The main body of them,
      however, are still in Russia (August 1, 1918), holding the great
      Siberian railway, fully ready to renew the war against the
      central powers at any time when the patriotic Russians will rise
      and help them. The problem of how to get aid to the Czechs
      without angering the Russian people is a big one for the allied
      statesmen.

      The trouble with the Russians is that they are not educated; the
      result of this is that they readily believe the lies of spies and
      tricksters, that would never deceive an educated man.


        Questions for Review


          Was the Russian government as harsh as that of Germany?

          Why was Russia a source of weakness to the Entente?

          Why was Rasputin killed?

          Why did the Czars prefer the Cossacks?

          What classes fought after the Czar’s downfall?

          How did the central powers take advantage of Russia’s
          troubles?

          How did the peace with the Bolsheviki help Germany?

          Explain where the Czecho-Slovak army came from.




Chapter XXIII.
The United States at War—Why?

      Germany throws to the winds all rules of civilized war.—Dr.
      Zimmermann’s famous note.—Congress declares war.—Other nations
      follow our example.—The plight of Holland, Denmark, and
      Norway.—German arguments for submarine warfare shown to be
      groundless.—German agents blow up American factories.—German
      threats against the United States.—Germany and the Monroe
      Doctrine.—A government whose deeds its people cannot
      question.—Why American troops were sent to Europe.—Why the war
      lords wanted peace in January, 1918.


      In the meantime, two months had elapsed from the time when the
      German ambassador, Count Von Bernstorff, had been sent home by
      the United States. The Germans, true to their word, had begun
      their campaign of attacking and sinking without warning ships of
      all kinds in the waters surrounding Great Britain and France.
      Even the hospital ships, marked plainly with the red cross, and
      boats carrying food to the starving people of Belgium, were
      torpedoed without mercy. The curious state of public feeling in
      Germany is well illustrated by an incident which happened at this
      time. It so happened that an English hospital ship, crossing the
      channel, was laden with about as many German wounded as British.
      These men had been left helpless on the field of battle after the
      Germans had retreated, and had been picked up and cared for by
      the British, along with their own troops. A German submarine with
      its deadly torpedo sent this vessel to the bottom. The wounded
      men, German and British alike, sank without the slightest chance
      for their lives. A burst of indignation came from all over
      Germany against the “unspeakable brutality” of the British who
      dared to expose German wounded men to the danger of travel on the
      open sea! The British were warned that if this happened again the
      Germans would make reprisals upon British prisoners in their
      hands.

[Illustration: Flight from a Torpedoed Ocean Liner]

      Week followed week and still there was no declaration of war
      between the United States and Germany. But in the latter part of
      February, the United States government made public a note which
      its secret agents had stopped from being delivered to the German
      ambassador in Mexico. It was signed by Dr. Zimmermann, German
      minister of foreign affairs, and it requested the ambassador as
      soon as it was certain that there would be an outbreak of war
      with the United States as a result of the sinking of ships
      without warning, to propose to Mexico that she ally herself with
      Germany. “Together we will make war on the United States,” said
      Dr. Zimmermann, “and together we will make peace. Mexico will
      receive as her reward her lost provinces of Arizona, Texas, and
      New Mexico.” “Ask the Mexican government,” said Dr. Zimmermann,
      “to propose to the Japanese that Japan break away from her
      alliance with England and join Mexico and Germany in an attack
      upon the United States.”

      The publication of this note made a tremendous change in feeling
      in the United States. Up to this time a great portion of the
      people had felt that perhaps we were hasty in breaking off
      relations with Germany, and in their earnest desire for peace had
      been willing to put up with injury and even insults on the part
      of the Germans, excusing them on the grounds of their military
      necessity. The publication of Dr. Zimmermann’s note, however,
      showed the people of the United States the true temper of the
      government at Berlin. It showed them that the German war lords
      had no respect for anything but brute force, that the language of
      cannon was the only language which they could understand, and
      that any further patience on the part of this country would be
      looked upon as weakness and treated with scorn and contempt.

      On the sixth of April, 1917, Congress, called into session by the
      President, by an overwhelming vote declared that a state of war
      existed between the United States of America and the Imperial
      Government of Germany.

      At this point it may be well to sum up the causes that brought
      the United States into the great war. These causes may be given
      under two heads: (1) the war waged upon us by submarines; and (2)
      the German plots and threats against our country at a time when
      we were at peace with them. The latter, as given in pages to
      follow, comprise: (a) The Kaiser’s threat, (b) Admiral Von
      Tirpitz’s threat, (c) the blowing up of American factories and
      death of American workingmen, (d) the attempt to get us into war
      with Japan and Mexico, and (e) the spending of the German
      government’s money in an attempt to make our congressmen vote as
      Germany wished.

[Illustration: President Wilson reading his War Message to Congress]

      The Submarine War

      Up to the time when the United States declared war, two hundred
      and twenty-six Americans, men, women, and infants, had met their
      death through the sinking of ships, torpedoed without warning,
      under orders of the German government. These people were
      peaceable travelers, going about their business on the high seas
      in passenger steamers owned by private companies. According to
      the law observed by all nations up to this time there was no more
      reason for them to fear danger from the Germans than if they had
      been traveling on trains in South America or Spain, or any other
      country not at war. The attack upon these ships, to say nothing
      about the brutal and inhuman method of sinking them without
      warning, was an act of war on the part of Germany against any
      country whose citizens happened to be traveling on these ocean
      steamers. That the action of the United States in calling the
      submarine attacks an act of war was only justice is proved by the
      fact that several other nations, who had nothing to gain by going
      to war and had earnestly desired to remain neutral, took the same
      stand. Brazil, Cuba, and several other South and Central American
      republics found that they could not maintain their honor without
      declaring war on Germany. German ambassadors and ministers have
      been dismissed from practically every capital in Spanish America.

      In Europe, also, neutral nations like Holland, Denmark, and
      Norway saw their ships sunk and their citizens drowned. In spite
      of their wrongs, however, the first two did not dare to declare
      war on Germany, as the Germans would be able to throw a strong
      army across the border and overrun each of these two little
      countries before the allies could come to their help. With the
      fate of Belgium and Serbia before them, the Danes and the Dutch
      swallowed their pride and sat helplessly by while Germany killed
      their sailors and defenseless passengers. After the failure of
      the Entente to protect Serbia and Roumania, no one could blame
      Denmark and Holland.

      Norway, too, was exposed to danger of a raid by the German fleet.
      Commanding the Skager Rack and Cattegat as they did, with the
      Kiel Canal connecting them, the Germans could bombard the cities
      on the Norwegian coast or even land an army to invade the
      country. The three little countries together do not have an army
      any larger than that of Roumania, and it would have been out of
      the question for them to declare war on Germany without seeing
      their whole territory overrun and laid waste.

      Nevertheless public opinion in Norway was so strong against
      Germany that the Norwegian government, on November first, 1917
      sent a vigorous protest to Berlin, closing with these words:

      “The Norwegian government will not again state its views, as it
      has already done so on several occasions, as to the violation of
      the principles of the freedom of the high seas incurred by the
      proclamation of large tracts of the ocean as a war zone and by
      the sinking of neutral merchant ships not carrying contraband.

      “It has made a profound impression on the Norwegian people that
      not only have German submarines continued to sink peaceful
      neutral merchant ships, paying no attention to the fate of their
      crews, but that even German warships adopted the same tactics.
      The Norwegian government decided to send this note in order to
      bring to the attention of the German government the impression
      these acts have made upon the Norwegian people.”

      The two arguments that the Germans used in trying to justify
      themselves for their inhuman methods with the submarine are: (1)
      that on these ships which were sunk were supplies for the French
      and British armies, the arrival of which would aid them in
      killing Germans, and (2) that the English, by their blockade of
      Germany, were doing something which was contrary to the laws of
      nations and starving German women and children, and, therefore,
      since England was breaking some rules of the war game, Germany
      had the right to go ahead and break others.

      The trade of the United States in selling war supplies to France
      and England was a sore spot with Germany. They claimed that the
      United States was unfair in selling to the Entente and not to
      them. Of course, this was foolish, as has been pointed out, for
      the United States was just as ready to sell to Germany as to the
      Allies, as was shown by the two voyages of the _Deutschland_. If
      our government had forbidden our people to sell war supplies at
      all, and if other neutral countries had done the same thing, then
      the result would be that all wars would be won by the country
      which made the biggest preparation for war in times of peace. A
      law passed by neutral countries forbidding their merchants from
      selling munitions would leave a non-military nation, which had
      not been getting ready for war, absolutely at the mercy of a
      neighbor who for years had been storing up shells and guns for
      the purpose of unrighteous conquest. So clear was this right to
      sell munitions that Germany did not dare protest, but ordered
      Austria to do so instead. In reply, our government was able to
      point out cases where Austrian firms had sold guns, etc., to
      Great Britain during the Boer War as you have already been told,
      and Austria had no answer to give.

      What is more, at all of the meetings of the diplomats of
      different nations at the Hague, called for the purpose of trying
      to prevent future wars, if possible, or at least to make them
      more humane and less brutal to the women and children and others
      who were not actually fighting, Germany had always upheld the
      right of neutral nations to sell arms. Moreover, her
      representatives had fought strongly against any proposals to
      settle disputes by arbitration and peaceful agreements. At a time
      when many European nations signed treaties with the United States
      agreeing to allow one year to elapse between a dispute which
      might lead to war and the actual declaring of war itself, Germany
      positively refused to consider such an agreement.

      As for the English blockade, England was doing no more to Germany
      than Germany or any other country would have done to England if
      the English navy had not been so strong. In our own Civil War the
      North kept up a like blockade of the South and no nation
      protested against it, for it was recognized as an entirely legal
      act. In the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, the Germans were
      blockading the city of Paris and the country around it. The
      Frenchmen tried to send their women and children outside the
      lines to be fed. The Germans drove them back at the point of the
      bayonet, and told them that they might “fry in their own fat.”
      According to the laws of war they were perfectly justified in
      what they did. Then, too, the English blockade, which stopped
      ships which were found to be loaded with supplies for Germany and
      took them peaceably to an English port, where it was decided how
      much the owners should be paid for the cargoes, was a very
      different matter from the brutal drowning of helpless men, women,
      and children by the German submarines. In one case, owners of the
      goods were caused a great deal of annoyance and in some instances
      did not get their money promptly. On the other side, there was
      murder of the most fiendish kind, an act of war against neutral
      states.

      Plots and Threats Against the United States

[Illustration: American Grain Set on Fire by German Agents]

      Let us turn now to the second cause for grievance that the United
      States had against Germany. At a time when American citizens who
      sympathized with Germany were subscribing millions of dollars for
      the relief of the German wounded, it is strongly suspected that
      this was the very money, which, collected by the German
      government’s own agents, was being spent in plots involving the
      destroying of the property of some American citizens and the
      death of others. The German ambassador and his helpers were
      hiring men to blow up American factories, to destroy railroad
      bridges, and to kill Americans who were making war supplies for
      the armies of Europe. Factory after factory was blown up with
      considerable loss of life. Bombs, with clock work attachment to
      explode them at a certain time, were found on ships sailing for
      Europe. Money was poured out in great quantities to influence
      members of the United States Congress to vote against the
      shipment of war supplies to France and England. Revolts paid for
      by German money were organized in Mexico and the Islands of the
      West Indies. For a long time there had been a series of stories
      and newspaper and magazine articles trying to prove to the
      American people that Japan was planning to make war on us. The
      same sort of stories appeared in Japan, persuading the Japanese
      that they were in danger of being attacked by the United States.
      It now appears that the great part of these stories were started
      by the Germans, who hoped to get us into a war with Japan and
      profit by the ill will which must follow between the two
      countries.

      At first, Americans were inclined to think that all of these
      things could be traced to German-Americans, whose zeal for their
      Fatherland caused them to go too far. But it has been proved
      beyond a doubt that all of these acts, which were really acts of
      war against the United States, were ordered by the government at
      Berlin and paid for by German money, or by American money which
      had been contributed for the benefit of the German Red Cross
      service.

      In addition to these facts there were threats against the United
      States which could not be ignored. The Kaiser had told our
      ambassador at Berlin, Mr. Gerard, that “America had better beware
      after this war” for he “would stand no nonsense from her.”
      Admiral Von Tirpitz, the German Secretary of the Navy, also told
      Mr. Gerard that Germany needed the coast of Belgium as a place
      from which to start her “future war on England and America.”

      American statesmen were seriously concerned at threats of this
      kind, for they knew that the government in power at Berlin could
      absolutely command its people, and by forbidding certain kinds of
      news and substituting other things in the German newspapers could
      make the German people think anything which the war lords wished
      them to think. Thus there was great danger that, having won the
      war from the Entente or having stood them off successfully until
      the fight was declared a draw, Germany would next attack the
      United States with the idea of collecting from this comparatively
      defenseless and very rich country the huge indemnity which she
      had planned to assess upon France and Russia. With this money and
      with the breaking down of the Monroe Doctrine, Germany could set
      up a great empire in South America which would make her almost as
      powerful as she would have been had her first plans for crushing
      France and Russia been successful.

      You will recall, from your study of United States history, that
      President Monroe had warned European governments to keep their
      hands off South America, for the United States would act as big
      brother to any of the little republics there who might be
      attacked by a European foe. Germany in recent years has resented
      this very vigorously. There were nearly half a million Germans in
      the southern part of Brazil. Uruguay and the Argentine Republic
      also had large German settlements. If the Monroe Doctrine were
      out of the way, Germany hoped that she would be able to get a
      footing in these countries in which she had colonists and
      gradually to gain control of the entire country. In the fall of
      1917 there was uncovered a plot among the German residents of
      certain states in the southern part of Brazil to make this
      territory a part of the German Colonial Empire. This discovery,
      along with the sinking of Brazilian ships by submarines, drove
      Brazil into war with Germany.

      To sum up: The United States entered the war: first, because
      German submarines were killing her peaceful citizens and stopping
      her lawful trade; second, because paid agents of the German
      government were destroying American property in the United
      States, killing American citizens, and creating discord in our
      political life; they were pretending to be friendly and yet were
      trying to enlist Japan and Mexico in war against us; third, for
      the reason that because of Germany’s threats and her well-known
      policy in South America there was grave danger that it would be
      our turn next if the central powers should come out of the
      European war uncrushed.

      The American government has made it plain that we are not moved
      by any desire for gain for ourselves. We have nothing to win
      through the war except the assurance that our nation will be
      safe. If Germany had a government which the people controlled,
      then the United States could trust promises of that government.
      But, as President Wilson has pointed out, no one can trust the
      present government of Germany, for it is responsible to no one
      for what it does. It has torn up sacred promises, which its
      Chancellor called “scraps of paper”; it has broken its word; it
      has ordered “acts of frightfulness” in the lands which it has
      conquered and on the high seas, with the idea of brutally forcing
      its will upon enemies and neutral countries alike. It has
      deceived its own people, persuading them that they were attacked
      by France and Russia, while all the time it was plotting to rule
      the world through force of arms.

      President Wilson has said that the object of the United States in
      this war is “to make the world safe for democracy.” This means
      that a free people, who have no desire to interfere with any of
      their neighbors or to make conquests by force of arms, shall be
      allowed to live their lives without preparation for war and
      without fear that they may be attacked by a nation with military
      rulers.

      We have seen how France, attacked in 1870 and threatened by
      Germany in 1875, 1905, of war and 1911 was obliged to match gun
      for gun and ship for ship with her warlike neighbor to the east.
      The dread of an attack by the military party of Germany hung over
      France like a shadow throughout forty-three years of a peace
      which was only a little better than war, because of the vast
      amount of money that had to be spent and the attention that had
      to be given to preparation for the war that all felt would one
      day come.

      When once the German people have a controlling voice in the
      government, then, and not till then, can other governments
      believe the word of the statesmen at Berlin. But at present the
      citizens of Germany have little real power. For, while they can
      elect members of the Reichstag, the Reichstag can pass no laws,
      for above this body is the national council, whose members are
      appointed by the Kaiser and the other kings and grand dukes. The
      power of declaring war and making peace lies practically in the
      hands of the Kaiser alone, and at any moment he can set aside any
      of Germany’s laws, under the plea that “military necessity” calls
      for certain things to be done. In this way, he has thrown into
      prison those who dared to speak against the war, and has either
      suppressed newspapers or ordered them to print only what he
      wished printed; thus the German people have let him do their
      thinking for them.

      They are a docile people. One of the first words that a German
      baby is taught to say is “Kaiser,” and all of the schools, which
      are run by the government, have taught nothing but respect for
      the present form of government, and almost a worship of the
      Kaiser himself. What it is hoped that this war will bring about
      is the freeing of the German people from their blind obedience to
      the military power, which for its own glory and pride has hurled
      them by the millions to death.

      The United States has adopted plans in this war which are very
      different from any hitherto used. With the exception of some
      troops raised for a few months during the dark days of the War of
      the Rebellion, all of our armies have been recruited from men who
      enlisted of their own free will. In this great conflict in which
      we are now engaged, the government has drawn its soldiers by lot
      from a list of all the young men in the country between the ages
      of twenty-one and thirty-one. Thus, rich and poor alike are
      fighting in our ranks.

      For the first time in our history our troops have been sent to
      fight on another continent. Many persons have felt that we should
      keep our young men at home and wait for Germany to cross the
      Atlantic in order to attack us. Our statesmen, on the other hand,
      saw that the peace of the world was at stake. If Germany,
      Austria, and Turkey, the three countries whose people have no
      voice in the question of peace or war, come out of this conflict
      victorious, or even undefeated, the world will see again the mad
      race for armaments which resulted in the war of 1914. If, on the
      other hand, the people of these nations realize that it is true
      today, as in the olden times, that those people who take up the
      sword shall perish by the sword, they will overthrow their
      leaders and agree to disarm and live at peace in future with
      their neighbors.

      The military parties in Austria and Germany wanted war. The only
      way by which these people can be convinced is by brute force.
      When they realize that they have not gained by war, but have
      lost, not only a great deal of their wealth, through the terrific
      cost of the war, but the friendship and respect of the whole
      world, when they realize that the nations allied against them
      will push the war relentlessly until these military chiefs
      confess that they never want to hear the word “war” again, then,
      and only then, will they be ready to throw down their arms and
      agree to join a league of the nations whose object shall be to
      prevent any future wars.

      As long as Germany was victorious and her people thought that
      they were going to come out of the conflict with added territory
      and big money indemnities, war was popular. But with the flower
      of their young men slain, and the prospect of conquest and
      plunder growing smaller and smaller with each passing month, the
      Germans, too, are beginning to hate the thought of war.

      The American army can give the finishing touch to the German
      downfall along the western front, and the sooner the Germans
      realize that they cannot win from the rapidly growing number of
      their enemies, the sooner will come the the end of this greatest
      tragedy in the civilized world.

      The war lords knew that if the war lasted long enough they must
      be defeated and they were striving hard all through the years
      1916 and 1917 to make peace while they had possession of enough
      of the enemy’s lands so that they could show their own people
      some gain in territory to pay them back for their terrible
      sufferings. The German war debt was so great that the war lords
      dreaded to face their own people after the latter realized that
      they had been deceived as well as defeated. The government had
      told them (1) that England, France, and Russia forced this war
      upon Germany, (2) that the German armies would win the war in
      short order, and (3) that a huge sum of money would be collected
      from France, Belgium, and Russia to pay the expenses of the war.
      The war lords dreaded to think of the time when their people,
      knowing that they themselves will have to bear the fearful burden
      of war debt, learned also that the whole tragedy was forced upon
      the world by the pride and ambition of their own leaders. By
      Christmas 1917, the Kaiser was once more hinting that Germany was
      ready to talk peace. He was wise, for if peace could have been
      made then it would have left Germany absolute mistress of all of
      middle Europe. Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey were more under the
      control of the Kaiser and his war lords than were parts of his
      own empire like Bavaria and Saxony. In Belgium, Serbia, Poland,
      Lithuania, Roumania, and northern France the central powers had
      over forty millions of people who were compelled to work for them
      like slaves. The plunder collected from these countries ran into
      billions of dollars. The road to the east, cut asunder by the
      results of the second Balkan war (see map), had been forced open
      by the rush of the victorious German armies through Serbia and
      Roumania. A peace at this time would have been a German victory.
      With the drain on the man power of the central powers, with
      dissatisfaction growing among their people, with the steady
      increase in the armies of the United States, time was fighting on
      the side of the allies.


        Questions for Review


          Does the Zimmermann note show that the German government
          understood conditions in Mexico and the United States?

          Why did the Zimmermann note have so strong an effect upon
          American public opinion?

          What were the steps by which the United States was forced
          into war?

          Why did not Holland and Denmark declare war on Germany also?

          What was the main difference between the English blockade of
          Germany and the German submarine war on England?

          Was the German government responsible for the acts of its
          agents in this country?

          What is the Monroe Doctrine?

          Why could not the Imperial Government of Germany be trusted?

          How was this war different for the United States from any
          previous conflict?

          What was the greatest obstacle to peace?




Chapter XXIV.
Europe as it Should Be

      Natural boundaries of nations in Europe.—Peoples outside of the
      nations with whom they belong.—The mixture of peoples in
      Austria-Hungary, and Russia.—The British Isles.—The Balkan
      states.—Recent changes in the map.—The wrongs done by mighty
      nations upon their weak neighbors bring no happiness.


      We have several times shown you, in the course of this little
      history, maps drawn by kings and marked off by diplomacy and
      through bloodshed. Let us now examine a map of Europe divided
      according to the race and language of its various peoples. It
      often happens that the boundaries set by nature, like seas, high
      mountains, and broad rivers, divide one people from another. It
      is natural that the people of Italy, for instance, hemmed in by
      the Alps to the north and by the water on all other sides, should
      grow to be like each other and come to talk a common language.

      In the same way, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Spain, France,
      Great Britain, and Switzerland have boundaries largely set by
      nature. On this account, it is not surprising that the map of
      “Europe as it should be” which unites people of the same blood
      under the same government, agrees rather closely in some places
      with the map of Europe as it is.

      The boundaries of the kingdom of Spain and those of the kingdom
      of Portugal fit pretty closely the countries inhabited by Spanish
      and Portuguese peoples.

      There are a few Italians in France, also a few Walloons and
      Flemish. Otherwise France is largely a unit. Some of the French
      people are found in Switzerland and others in that part of the
      German Empire which was taken away from France after the
      Franco-Prussian war of 1870.

      The Danes are not all living in Denmark. A great many of them
      inhabit the two provinces of Schleswig and Holstein which were
      torn away from Denmark by Prussia in 1864. The high mountains of
      the Scandinavian peninsula separate the Norwegians from the
      Swedes about as well as they divide the countries geographically.

      The Hollanders make a nation by themselves, but part of the
      northwestern corner of the German Empire is also peopled by
      Dutch. The territory around Aix-La-Chapelle, although part of the
      German Empire, is inhabited by Walloons, a Celtic people who
      speak a sort of French. Belgium, small as it is, contains two
      different types of population, the Walloons and the Flemish.

      The German Empire does not include all of the Germans. A great
      many of these are to be found in Austria proper, Styria
      (sty̆′rĭȧ), and the northern Tyrol (ty̆′rol) (western counties
      of the Austrian Empire), as well as in the eastern half of
      Switzerland and the edges of Bohemia. Germans are also to be
      found in parts of Hungary; and in the Baltic provinces of Russia
      there are over two million of them.

      All of the Italians are not in the kingdom of Italy. The Island
      of Corsica, which belongs to France, is inhabited by Italians.
      The province of Trentino (trĕn ti′nō) (the southern half of the
      Austrian Tyrol) is inhabited almost entirely by Italians, as is
      also Istria, which includes the cities of Trieste, Pola, and
      Fiume. Certain islands off the coast of Dalmatia are also largely
      Italian in their population.

      The republic of Switzerland is inhabited by French, Italians, and
      Germans. Besides the languages of these three nations, a fourth
      tongue is spoken there. In the valleys of the southeastern corner
      of Switzerland are found people who talk a corruption of the old
      Latin, which they call Romaunsch or Romansh.

      Austria-Hungary, as has already been said, is a jumble of
      languages and nationalities. This empire includes nearly a
      million Italians in its southwestern corner, and three million
      Roumanians in Transylvania. It has as its subjects in Bosnia and
      Herzegovina several million Serbians. In Slavonia (slȧ vō′nĭ
      ȧ), Croatia (crō a′tia), and Dalmatia (dăl mā tia), it has
      two or three million Slavs, who are closely related to the
      Serbians. In the north, its government rules over several million
      Czechs (chĕcks) (Bohemians and Moravians) who strongly desire to
      have a country of their own. It controls also two million
      Slovaks, cousins of the Czechs, who also would like their
      independence. In the county of Carniola (car ni ō′lȧ), there
      are one and a half million Slovenes, another Slavic people
      belonging either by themselves or with their cousins, the
      Croatians and Serbs.

      The German Empire includes several hundred thousand Frenchmen,
      who want to get back under French control, a million or two
      Danes, who want once more to belong to Denmark, and several
      million Poles, who desire to see their country again united.

[Illustration: Messen Europe as It Should Be]

      Russia rules over a mixture of peoples almost as numerous as
      those composing Austria-Hungary. The Russians themselves are not
      one people. The Red Russians or Ruthenians are quite different
      from the people of Little Russia, and they in turn are different
      from the people of Great Russia, to the north. The Baltic
      provinces are peopled, not by Russians, but by two million
      Germans, an equal number of Letts and a somewhat greater number
      of Lithuanians. North of Riga are to be found the Esthonians,
      cousins of the Finns. North-west of Petrograd lies Finland, whose
      people, with the Esthonians, do not belong to the Indo-European
      family, and who would dearly love to have a separate government
      of their own.

[Illustration: Polish children]

      You have already been told in Chapter V that the country of the
      English, if limited by race, does not include Wales, Cornwall, or
      the north of Scotland, but instead takes in the north-eastern
      part of Ireland and the southern half of the former Scottish
      kingdom.

      Turning to the Balkan states, we find our hardest task, for the
      reason that peoples of different nationalities are hopelessly
      mixed and jumbled. There are Turks and Greeks mixed in with the
      Roumanians and Bulgarians in the Dobrudja. Parts of southern
      Serbia and portions of Grecian Macedonia are inhabited by people
      of Bulgarian descent. Transylvania, with the exception of the two
      little mixture islands mentioned before is inhabited by
      Roumanians. The southern half of the Austrian province of
      Bukowina also ought to be part of Roumania, as should the greater
      part of the Russian state of Bessarabia. Whereas Roumania now has
      a population of 7,000,000, there are between five and six million
      of her people who live outside her present boundaries.

      The shores and islands of the Aegean Sea should belong to Greece.
      Greek people have inhabited them for thousands of years. The
      Albanians are a separate people, while Montenegro and Bosnia
      should be joined to Serbia.

      Turn back to previous maps of Europe in this volume and you will
      see that most of the changes that have been made of late years
      are bringing boundaries nearer where they should be. You will
      also note that wherever there have been recent changes contrary
      to this plan, they have always resulted in more bloodshed. The
      partition of Poland, the annexation of Schleswig, Alsace, and
      Lorraine to Germany, the division of Bulgarian Macedonia between
      Serbia and Greece, and the seizure of Bosnia and Herzegovina by
      Austria are good examples.


        Questions for Review


          What countries of Europe have fairly well-marked natural
          boundaries?

          Who are the Walloons?

          Who are the Romansh people?

          To what other people are the Esthonians related?

[Illustration: The price of the war]




Chapter XXV.
The Cost of It All

      What war debts mean—The devastation of farms and
      villages—Diseases which travel with war—The men picked to die
      first—The survivors and their children—The effect on France of
      Napoleon’s wars—What Hannibal did to Rome—What happened to the
      Franks—Sweden before and after the wars of Charles XII—Europe at
      the close of the Great War


      In the meanwhile, all the countries in the war were rapidly
      rushing toward bankruptcy. England spent $30,000,000 a day;
      France, Germany, and Austria nearly as much apiece. Thus in the
      course of a year, a debt of $300 was piled upon every man, woman,
      and child in the British kingdom. The average family consists of
      five persons, so that this means a debt of $1500 per family for
      each year that the war lasted. The income of the average family
      in Great Britain is less than $500 in a year, and the amount of
      money that they can save out of this sum is very small. Yet the
      British people are obliged to add this tremendous debt to the
      already very large amount that they owe, and will have to go on
      paying interest on it for hundreds of years.

      In the same fashion, debts piled up for the peoples of France,
      Germany, Austria, Russia and all the countries in the war. In
      spite of what we have said above of the average income of English
      families, Great Britain is rich when compared with Austria and
      Russia. What is more, Great Britain is practically unscarred,
      while on the continent great tracts of land which used to be well
      cultivated farms have been laid waste with reckless abandon. East
      Prussia, Poland, Lithuania, Galicia, part of Hungary, Alsace,
      Serbia, Bosnia, northern France, south-western Austria-Hungary,
      and all of Belgium and Roumania, a territory amounting to
      one-fifth of the whole of Europe, were scarred and burned and
      devastated.

      It will be years and years before these countries recover from
      the effects of war’s invasion. For every man killed on the field
      of battle, it is estimated that two people die among the
      noncombatants. Children whose fathers are at the front, frail
      women trying to do the work of men, aged inhabitants of destroyed
      villages die by the thousands from want of food and shelter.

      In the trail of war come other evils. People do not have time to
      look after their health or even to keep clean. As a result,
      diseases like the plagues of olden times, which civilization
      thought it had killed, come to life again and destroy whole
      cities. The dreadful typhus fever killed off one-fifth of the
      population of Serbia during the winter of 1914. Cholera raged
      among the Austrian troops in the fall of the same year. For every
      soldier who is killed on the field of battle, three others die
      from disease or wounds or lack of proper care.

[Illustration: Rendered Homeless by War]

      In time of war, the first men picked are the very flower of the
      country, the strong, the athletic, the brave, the very sort of
      men who ought to be carefully saved as the fathers of the people
      to come. As these are killed or disabled, governments draw on the
      older men who are still vigorous and hardy. Then finally they
      call out the unfit, the sickly, the weak, the aged, and the young
      boys. As a general rule, the members of this last class make up
      the bulk of the men who survive the war. They, instead of the
      strong and healthy, become the fathers of the next generation of
      children.

      In the days of the Roman republic, 220 years B.C., there stood on
      the coast of North Africa a city named Carthage, which, like
      Rome, owned lands far and near. Carthage would have been
      satisfied to “live and let live,” but Rome would not have it so.
      As a result, the two cities engaged in three terrible wars which
      ended in the destruction of Carthage. But before Carthage was
      finally blotted off the map, her great general, Hannibal, dealt
      Rome a blow which brought her to her knees, and came very near
      destroying her completely. Five Roman armies, averaging 30,000
      men apiece, he trapped and slaughtered. The death of these
      150,000 men was a loss from which Rome never recovered. From this
      time on, her citizens were made of poorer stuff, and the old
      Roman courage and Roman honor and Roman free government began to
      decline.

      The Germanic tribes (the Goths, Franks, Lombards, etc.) who
      swarmed into the Roman Empire about the year 400 A.D., although
      they were barbarians, nevertheless had many excellent qualities.
      They were brave, hardy men and stood for freedom from tyrants.
      However, they fought so many wars that they were gradually killed
      off. Take the Franks, for example; the three grandsons of
      Charlemagne, who had divided up his great empire, fought a
      disastrous war with one another, which ended in a great battle
      that almost wiped out the Frankish nation. This happened about
      840 A.D.

      Sweden was once one of the great powers of Europe. However, about
      1700 A.D., she had a king named Charles XII, who tried to conquer
      Russia and Poland. He was finally defeated at a little town in
      the southern part of Russia nearly a thousand miles away from
      home, and his great army was wiped out. After his time, Sweden
      sank to the level of a second class nation. The bodies of her
      best men had been strewn on battlefields reaching from the Gulf
      of Bothnia to the Black Sea.

[Illustration: Charles XII of Sweden]

      For eighty years after the time of Napoleon, the French nation
      showed a lower birth rate and produced smaller and weaker men
      than it had one hundred years previously. The reason for this is
      easily found. During the twenty-three years of terrible fighting
      which followed the execution of the king, France left her finest
      young men dead all over the face of Europe. They died by the
      thousands in Spain, in Italy, in Austria, in Germany, and above
      all, amidst the snows and ice of Russia. Only within the last
      twenty years have the French, through their new interest in
      out-of-door sports and athletics, begun once more to build up a
      hardy, vigorous race of young men. And now came this terrible war
      to set France back where she was one hundred years ago.

      Picture Europe at the close of this great war; the flower of her
      young manhood gone; the survivors laden with debts which will
      keep them in poverty for years to come; trade and agriculture at
      a standstill; but worst of all, the feeling of friendship between
      nations, of world brotherhood, postponed one hundred years.
      Hatred of nation for nation is stronger than ever.


        Questions for Review


          How does a nation at war increase its debts?

          Why do diseases thrive in war time?

          What became of the Goths and Franks?

          Why was the reign of Charles XII disastrous to Sweden?

          What was the effect of Napoleon’s many wars upon the strength
          of the French nation?

          Is war growing more humane?




Chapter XXVI.
What Germany Must Learn

      The German plot.—What the Czar’s prohibition order did.—Where
      Germany miscalculated.—Where England and America failed to
      understand.—An appeal to force must be answered by force.—Effect
      of the Russian revolution.—“It never must happen again.”—The
      league to enforce peace.—The final lesson.


      Before 1914 friends of peace in all countries, but especially in
      English speaking lands, had hoped that there would never again be
      a real war between civilized nations.

      Among the people of the United States and Great Britain it was
      unbelievable that any group of responsible rulers would
      deliberately plot, in the twentieth century, the enslaving of the
      world through military force, as we now know that the war lords
      of Prussia and Austria planned it. However, the plot was not only
      made but was almost successful. They made, though, a great
      mistake in the case of England. They were sure that she would not
      enter the war. Her turn was to come later on, after France and
      Russia had been crushed. The German leaders were also mistaken in
      calculating the time that Russia would take to mobilize her
      troops. In 1904, at the outbreak of the war against Japan, the
      Russian soldiers had become so drunk that it was many weeks
      before they could be gotten into any kind of military shape. But
      at the outbreak of the great “world-war” the order of the Czar
      which stopped the sale of strong drink changed all of Prussia’s
      plans. Instead of taking two or three months to assemble her
      army, Russia had her troops marching in a mighty force through
      the German province of East Prussia three weeks after the war had
      opened. The result was that the German soldiers had to be sent
      back from northern France to stop the victorious march of the
      Slavs. The battle of the Marne, fought in the first week of
      September, 1914, decided the fate of the world. It hung in the
      balance long enough to prove that a small addition to the forces
      on either side might have made all the difference in the world in
      the final outcome. The little British army, which was less than
      one-eighth of the force of the Allied side, probably furnished
      the factor that defeated the Germans. The presence in the battle
      of the German troops who had been withdrawn to stop the Russians,
      might have given victory to the invaders.

      Germany made a mistake, also, in expecting Italy to join in the
      attack on France. Any one of these three factors might have won
      the war in short order for the forces of Austria and Germany.
      With France crushed, as she might have been, in spite of her
      heroic resistance, without the help of the tiny British army, or
      with the intervention of Italy on the side of her former allies,
      it would have been no difficult task for the combined forces of
      Germany and Austria to pound the vast Russian armies into
      confusion, collect a big indemnity from both France and Russia,
      and be back home, as the Kaiser had promised, before the leaves
      fell from the trees.

      As has been said, the great majority of the citizens in nations
      where the people rule, could not believe that in this day and age
      the rulers of any civilized country would deliberately plot
      robbery and piracy on so grand a scale. They had looked forward
      to the time when all nations might disarm and live in peace with
      their neighbors. In France alone, of all the western nations, was
      there any clear idea of the Prussian plan. France, having learned
      the temper of the Prussian war lords in 1870, France, burdened by
      a national debt heaped high by the big indemnity collected by the
      Germans in ’71, looked in apprehension to the east and leaped to
      arms at the first rattling of the Prussian saber.

      Germany, up to 1866 renowned chiefly for her poets, musicians,
      and thinkers, had since been fed for nearly fifty years upon the
      doctrine that military force is the only power in the world worth
      considering. Some of the German people still cling to the high
      ideals of their ancestors, but the majority had drunk deeply of
      the wine of conquest and were intoxicated with the idea that
      Germany’s mission in life was to conquer all the other nations of
      the world and rule them for their own good by German thoroughness
      and by German efficiency. It may take many years to stamp this
      feeling out of the German nation. As they have worshipped force
      and appealed to force as the settler of all questions, so they
      will listen to reason only after they have been thoroughly
      crushed by a superior force. The sufferings brought upon the
      German nation by the war have had a great effect in making them
      doubt whether, after all, force is a good thing. As long as the
      people could be kept enthusiastic through stories of wonderful
      victories over the Russians, the Serbians, and then the
      Roumanians, they were contented to endure all manner of
      hardships.

      Someone has said that no people are happier than those living in
      a despotism, if the right kind of man is the despot. So the
      German people, although they were governed strictly by the
      military rule, nevertheless, were contented as long as they were
      prosperous and victorious in war. With the rumors and fears of
      defeat, however, they began to doubt their government. There are
      indications that sweeping reforms in the election of
      representatives in the Reichstag and in the power of that body
      itself will take place before long.

      The Russian revolution was in some respects a blow to the central
      powers. In the first place the fact that Russia had a despot for
      a ruler while England, France, and Italy were countries where the
      people elected their law makers, made it impossible that there
      should be the best of understanding between the allies. Then,
      again, the various peoples of Austria-Hungary, while they were
      not happy under the rule of the Hapsburg family, were afraid
      lest, if they became subjects of the Czar, it would be “jumping
      from the frying pan into the fire.” They would rather bear the
      evils of the Austrian rule than risk what the Czar and the grand
      dukes might do to them. Turkey, likewise, was bound to stick to
      Germany to the end, because of her fear that Russia would seize
      Constantinople. When the new government of Russia, then,
      announced that they did not desire to annex by force any
      territory, but only wished to free the peoples who were in
      bondage, it removed the fear of the Turks as far as their capital
      city was concerned; it showed the Poles, Ruthenians, and Czechs
      of Austria that they were in no danger of being swallowed up in
      the Russian empire, but that, on the other hand, the Russians
      wanted them to be free, like themselves; it showed the German
      people how easily a whole nation, when united, could get rid of
      its rulers, and encouraged the bold spirits who had never favored
      the military rule.

      The nations of the Entente, including the United States, are now
      united in an effort to stamp out the curse of feudalism in
      Austria and in Germany—a curse which has disappeared from all
      other parts of the civilized world. They are united to crush the
      military spirit of conquest which exists among the war leaders of
      the Prussians. They are pledged “to make the world safe for
      democracy” as President Wilson has said; to do away with the rule
      of force. So long as the governments of Germany, Austria, and
      Turkey place the military power at all times above the civil
      power, so long will it be necessary to police the world. There
      must be no repetition of the savage attack of August, 1914. There
      was a time when many of us believed that some one nation, by
      disbanding its army and refusing to build warships, might set an
      example of disarming which all the world would finally follow. It
      now is plain that there must be a “League to Enforce Peace” as
      Ex-President Taft and other American statesmen have declared. The
      United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, Italy, Belgium,
      Portugal, Serbia, Greece, together with Spain, Holland, Norway,
      Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and other nations where the
      will of the people is the law, must unite in an alliance which
      will insist on arbitration as a means of settling disputes.

      In 1870, Great Britain and the United States had a dispute which
      might well have led to war. Instead of fighting over it, however,
      they laid their trouble before a court of five men, a Swiss, an
      Italian, a Brazilian, an Englishman, and an American. This court,
      by a vote of four to one, decided against England, and England
      accepted the decision as final, although it cost her many
      millions of dollars.

      The League to Enforce Peace must insist that each nation in the
      world maintain only a small force of soldiers, to be used as
      police for its own affairs, and there must be an international
      police to settle all differences between nations and to enforce
      the orders of the court of arbitration. In time (no one knows how
      soon) the people of Germany and Austria will be freed from the
      military rule which now has the power to hurl them into war. When
      that day arrives and they learn that they have been led astray by
      Treitschke and Bernhardi, who preached that war was a blessing to
      a nation and that only the powerful nations had the right to
      survive, they will know that “Thou shalt not kill” is just as
      strong a commandment today as when it first was uttered.

      Sometime, nations will learn that other nations have the right to
      live, and that no country can wrong another through force of arms
      without suffering for it in the end. In a blunted conscience, in
      the loss of the sympathy of the rest of the world, in a lessening
      of the Christ-spirit of doing good to others, the nation which
      resorts to force to gratify its own selfish ends, like the
      individual, pays the full penalty for its misdeeds. It, was a
      great American who said, “The world is my country and mankind are
      my brothers.”


        Questions for Review


          Why did England and the United States fail to understand
          Germany?

          What right would Germany have had to an indemnity?

          What great change took place in Germany after 1866?

          Why must the war go on till Germany is crushed?

          What lesson must Germany learn?

          Why have the South American republics fought so many wars?

          Suggest some solution for the problem of war.

          What is meant by arbitration?

          What was the greatest mistake of those who planned the war?

          How did the Russian Revolution help the cause of the Entente?

          What is the greatest lesson taught by the war?



Pronouncing Glossary

      In this glossary it will be noted that as a general rule the
      English pronunciation is given for names that have become at all
      familiar in history or geography. Thus the English Crā′cōw is
      given instead of the Polish Krȧ′ko͝of or the German Krä′kau.

      On the other hand names like Koumanova or Dobrudja must be given
      as the natives of these places pronounce them, as there is no
      recognized English pronunciation.

      In certain cases where there are several current pronunciations,
      the author has been forced to make a selection, arbitrarily. Thus
      a seaport in Greece, which has changed hands recently, has no
      less than five names. Its Greek name is pronounced
      Thĕssȧlōnyi′ki, while other nations term it variously
      Sȧlōni′kā, Sĕlȧnïk′, Sō′lōn, Sȧlōni′ki or Salō′nicȧ.

      Some sounds, again, it is almost impossible for English speaking
      people to reproduce. These are indicated by English syllables
      which approximate them as nearly as possible.

      Not every proper noun which is used in the text will be found
      pronounced in the glossary. It is assumed that such names as
      Austria, Bismarck, etc., can hardly be mispronounced.


Aboukir (ä′bö̈ kïr)
Aegean (ē jē′ăn)
Agadir (ȧ gȧ dïr′)
Aix-la-Chapelle (āks lä shȧpĕl′)
Albania (ăl bā′nï ȧ)
Algeciras (ăl jĕ si′rȧs) or (ȧljĕ sï′rȧs)
Alsace (ȧl sȧs′)
Andrassy (ȧn drȧs′sy̆)
Aragon (ă′rȧ gŏn)
Armada (är mä′dȧ)
Armenians (är mē′nï ȧns)
Arminius (är mĭn′ï ŭs)
Avlona (ȧv lō′ṅa)
Baden (bä′dĕn)
Balkan (bȧl kän′) or (bôl′kän)
Banat (bȧn′ȧt)
Basques (bȧsks)
Bastille (bȧ stïl′)
Bavaria (bȧ vā′rï ȧ)
Belfort (bĕl′fôr)
Bernadotte (bēr′nȧ dŏt)
Bessarabia (bĕs sȧ rā′bï ȧ) or (bĕs sȧ rä′bï ȧ)
Bismarck-Schönausen (shẽn how′zĕn)
Blenheim (blĕn′ĕm) or (blĕn′hīm)
Boer (bo͞or)
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Bourbon (bo͞or′bŭn)
Brandenburg (brăn′dĕn bûrg)
Breton (brē′ton) or (brĕt′ŭn)
Brusiloff (brū si′lŏff)
Bukowina (bo͝o kō vï′nȧ)
Bulgaria (bŭl gā′ri̇ ȧ)
Burgundians (bûr′gŭn’dï ȧns)
Burgundy (bûr′gŭn dy)
Byzantium (by̆ zăn′tï ̆um)
Caesar (sēz′ēr)
Carniola (cȧr nï ō′lȧ)
Carpathian (cãr pā′thï ȧn)
Carthage (cȧr′thāj)
Castile (cȧs til′)
Castlereagh (căs′l rā)
Cavour (cȧ vo͞or′)
Charlemagne (shär lĕ mān′)
Chauvinists (shō′vĭn ĭsts)
Cicero (sĭs′ē rō)
Cimbri (sĭm′brï)
Cincinnatus (sĭn sĭn nä′tŭs)
Constantine (cŏn′stăn tïn)
Cracow (crā′cō)
Crimea (crĭ mē′ȧ)
Croatia (crō ä′tï ȧ) or (crōä′shȧ)
Czech (chĕk)
Dacians (dā′shŭnz)
Dalmatia (dăl mā′shï ȧ)
Théophile Delcassé (tā′ō fïl dĕl cȧ sä′)
Deutschland (doitsh′lȧnd)
Devonshire (dĕv′ŏn shïr)
Disraeli (dĭz rā′lĭ)
Dobrudja (dō bro͝od′jȧ)
Dreibund (drī′bo͝ond)
Durazzo (dū rȧt′zö)
Emmanuel (ĕm măn′ū ĕl)
Entente Cordiale (ȧn tȧnt′côr dyȧl′)
Enver Bey (ĕn′vẽr bā′)
Epinal (ĕp′ï nȧl)
Epirus (ĕp ī′rŭs)
Erse (ērs)
Esthonians (ĕs thō′nï ănz)
Etruscans (ē trŭs′cănz)
Euphrates (ū frā′tēz)
Fashoda (fȧ shō′dȧ)
Fiume (fï ū′me)
Gaelic (gā′lĭc)
Galicia (găl ĭ′shȧ)
Gallipoli (găl ĭ′pōlï)
Garibaldi (gȧr ï bȧl′dï)
Gerard (jĕr ärd′)
Germanic (jẽr măn′ĭc)
Glamis (glăm′ĭs)
Gortchakoff (gôr′chȧ kŏf)
Goths (gŏths)
Granada (grȧ nä′dȧ)
Hannibal (hăn′nĭ bl)
Hanover (hăn′ō vẽr)
Herzegovina (hārt′sĕ gō vï′nȧ)
Hesse-Darmstadt (hĕs sĕ därm′stȧt)
Hindustan (hĭn do͞o stän′)
Hohenzollern (hō ĕn tsŏl′ẽrn)
Holstein (hōl′stīn)
Illyrians (ĭ ly̆r′ĭ ȧns)
Istria (ĭs′trï ȧ)
Janina (yȧ nï′nȧ)
Janus (jā′nŭs)
Jonescu (jō nĕs′ko͞o)
Jutes (jūts)
Kaiser (kī′zẽr)
Kaspar (kăs′pär)
Kavala (kȧ vä′ lȧ)
Kerensky (kĕ rĕn′skĭ)
Khartoom (kär to͞om′)
Korea (kō rē′ȧ)
Kȯrniloff (kor nï′lŏff)
Koumanova (ko͞o mä′nō vȧ)
Lamar (lȧ mär′)
Leon (lē′ŏn)
Liege (lï ĕzh′)
Lithuania (lĭth o͞o ā′nīȧ)
Longwy (lŏng′vy̆)
Lorraine (lôr rān′)
Macedonia (mă sē dō′nï ȧ)
Magyar (mŏd′yär)
Manchuria (măn chū′rï ȧ)
Marathon (măr′ȧ thŏn)
Marchand (mär shän′)
Maria Theresa (mä rī′ä tĕr ēs′ä)
Marlborough (märl′bō rō)
Marsala (mär sä′lȧ)
Marseillaise (mär sĕl yāz′)
Mazzini (mȧt sï′nï)
Mesopotamia (mĕs ō pō tā′mĭ ä)
Metternich (mĕt′tẽr nĭkh)
Milioukoff (mĭl yo͞o′kŏff)
Mirabeau (mĭr′ȧ bō)
Modena (mō dē′nȧ) or (mō′dā nȧ)
Mohammedan (mō hăm′mĕd ȧn)
Moltke (mōlt′kȧ)
Monastir (mō nȧ stïr′)
Montenegrin (mŏn tē nē′grĭn)
Montenegro (mŏn tē nē′grō)
Moslems (mŏz′lĕmz)
Murat (mü′rä)
Napoleon (nȧ pō′lē ŏn)
Nice (nïs)
Northumberland (nôrth ŭm′bẽr lănd)
Novibazar (nō′vĭ bȧ zär′)
Ostrogoths (ŏs′trō gŏths)
Ottoman (ŏt′tō mȧn)
Parma (pär′mȧ)
Piedmont (pēd′mŏnt)
Pola (pō′lä)
Poland (pō′lănd)
Pomerania (pŏm ĕr ā′nï ȧ)
Pyrenees (pĭr′ĕn ēēz)
Rasputin (räs po͞o′tïn)
Reichstag (rīkhs′tägh)
Riga (rï′gȧ)
Romansh (rō mȧnsh′)
Roon (rōn)
Roumani (ro͞o mä′nï)
Roumania (ro͞o mā′nï ȧ)
Ruthenian (ro͝o thē′nï ȧn)
Sadowa (sä′dō vȧ)
Salonika (sȧ′lō nï′kȧ)
Sanjak (sȧn jȧk′)
San Stephano (sȧn stĕ fä′nö)
Saône (sōn)
Sarajevo (sä rä yĕ′vō)
Sardinia (sär dĭn′i̇ ȧ)
Sarrail (sȧr rī′)
Savoy (sȧ voy′)
Saxony (săx′ōn y̆)
Sazanof (sä′zä nŏff)
Scandinavian (scăn dĭ nā′vĭ ȧn)
Schleswig (shlĕs′vĭg)
Scutari (sko͞o′tä rï)
Serbia (sẽr′bĭ ȧ)
Silesia (sĭl ē′shȧ)
Skipetars (skïp′ĕ tarz)
Slavic (slä′vĭc)
Slavonia (slȧ vō′nï ȧ)
Slavonic (slȧ vŏn′ĭc)
Slavs (slävz)
Slovak (slō väk′)
Slovenes (slō vēnz′)
Slovenian (slō vē′nï ȧn)
Sobieski (sō bĭ ĕs′kĭ)
Stoessel (stēs′sĕl)
Strasbourg (strȧs′bo͝org)
Styria (sty̆′rĭ ȧ)
Suevi (swē′vï)
Syria (sy̆r′ï ȧ)
Take (tä kā)
Talleyrand (tȧl′lā rȧn)
Teutones (tū tō′nēz)
Teutonic (tū tŏn′ĭc)
Thessaly (thĕs′sȧ ly̆)
Thracians (thrā′shŭnz)
Tigris (tī′grĭs)
Toul (to͞ol)
Transylvania (trăn sy̆l vā′nï ȧ)
Trentino (trĕn tī′nō)
Trieste (trï ĕst′) or (trï ĕs′tā)
Tripoli (trĭp′ō lĭ)
Tuscany (tŭs′cȧ ny̆)
Tyrol (ty̆′rōl)
Tzernagorah (tzēr nä′gō′rȧ)
Vandals (văn′dlz)
Venetia (vĕn ē′shȧ)
Venizelos (vĕn ĭ zĕl′ŏs)
Vercingetorix (vēr sĭn jĕt′ö rĭks)
Verdun (vār dŭn′)
Volgars (vŏl′gärz)
Von Bernstorff (fŏn bārns′torf)
Von Plehve (fŏn plā′vē)
Von Tirpitz (fŏn tïr′pĭts)
Vosges (vōzh)
Walloon (wäl lo͞on′)
Westphalia (wĕst fā′lï ȧ)
Wied (we͞ed)
Wilhelmine (wĭl′hĕl mïn)
Yorkshire (yôrk′shīr)


Index

        Adriatic Sea, question of the control of. Agadir incident.
        Albania, formation of the kingdom of. Albanians, language of;
        habits of. Alexander the Great. Algeciras incident. Alliance,
        the Holy. Alliance, the Triple.
        Alliance, the Dual. Alliance, the Balkan. Alsace.
        Ambassador. Angles, the, invade Britain. Arbitration of
        national disputes. Arminius. Armor, value of.
        Austria-Hungary, origin of; helps to divide Poland; at war with
        France; at war with Sardinia and France; at war with Prussia
        and Italy; refuses to arbitrate Serbian trouble.
        Austrians in Italy.

        Balance of Power. Balkan problem. Barons. Bastille, fall of
        the. Belgium, joined to Holland to form the Netherlands;
        independent; guaranteed its freedom by three powers.
        Bernadotte. Bismarck-Schönausen.
        Blenheim, battle of (poem). Blockade of Germany. Bohemia,
          part of the Holy Roman Empire; part of the Hapsburg domains.
          Bolsheviki, revolt of the. Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon.
          Bonaparte, Napoleon. Bosnian problem. Bourbon family.
          Brandenburg; rise of. Brazil declares war on Germany.
          Britons. Bulgaria, freed by Russia; left partially under the
          control of Turkey;
          independent; at war; with five nations; plunges into world
          war; treacherously orders an attack on Greece and Serbia.
          Bulgars, origin of; in Macedonia. Bulow, Prince von.
        Burgundians. Byzantium becomes Constantinople.

        Caesar, Julius. Cape to Cairo Railroad. Catharine II of Russia.
        Cavour, Count, prime minister of Sardinia. Celtic languages,
        disappearance of. Celts. Charlemagne. Charles V. Charles XII of
        Sweden. Chauvinists. Churchill, Winston. Cincinnatus.
        Constantine, prince in Crete; king of Greece. Constantinople.
        Contraband of war. Cracow, Republic of. Crete. Czechs.

        Danes, in Schleswig. Dark Ages. Delcassé.
        Denmark, loses Norway; defeated by Prussia and Austria; injured
        by submarine campaign.
        _Deutschland_, voyages of the. Dialects. Dictator, Roman.
        Divine right of kings. Dukes vs. Kings. Duma, the Russian;
          asked to form a government.

        Edward VII. Elba, Napoleon’s return from. Elector, the Great.
        Electors of the Holy Roman Empire. England, power of the king
        of; in Egypt; troubles of, in 1914. Entente Cordiale. Entente,
        the Triple.
        Esthonians. Etruscans.

        Fashoda incident. Ferdinand of Bulgaria; enters war on side of
        Germany and Austria; attacks Serbia;
          ambitions of. Feudal system. Finland annexed to Russia.
          Finns; conquered by the Swedes.
        Flemish. France, power of king of; execution of king of; in
        Africa; wars of.
        Franks. Franz Ferdinand. Frederick the Great. French
        Revolution.

        Gaelic language. Gaels. Garibaldi. Gauls. German Confederation.
        German secret agents set fire to American property and kill
        Americans; try to stir up war between the U. S. and Japan; stir
        up trouble in Russia. German tribes. Germanic languages.
        Germany, the Holy Roman Empire of. Germany, the modern Empire
        of; encourages France to declare war on England;
          makes friends with Turkey; policy toward Balkan nations;
          warns Russia; attacks France through Belgium. Goths.
          Government, by the people; based on the consent of the
          governed;
          limited to the ruling class. Governments, newness of
          European. Great Britain offers to judge Serbian trouble;
          declares war on Germany. Greece,
          treaty of, with Serbia; Greek Empire, origin of; fall of.
          Greeks; ungenerous to Bulgarians, desert to Venizelos; join
          the Entente.

        Hague, court of the. Hannibal’s war against Rome. Hapsburgs,
        the. Hohenzollern family. Holstein. Homage.
        Hungarians. Huns.

        Indemnity. Indo-European family of languages. Istria.
        Italy, a battle ground of nations; becomes a nation; makes war
        on Turkey; declines to support Austria and Germany; declares
        war on Austria.

        Kavala. Kent, William, on Mexican intervention. Kerensky,
        leader of the Russian government. Kings, origin of. Koumanova,
        battle of.

        Labor troubles, in England; in Russia.
        Language, relationship shown by. Latin tongues. Lithuania.
        Lombards. Lorraine. Louis XIV of France. _Lusitania_, sinking
        of the.

        Macedonia. Magyars. Marathon, battle of. Marchand, Major.
        Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria; helps to divide Poland.
        Marlborough, Duke of. Mazzini.
        Metternich. Middle Ages. Military service, owed to rulers; in
        Prussia; in France.
        Mirabeau. Moltke. Montenegro, origin of;
          declares war on Austria. Monroe Doctrine. Moors.
        Murat.

        Napoleon III. Netherlands, foundation of kingdom of.
        Newspapers, control of. Normans. Norway, joined to Sweden;
        danger from Germany; vigorously protests submarine warfare.
        Novibazar, the Sanjak of.

        Ostrogoths.

        Paris, siege of. Peace, German offer of;
          Allies’ terms of; United States’ desire for; Russo-German
          conference toward; German desire for. Peasants, attached to
          the land;
          support fighting classes. Peter the Great. Poland,
          kingdom of; partition of; given largely to Russia;
          revolutions in. Preparation for war Prussia, origin of
          kingdom of; crushed by Napoleon; dominated by Bismarck.

        Rasputin; assists Sturmer; is killed.
        Reichstag. Reign of Terror. Republic, first French; second
        French; third French.
        Robber chiefs. Roman Empire, beginnings of. Romansh people.
        Rome, wars of, with Carthage. Roon. Rothschild, the banking
        house of. Roumani. Roumania; hopes of;
          population of; declares war on Austria;
          is crushed between two armies. Russia, rise of; attacks
          Turkey; policy of;
          relations with Bulgaria; defends Serbia;
          ignorance of the people of; revolution in;
          controlled by the Bolsheviki. Ruthenians.

        Sarrail, sent to Salonika; watching Bulgars and Greeks. Saxons.
        Saxony, annexed in part to Prussia; allied to Austria.
        Salonika, Spanish Jews in. Sardinia, kingdom of. Schleswig.
        Scutari. Serbia, trade with Austria; relations with Bulgaria;
        trouble with Austria; attacked on three sides. Serbs, origin
        of; lands of; language of. Sicilies, Kingdom of the Two.
        Silesia, seizure of. Slavic tribes. Slovaks. Slovenes.
        Sobieski, John, king of Poland. Socialists, in Germany; in
        Italy. Spain, origin of; drives out “unbelievers,”; becomes a
        republic. Submarine boats sink British warships;
          sink merchant ships; sink the _Lusitania_;
          cross the Atlantic; begin to sink all ships without warning;
          kill Americans; sink Norwegian ships. Suevi. Sturmer chosen
          prime minister of Russia. Sweden, decline of.

        Talleyrand. Trentino. Tunis, seized by France. Turkey,
          defended by France and England; attacks Russia. Turks;
          capture Constantinople; driven back from Vienna; the young
          Turks; tolerance of the young; bigotry of the young.

        Ulster trouble, the. United States, indignant over the
        _Lusitania_; warns Germany; defends munitions trade in reply to
        Austria; receives _Deutschland_ hospitably; sends the German
        Ambassador home;
          declares war; desires nothing but to be safe from attack;
          sends an army to Europe.

        Vandals. Venice, Republic of. Venizelos, prime minister of
        Greece; comes from Crete; opposes King Constantine; once more
        prime minister.
        Vercingetorix. Victor Emmanuel. Vienna, Congress of.

        Walloons. War, four causes of; cost of; diseases caused by;
        increasing horror of. Warsaw, Grand-Duchy of. Waterloo, battle
        of.
        William of Normandy. Wilson, President, patient with Germany;
        asks both sides to name their terms;
          calls Congress to declare war.