EFFECT ON THE EMPIRE
When war broke out on August 1, 1914, between the five greater Powers of Europe—Great Britain, Russia and France, on the one side and Germany and Austria on the other—the issue was at once brought home to about 450 millions of people in America, Asia and Africa who were connected with these nations by ties of allegiance or government, by racial association, or historic conquest. Of these peoples and lands by far the greater proportion were in the British Empire and included India, Burmah, South Africa, Australia, Canada and a multitude of smaller states and countries. Not the least remarkable of the events which ensued in the succeeding early weeks of the great War was the extraordinary way in which this vast and complex Empire found itself as a unit in fighting force, a unit in sentiment, a unit in co-operative action. Irish sedition, whether “loyal or disloyal,” Protestant or Catholic, largely vanished like the shadow of an evil dream; Indian talk of civil war and trouble disappeared; South African threats of rebellion took form in a feeble effort which melted away under the pressure of a Boer statesman and leader—General Botha; the idea that Colonial Dominions were seeking separation and would now find it proved as evanescent as a light mist before the sun. The following table indicates the nature of the resources of opposing nations and the character of their Colonial sources of support:
| Wealth | Population | Total Army | Navy | Population of Colonies | |
| Great Britain | $80,000,000,000 | 45,000,000 | 800,000 | 681 | 368,000,000 |
| France | 65,000,000,000 | 39,000,000 | 2,100,000 | 382 | 41,000,000 |
| Russia | 40,000,000,000 | 171,000,000 | 8,000,000 | 249 | 5,000,000 |
| Germany | 60,000,000,000 | 65,000,000 | 5,000,000 | 354 | 12,000,000 |
| Austria | 25,000,000,000 | 49,000,000 | 2,200,000 | 155 | 15,000,000 |
It was a curious characteristic of the press comments and magazine articles and book studies of the War during these months that while varied fighting was going on in the various Colonies of these Powers and in the case of Great Britain, notably, countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India were pouring out men and gifts to aid the Empire, statistical calculations usually rated Great Britain as not an Empire but simply a nation with the wealth and population of its two little islands in the North Sea.
Properly the $80,000,000,000 of estimated British wealth should have e included the thousands of millions of treasure in India and Egypt, the gold mines and diamond resources of South Africa, the wheat fields and mines of Canada, the sheep farms and gold of Australia and many other sources; the estimate of population should have included the countless millions from which Britain could draw and did draw in the day of emergency. In this vast Empire British capital had been invested to an enormous amount—the estimated total in 1914 being $2,570,0000,000 for Canada and Newfoundland, $1,893,000,000 in India and Ceylon,$1,850,000,000 in south Africa, $1,660,000,000 in Australia, or a total in all British countries of $8,900,000,000. When the War broke out these Dominions endeavored to help the Mother Country in every possible way and the following table shows what was done in Canada alone during the first few months of the conflict: