The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915

by Various

How Ernst Lissauer's Lines Were "Sung to Pieces" in Germany.

[From The Basler Nachrichten.]

The ever-increasing hatred in Germany against England and the constantly diminishing bitterness expressed in German circles toward the French is commented upon at considerable length by the Basler Nachrichten, one of the leading German newspapers of Switzerland, which publishes excerpts of utterances of leading Germans to illustrate its deductions. The Swiss paper's article follows:

IT pays to take a birdseye view of a phenomenon which, in a most interesting fashion, is becoming more and more apparent: the increase of the German hatred against Englishmen and the diminution of the German hatred against the Frenchmen.

The most eloquent examples of this white-hot wrath against the English are the now well-known army orders of the Bavarian Crown Prince, Rupprecht. Under date of Oct. 29 the text of the first order was made public. It reads:

Soldiers of the Sixth Army! We have now the good luck to have also the Englishmen opposite us on our front, troops of that race whose envy was at work for years to surround us with a ring of foes and to throttle us. That race especially we have to thank for this war. Therefore, when now the order is given to attack this foe, practice retribution for their hostile treachery and for the many heavy sacrifices! Show them that the Germans are not so easily to be wiped out of history. Show them that, with German blows of a special kind. (Mit deutsche Hiebe von ganz besouderer Art!) Here is the opponent who most blocks a restoration of the (Drauf,) peace. Up and at him!

RUPPRECHT.

Under date of Nov. 11 an order of similar purport issued by the same army commander was made public:

Soldiers! The eyes of the whole world are upon you. It is now imperative that in the battle with our most hated foe we shall not grow numb, and that we shall at last break his arrogance. Already he is growing pliable, (mürbe.) Numerous officers and men have surrendered voluntarily, but the great decisive blow is still to be struck. Therefore you must persevere to the end. The enemy must be downed; you must not let him loose from your teeth. (Ihr musst ihn nicht aus den Zahnen lessen.) We must, will and shall conquer!

At the same time the Bavarian Crown Prince had the "Song of Hate Against England" of Ernst Lissauer distributed among the troops as an army order. This poem, which was issued as early as Sept. 1 in the "Kultur-Beiträgen," published by R. Dammert in Berlin, reads in full:

HASSGESANG GEGEN ENGLAND. Was schiert uns Russe und Franzos'? Schuss wider Schuss und Stoss um Stoss, Wir lieben sie nicht, Wir hassen sie nicht, Wir schützen Weichsel und Wasgaupass, Wir haben nur einen einzigen Hass, Wir lieben vereint, wir hassen vereint, Wir haben nur einen einzigen Feind: Denn ihr alle wisst, denn ihr alle wisst, Er sitzt geduckt hinter der grauen Flut, Voll Neid, voll Wut, voll Schläue, voll List, Durch Wasser getrennt, die sind dicker als Blut. Wir wollen treten in ein Gericht, Einen Schwur zu schwören, Gesicht in Gesicht. Einen Schwur von Erz, den verbläst kein Wind, Einen Schwur für Kind und für Kindeskind, Vernehmt das Wort, sagt nach das Wort, Es wälzt sich durch ganz Deutschland fort: Wir wollen nicht lassen von unserem Hass, Wir haben alle nur einen Hass, Wir lieben vereint, wir hassen vereint, Wir haben alle nur einen Feind: ENGLAND! In der Bordkajüte, im Feiersaal, Sassen Schiffsoffiziere beim Liebesmahl, Wie ein Säbelhieb, wie ein Segelschwung, Einer riss grüssend empor den Trunk, Knapp hinknallend wie Ruderschlag, Drei Worte sprach er: "Auf den Tag!" Wem galt das Glas? Sie hatten alle nur einen Hass. Wer war gemeint? Sie hatten alle nur einen Feind: ENGLAND! Nimm du die Völker der Erde in Sold, Baue Wälle aus Barren von Gold, Bedecke die Meerflut mit Bug bei Bug, Du rechnetest klug, doch nicht klug genug. Was schiert uns Russe und Franzos'! Schuss wider Schuss, und Stoss um Stoss. Wir kämpfen den Kampf mit Bronze und Stahl Und schliessen Frieden irgend einmal, Dich werden wir Hassen mit langem Hass, Wir werden nicht lassen von unserem Hass, Hass zu Wasser und Hass zu Land, Hass des Hauptes und Hass der Hand, Hass der Hämmer und Hass der Kronen, Drosselnder Hass von siebzig Millionen, Sie lieben vereint, sie hassen vereint, Sie alle haben nur einen Feind: ENGLAND!

[Following is a translation of the song by Barbara Henderson, appearing in The New York Times of Oct. 15, 1914:]

French and Russian, they matter not, A blow for a blow and a shot for a shot! We love them not, we hate them not, We hold the Weichsel and Vosges gate. We have but one and only hate, We love as one, we hate as one, We have one foe and one alone. He is known to you all, he is known to you all, He crouches behind the dark gray flood, Full of envy, of rage, of craft, of gall, Cut off by waves that are thicker than blood. Come, let us stand at the Judgment Place, An oath to swear to, face to face, An oath of bronze no wind can shake, An oath for our sons and their sons to take. Come, hear the word, repeat the word, Throughout the Fatherland make it heard. We will never forego our hate, We have all but a single hate, We love as one, we hate as one, We have one foe and one alone— ENGLAND! In the Captain's Mess, in the banquet hall, Sat feasting the officers, one and all, Like a sabre blow, like the swing of a sail, One seized his glass and held high to hail; Sharp-snapped like the stroke of a rudder's play, Spoke three words only: "To the Day!" Whose glass this fate? They had all but a single hate. Who was thus known? They had one foe and one alone— ENGLAND! Take you the folk of the Earth in pay, With bars of gold your ramparts lay, Bedeck the ocean with bow on bow, Ye reckon well, but not well enough now. French and Russian, they matter not, A blow for a blow, a shot for a shot, We fight the battle with bronze and steel, And the time that is coming Peace will seal. You we will hate with a lasting hate, We will never forego our hate, Hate by water and hate by land, Hate of the head and hate of the hand, Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown, Hate of seventy millions choking down. We love as one, we hate as one, We have one foe and one alone— ENGLAND!

This poem, according to the Tägliche Rundschau, has already had the fate of every folksong—the version of it that was circulated among the Bavarian troops lacks the middle stanza and has in other ways also been "sung to pieces." But it has also been worked over artistically. The Chemnitz Director of Church Music, Prof. Mayerhoff, has set the "Chant of Hate Against England" to music for male voices. The song was rendered publicly at a great meeting in a concert in the Alberthalle at Leipsic, and was taken up in roaring chorus by the audience. The composer himself accompanied his composition on the piano.

As can be seen, therefore, the popularity of the song and its sentiment is by no means confined to Bavaria. It extends throughout the entire empire. Of hundreds of voices in the press, let us mention only one. Councilor of Justice Eschenbach of Berlin, in the Neue Gesellschaftliche Korrespondenz writes:

To honor our immortal heroes of Tsing-tau, and for the eternal shame and reproach of the scoundrel nations, Japan and England, I propose the following: Let the entire German press scorn in the next fourteen days to permit the words "Englishmen" or "Japanese" to appear in its columns and before the eyes of our people and of the entire civilized world; but instead, and invariably, let the word "Mörder" (murderers) be used for "Englishmen" and the word "Raubmörder" (highway assassins) for "Japanese." For no other name will there be hereafter among us for these greatest scoundrels of history. Thereby care will be taken both for the present throughout the world as far as the German language is heard and the results of the German spirit are known, and also for future historians, that the proper point of view shall be given throughout eternity for the condemnation of these murderous gangs accursed of God.

How different is the attitude of the Germans toward the French!

From a trench on the Aisne the following was written to the Heidelberger Zeitung:

Four hundred meters from where we lie, likewise intrenched, lie these wretched Englishmen, toward whom our people feel a holy fury, while they regard the battle with the Frenchmen, on the other hand, rather as a member of a university student corps regards an honorable duel. I, too, am entirely of that view.

The well-known psychologist, Prof. W. Hellpach of Karlsruhe, writes to the Berliner Tageblatt from the field:

The German soldier, too, does not hate the French people. Indeed, no one hates it. That is one of the most amazing phenomena of this war—our inner relation to France. Daily and hourly we hear words of disgust concerning the Russians, see gestures of hatred against the Britons—but toward France there is expressed amid all purely warlike antagonism a sort of sympathy resembling almost a smiling love for a naughty child which one feels obliged to punish because it has been guilty of stupid but very serious misbehavior.

We must force France to its knees—perhaps more completely than any of our other foes—but every one seems to hope that after this, after this last lesson, France will come to her senses and conclude a real peace with her German neighbor. Even among the common men in our ranks there has developed almost plant like a certain realization of a common duty of these two nations, a feeling of certain virtues which they, complementing one another, can preserve only by co-operation. But for the cultured ones among us, the idea of a hereditary feud has given way to a clear consciousness that there is a middle European Continental culture, supported by German, Austrian, and French genius in common, and that the preservation, development, and continuation thereof as against a hasty and superficial Anglization must be the task of the future. All, all now learn through experience that this matter with France is a woe of civilization (kulturjammer), and that now at last it is going to change, that it could change, if—

In the same newspaper the Berlin National Economist, Prof. Werner Sombart, writes:

Against France we probably experience the least aversion or hatred. At bottom we have really nothing "against the Frenchmen," but they have a great deal against us. But we find them, in spite of their fanatical hatred of the Germans (which we honor and respect) chivalrous antagonists, who in their wrath of battle are certainly quite our peers; and in them, we find, there is far more force and will for victory than we were in the beginning wont to believe. They die for their fatherland, and their final reason for fighting is after all an ideal one, the faith in the glory and greatness of a super-individual, the self-sacrifice to a whole that is higher than the personal. Thus, at least, does that France stand opposed to us, that is fighting for its existence in the trenches along the Aisne.

With the rabble that shouts "à bas la guerre" in Paris, we need reckon just as little as with the rather doubtful citizens that constitute the immediate Government of France and whose heroism seems to show great rents these days. Yes, for the heroic race of Frenchmen we feel almost a sort of pity, as with a noble wild game of the forest, wounded unto death. And this pity finds expression in wistful sympathy when we think of the quixotic strain in this wrestling with an overwhelming foe, when we see the childlike faith with which the people have grasped at every unplausible hope of rescue from its anguish of death and still grasps at it, as a drowning man grasps at a wisp of straw. Don Quixote still remains the "noble knight" for whom—if he appears in the age of firearms—we still fire three salvos of honor over his grave.

And then, when we mention the word "France," there arise all the memories of the imperishable cultural values which its people have given to us. I believe that there are many, very many among us, who in their hearts hope that there may once again be something like a co-operative understanding and journeying together of Germans and Frenchmen, even if in a distant future which the youngest among us will probably not live to see—an agreement which through a union of German and French elements of culture will promise vast achievements for the purposes of humanity. In the last analysis—for that has in these very days been more frequently expressed—these two nations belong together; they are of equal worth, of equal spirit, of equal fineness, and yet so different that they can give each other infinitely much.

Just as has the hate against England, so has this friendship for France found poetic expression. In the Hamburger Kriegsblatt we read a poem by Wilhelm Höhne, the final stanza of which reads:

Ma pauvre France! Wann siehst du es ein Dass all deine Bündnisse Trug und Schein? Was meinst du, wärst du mit dem vereint, Der dich niederringt heute—ein ehrlicher Feind! Auf "Deutsche Treue" da könntest du zählen! Mit uns im Bund könnt'st der Welt du befehlen. Dem Briten, dem Russen, dem Asiaten! Deutschland hat nie einen Freund verraten!

(Translation.)

Ma pauvre France, when wilt thou see That all thy allies are cheating thee? What, though if thou with him wouldst go Who now overwhelms thee—an honest foe! On German faith thou couldst reckon sure; With us, thou couldst rule the world secure, The Briton, the Russian, the Asian, bend. Germany has never betrayed a friend!

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ANSWERING THE "CHANT OF HATE."

By BEATRICE M. BARRY.

FRENCH and Russian, they matter not, For England only your wrath is hot; But little Belgium is so small You never mentioned her at all— Or did her graveyards, yawning deep, Whisper that silence was discreet? For Belgium is waste! Ay, Belgium is waste! She welters in the blood of her sons, And the ruins that fill the little place Speak of the vengeance of the Huns. "Come, let us stand at the Judgment place," German and Belgian, face to face. What can you say? What can you do? What will history say of you? For even the Hun can only say That little Belgium lay in his way. Is there no reckoning you must pay? What of the Justice of that "Day"? Belgium one voice—Belgium one cry Shrieking her wrongs, inflicted by GERMANY! In her ruined homesteads, her trampled fields, You have taken your toll, you have set your seal; Her women are homeless, her men are dead, Her children pitifully cry for bread; Perchance they will drink with you—"To the Day!" Let each man construe it as he may. What shall it be? They, too, have but one enemy; Whose work is this? Belgium has but one word to hiss— GERMANY! Take you the pick of your fighting men Trained in all warlike arts, and then Make of them all a human wedge To break and shatter your sacred pledge; You may fling your treaty lightly by, But that "scrap of paper" will never die! It will go down to posterity, It will survive in eternity. Truly you hate with a lasting hate; Think you you will escape that hate? "Hate by water and hate by land; Hate of the head and hate of the hand." Black and bitter and bad as sin, Take you care lest it hem you in, Lest the hate you boast of be yours alone, And curses, like chickens, find roost at home IN GERMANY!

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England Caused the War

By T. von Bethmann-Hollweg, German Imperial Chancellor.

Following is the full text of the speech delivered by the German Chancellor at the session of the Reichstag in Berlin on Dec. 2, 1914:

THE Emperor, who is absent with the army, has charged me to transmit his best wishes and cordial greetings to the German Reichstag, with whom he is known to be united till death in the stress of danger and in the common concern for the weal of the Fatherland.

Our first thought goes out to the Kaiser and the army and navy—our soldiers who are fighting for the honor and greatness of the empire. Full of pride and unshakable confidence, we look to them and to our Austro-Hungarian comrades in arms, who are firmly united to us, to fight great battles with brilliant bravery.

Our most recent ally in battle who has been obliged to join us is the Ottoman Empire, which knows well that with the destruction of the German Empire it, too, would lose its national right to control its own destiny. As our enemies have formed a powerful coalition against us, they will, I hope, find that the arm of our brave allies reaches the weak spots in their world position.

On Aug. 4 the Reichstag expressed the firm resolution of the whole people to undertake the war which had been forced upon them and to defend their independence to the utmost.

Since then great deeds have been accomplished. The incomparable gallantry of our troops has carried the war into the enemy's country. There we still stand firm and can regard the future with every confidence, but the enemy's resistance is not broken.

We are not yet at the end of our sacrifices. The nation will continue to support those sacrifices with the same heroism as hitherto, for we must and will fight to a successful end our defensive war for right and freedom. We will then remember how our defenseless compatriots in hostile countries were maltreated in a manner which is a disgrace to all civilization. The world must learn that no one can hurt a hair on the head of a German subject with impunity.

It is evident to us who is responsible for this—the greatest of all wars. The apparent responsibility falls on those in Russia who ordered and carried out the mobilization of the Russian Army; the real responsibility, however, falls on the British Government. The Cabinet in London could have made the war impossible if it had without ambiguity declared at Petrograd that Great Britain would not allow a Continental war to develop from the Austro-Servian conflict.

Such a declaration would also have obliged France to take energetic measures to restrain Russia from undertaking warlike operations. Then our action as mediators between Petrograd and Vienna would have been successful, and there would have been no war.

But Great Britain did not act thus. Great Britain was aware of the bellicose machinations of the partly irresponsible but powerful group around the Czar. She saw how the ball was rolling, but placed no obstacle in its path. In spite of all its assurances of peace London informed Petrograd that Great Britain was on the side of France and, consequently, on the side of Russia.

The Cabinet of London allowed this monstrous worldwide war to come about hoping, with the help of the Entente, to destroy the vitality of England's greatest European competitor in the markets of the world. Therefore, England and Russia have before God and men the responsibility for the catastrophe which has fallen upon Europe. Belgian neutrality, which England pretended to defend, was nothing but a disguise.

On the evening of Aug. 2 we informed Brussels that we were obliged, in the interest of self-defense and in consequence of the war plans of France, which were known to us, to march through Belgium, but already, on the afternoon of the same day, Aug. 2, before anything of our action in Brussels could have been known in London, the British Government promised France unconditional assistance in case the German fleet should attack the French coast. Nothing was said about Belgium neutrality.

How can England maintain that she drew the sword because we violated Belgian neutrality? How could the British statesmen, whose past is well known, speak at all of Belgian neutrality? When, on Aug. 4, I spoke of the wrong which we were committing with our march into Belgium it was not yet established whether the Belgian Government at the last moment would not desire to spare the country and retire under protest to Antwerp. For military reasons I cannot go into whether there was the possibility of such a development on Aug. 4.

As to the guilt of the Belgian Government, many indications were already known at that time, but there were no positive and written proofs. Now, however, that it is demonstrated by documents found in Brussels how the Belgians surrendered their neutrality to England the entire world knows two facts.

One is that when our troops on the night of Aug. 3-Aug. 4 entered Belgian territory they were on the ground of a State which had given up its neutrality long ago. The other is that, not for the sake of the neutrality of Belgium, which she had herself undermined, did England declare war on us, but because she believed that she would be able to master us with the help of two great Continental powers.

Since Aug. 2, since her promise to assist France, England was no longer neutral, and was actually at war with us, and the argument that the declaration of war was a sequel to the violation of Belgian neutrality is nothing but a piece of play-acting performed to mystify the English people and neutral States.

Now that the Anglo-Belgian war plans are unveiled in their smallest details, the policy of British statesmen is branded before the tribunal of history for all time.

But British diplomacy went further. At England's request Japan snatches away heroic Kiao-Chau and violates the neutrality of China. Has England interfered in this violation of neutrality? Has England shown a care for neutral States in this case?

When, five years ago, I was called to office the Triple Alliance was opposed by a firmly united Entente. England's work was designed to serve the known principle of the balance of power, which means in plain German that the principle, followed for centuries by British policy and directed against the strongest Continental power, should find its strongest tool in the Triple Entente. This proves from the beginning the aggressive character of the Entente toward the plainly defensive tendencies of the Triple Alliance.

This was the germ of the forcible explosion. German policy was obliged to try to avert the danger of war by an understanding with the individual powers of the Entente. At the same time she was obliged to strengthen her defensive forces so that she should be prepared if war should come all the same. We did both. In France we always encountered ideas of revanche felt by ambitious politicians. With Russia some agreements were concluded, but Russia's firm alliance with France, her antagonism to us and our ally, Austria-Hungary, her Pan-Slavistic desire for power, her artificial hatred for Germany, made it impossible to conclude an agreement which in the case of a political crisis would exclude the danger of war.

England was comparatively free. Here the best attempt at an understanding could be made which would have effectively guaranteed the peace of the world. I acted accordingly. The way was narrow, which I knew well. For decades the British insular intellect has been evolving the political principle, the dogma that the arbitrament of the world is due to England, which she can only maintain by undisputed supremacy on the sea and the much-quoted balance of power on the Continent.

I never hoped to break the old principle by persuasion. What I believe possible was that the growing power of Germany and the growing danger of war could be made to compel England to perceive that this old principle was untenable and unpractical, and that a peaceable arrangement with Germany was preferable, but that dogma always paralyzed the possibility of an understanding. After the crisis of 1911 public opinion forced British rulers to a rapprochement toward Germany. By wearisome work an understanding was finally reached in different disputed questions of economic interest which related to Africa and Asia Minor. This understanding should have diminished possible political friction if the free development of our strength were not impeded. Both peoples had sufficient space to measure their strength in peaceful competition.

This was the principle always upheld by German policy. But while we were negotiating England was always thinking of strengthening her relations with Russia and France. The decisive factor was that more binding military agreements for the case eventually of a Continental war were concluded outside the political sphere. England negotiated, if possible, secretly. If anything leaked out of importance it was minimized in press and Parliament. It could not be concealed from us. The whole situation was as follows:

England was willing to come to an understanding with us in individual questions, but the first principle always was that Germany's free development of strength must be checked by the balance of power.

We did not fail to warn the British Government. As recently as the beginning of July I notified the British Government that we knew of the secret naval negotiations with Russia concerning the Naval Convention. I pointed out the serious danger which British policy meant for the peace of the world. A fortnight later what I predicted occurred. When war had broken out England dropped her disguise. She loudly announced that she would fight till Germany was conquered in an economical and military sense. We have only one answer. Germany cannot be destroyed. As her military strength has stood the test so has her financial strength.

Look at the diminution in the number of unemployed. The unemployed of yesterday are the army of today—their spirit is that of the soldier of yesterday and of today—the one spirit that animates us all.

When this spirit, this moral greatness of the people, when the proved heroism of our troops is called by our enemies militarism, if they call us Huns and barbarians, we can be proud enough and need not worry. This wonderful spirit in the hearts of the German people, this unprecedented unity, must and will be victorious. When a glorious and happy peace is concluded we will maintain this spirit as the holiest legacy of this terrible and serious and great time. I repeat the words of the Emperor:

"I know no parties. I know only Germans. When the war is ended parties will return without parties, without a political fight. There is no political life, not even for the freest and most united people."

Many seats are vacant here. Where are their holders? You know. There is the vacant seat of Herr Frank, (Socialist member;) but he will return no more. The spirit of cheerful self-sacrifice which animates us here as the guardians of the people's weal inspires the entire people.

Japan joined our enemies from a desire to seize as booty the monument of German culture in the Far East. On the other hand, we have found an ally in Turkey, as all the Moslem peoples want to throw off the English yoke and shatter the foundations of England's colonial power. Under the banner of our army and the flag of our fleet we shall conquer.

This, then, is our inspiration—our vow! Germany shall fight on and continue to sacrifice herself on the altar of civilization and progress and patriotism until she shall have secured a guarantee from all that none henceforth shall disturb—shall dare to disturb—the peace of this, our German land.

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A SONG OF THE SIEGE GUN.

By KATHERINE DRAYTON MAYRANT SIMONS, Jr.

WELDED in the devil-workshop of the Essen blacksmith's stall, There conceived and consecrated to the nations' final fall, In the iron of my entrails, in my thews of shrunken steel, In my mighty bore of barrel, in the claw of cleated wheel, Through the travail of my forging, was there bred the ancient hate— Primal blood-feud of the races, which the races' blood must sate! You, the Empress of the Ocean—did your statesmen ne'er foretell That your fortresses should crumble at the hot kiss of my shell? While the garnered greed of ages lay in leash beneath my breast, Did you deem an oath of honor more than is a royal jest? While you slept my masters labored! In the metal of my frame Molded they the mighty promise of a continent in flame! In the casting of my carriage, in the boring of my sheath, They have riveted my armor with the dormant dragon teeth! By my twelve-mile range projectile, by my weight of forty tons, Do I mock the slender playthings which Allies now call their guns! Ever angry and unglutted, when the rocking fight is red, Then my slogan stirs all sleepers save the still and dreamless dead! Lo! The past is but a promise! When my Saturnalia comes, Then the Saxon stands uncovered to a march of muffled drums, Then the northern snows are trampled where the Slavic horsemen sleep, And the Latin women tremble for their lovers as they weep!

GEN. LIMAN VON SANDERS PASHA,
Commander in Chief of the Turkish Army.

(Photo © by American Press Assn.)

GEN. KAMIO,
Commander in Chief of the Japanese Tsing-Tau Expedition.

(Photo from Paul Thompson.)

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Why England Fights Germany

By Hilaire Belloc.

[Copyright, 1915, by The New York Times Company.]

Hilaire Belloc has for years been among the most prominent of English writers, his political and economic opinions being widely quoted. As a historian he has given special attention to the French Revolution, being the author of "Danton," "Marie Antoinette," "The Girondins," and other studies which are regarded by scholars as standard works. Mr. Belloc's military knowledge and experience (he served in the Eighth Regiment of French Artillery) and his understanding of history have made him an acute and interesting chronicler of the present war. The following article appeared in The New York Times of Jan. 17, 1915.

I SHALL attempt in what follows to answer the question "Why is England at war with Germany?" It is perhaps the most important question upon which neutral countries, and especially neutral English-speaking countries, should have a true answer. Upon their just appreciation of England's position in this war a great deal of the immediate future of the world will depend.

But before proceeding to answer the question directly, we must get rid of certain misconceptions.

The question must be, as the French say, not only "put," but "put in its due proportion." It is not enough to answer the question "Why is England at war with Germany?" unless we know to begin with what that event means to this gigantic war as a whole.

Let us begin, then, by saying that this great war is not primarily a war between England and Germany at all. England and Germany are not the two chief combatants. The issue is not a victory to be achieved by Germany on the one side, or England upon the other. The victory of one of the parties in the great struggle would not produce a much stronger England, though it certainly would produce a much stronger Germany.

The struggle is primarily and essentially a struggle between two conflicting theories of life and government, which have the Continent of Europe for their theatre, and of which the Prussians upon the one hand, the French upon the other, are the protagonists and have been the protagonists for now more than three generations.

All human conflicts have spiritual roots, and the underlying spiritual forces which by their contrast have led to this war are the forces of the old Latin and Christian civilization, with its doctrines of human equality and the rest, and the North German reaction against that tradition. Of the first the French are the guardians and have always been. Of the second the North Germans of the Baltic plain, and particularly the Prussians, have been the exponents; and one may survey Europe as a whole and say that the conflict spreads through the minds of all Europeans, dividing them between those who would prefer their posterity to live, consciously or unconsciously, under the ancient and continuous tradition of the civilization inherited from Rome or under some reversal of that tradition.

That conflict is apparent in every department of life; in the arts, in the customs of society, and, most important of all, in philosophy.

The direct, immediate, and perceptible issue of the struggle is again something different. It is an issue between the German-speaking peoples and the Slav. If you were to ask an acute, well-traveled observer, say a European diplomat, what, at bottom, this war was, he would answer you thus:

"This war is an armed conflict provoked by the German-speaking peoples under the leadership of Prussia against the Slavs under the leadership of the Russian Empire. It has been provoked by Prussia as leader of the German peoples, not in a spirit of aggression but in a spirit of self-defense. The German peoples have for centuries regarded themselves as the bulwark of European civilization against Slav barbarism. They believe that the Slav power is rapidly getting so great as to be an immediate peril. They think it must be fought now or never. On this account Austria was induced by Prussia to challenge the Russian Government over the Servian question.

"Either that challenge would be accepted, with the result of war, or Russia would give way, thereby obtaining for the German peoples a victory without bloodshed. And Austria would proceed to administrate the Servian Slavs and to control them—driving a wedge into the whole Slav power and rendering it innocuous for the future.

"In this struggle between Teuton and Slav France comes in as an accessory, having made an alliance with Russia long ago for her own ends, and having nothing to do with the quarrel between Teuton and Slav. The German-speaking peoples regret the interference of France, but are prepared to take on the burden of a French war rather than abandon the moment for restricting the growing power of the Slav.

"Now, in all this," (your experienced man with a wide view of Europe would add,) "England was not concerned. Her position was quite subsidiary in all this quarrel. She had far less to do with it even than France had, and it was in every Cabinet of Europe doubted whether England would come in at all. By the Prussian Government it was taken for granted that England would have no reason to come in. By the French it was feared in spite of the recent relations between the two countries that England would remain neutral. And, in general, the fact that England is at war at all is a fact on one side of the original quarrel and its original motives, though it is a fact that will profoundly affect the progress and the results of the war."

Such a statement would be no more than the plain truth as educated men know and see it in Europe today. The entry of England into the field of conflict was an entry from one side. It did not fall into line with the general motives of the people. It was, among all English statesmen, a matter of debate; it was decided by but a narrow majority of those responsible for so enormous a decision.

When we have clearly grasped these two fundamental facts—first, that the war is not on its mechanical side mainly a war between England and Germany, but mainly a war between two contrasting European and Continental ideals; secondly, the correlative fact that the entry of England into the war was not certain until the last hour, and was, when it was made, made only after doubtful consideration and after a division among the politicians, responsible for the conduct of her affairs, something almost accidental, as it were—we can proceed to consider the three causes which converging were sufficiently strong in their combination to produce that result, and when we know what those three causes were, their strength and the accidents of their convergence, at this moment we shall have answered the question, "Why is England at war with Germany?"

These three causes are:

1. The fixed cardinal point for English policy upon which no English patriot worthy of the name would hesitate for a moment, and which no historian with any sense of justice can condemn, to wit, that no one, if England can help it, shall have naval predominance over the British fleet, particularly in the narrow seas.

2. The effect of certain undertakings, a whole network of diplomatic actions, particularly in connection with France, engaged in by the English Foreign Office during the last ten years.

3. A certain vague attachment to the Western, or Latin, tradition of civilization with its routine of conventions in war and peace, and particularly of treaties as between first-class powers. This tradition was still sufficiently strong to act as a motive converging with the two others mentioned above to produce a sufficient moral stream in favor of war as, though sluggish, to help to turn the scale.

I say that these three things combined, upon the whole and doubtfully, discovered a sufficient strength between them to make the English politicians, after serious hesitation and close division, determine upon war.

Let me take them in their order:

1. The cardinal point of statesmanship upon which all English foreign policy has turned for two hundred years, that no one shall be more powerful at sea than England, especially upon the shores of the narrow seas, appears to foreigners unarguably arrogant.

It is, indeed, of its nature a challenge to the rest of the world, but if the reader will consider a moment he will see that it is a challenge to which modern England, at any rate, is inexorably condemned. However much such a position may clash with the temperament of chivalrous and peaceable men—and it does clash with the temperament of many an English statesman of the past and of the present—no one with a respect for his country, or paying the common duty of allegiance to it, can compromise upon the matter. It is here with England precisely as it has been with all her parallels, the great oligarchic commercial commonwealths of the past; she lives by the sea, and the closing of the sea would be to her not inconvenience, but death.

It is, I think, this very sentiment that England can live only on condition that the English fleet is supreme which has led England to use that supremacy so sparingly. It is true to say that there has been no force of so much superiority to its rivals as the British Navy which in all history has been used for such purely defensive purposes as the British Navy has been used during the present generation, and this moderation I conceive to be due to a clear recognition that morally the claim to supremacy at sea is a challenge which the great rival nations must feel acutely, and which they have a right to feel acutely, and which, therefore, must be softened in every possible way.

But if it is necessary that Great Britain should brook no rival at sea it is still more necessary that such a rival, should he arise, should not have naval bases within striking distance of her coast. The great exception has, of course, been France, and for two centuries at least that fact has molded the whole of British policy. Had Germany remained a Continental power and rejected maritime ambition that would still continue to mold British policy.

The French have, and Europe being what it is, will always continue to have the aptitude for the sea, the genius in mechanical invention and the superabundant wealth which between them are the three factors of the great modern fleet. A lengthy coast line training millions of her workers to a seafaring life, a long tradition of naval families, and pioneer in every form of modern naval war from the armor plate to the submarine, is the proof of this, if proof were needed.

As against the presence of some part of the French naval power on an opposing coast across a narrow armed water, the English Channel, Great Britain proceeded, generation after generation, to keep her control an essentially defensive naval force. She did it upon the position that her military effort, and therefore expenditure, should be slight; that her economic as her other energies should be chiefly devoted to her marine.

And though the French in the moments of their greatest prosperity were able, for all their constant military effort, to produce navies that rivaled those of Great Britain, yet Great Britain's effort was the more constant. She never engaged large bodies of men in war; she could take advantage of every French reverse during the two centuries when the French were perpetually engaged in huge Continental conflicts.

Great Britain, in a word, by ceaseless vigilance and at a great expense of energy, managed upon the whole to dominate one branch of the narrow seas, the channel. Upon the other branch, the North Sea, she felt nearly always secure. An exception to this security was found during the brief Dutch period in the seventeenth century and again, much more acutely, when the French were the masters of the Low Countries, and when Napoleon took control of the shipbuilding yards not only from Brest to Dunkirk, but from Dunkirk to the Bight of Heligoland.

This presence of the French power in Holland, Belgium, and Frisia, in particular the French control of Antwerp, was the true cause of violent anxiety, and the no less violent efforts in reply which Britain made during the Napoleonic wars. For twenty-three years she fought, with but two short intervals of repose, upon a dozen nominal pleas, but with one plain piece of statesmanship at the back of her mind—that no one should control the narrow seas against herself.

And especially that if she could not prevent the existence in normal times of a very powerful, dangerous French fleet, rendering her anxious for one-half of those seas, at least the other half should be free from such anxiety.

In the midst of such a secular determination, successfully maintained, Germany began to build her new great modern fleet.

The German Empire had a most unquestioned right thus to challenge the power of Great Britain. It was indeed the most effective challenge which a nation jealous of Britain's commerce could deliver, but it is none the less true that the plain policy of self-preservation compelled Britain to take up that challenge.

For the first time in three hundred years Britain found herself beginning to support French trades, in the general policy of the world.

The French, for reasons which had nothing to do with England and with which the mass of the English governing classes in no way sympathized, had maintained for more than thirty years a determination to restore their own power at the expense of Prussia. Because modern Germany was building her fleet, modern Britain, in order to check that movement, began thus in novel fashion and against all the old English traditions to support the French.

The thing was done at the bottom with reluctance. All Englishmen felt the common bond of religion which united their country with that which governs modern Germany. Many Englishmen believed that there was some vague bond of race between the two countries. Not a few worthy, ignorant men, and even one or two men of great ability, attempted to direct negotiations whereby a fixed ratio should exist between the two fleets; in other words, whereby the German Empire should pledge itself to a permanent inferiority at sea.

That empire would indeed have been more foolish even than cowardly had it listened to any such proposals. The position, therefore, was one of inevitable and increasing friction. It was a matter of life and death to England that no other great Western fleet should exist besides the French, and it was a matter of national existence to Germany once she had undertaken a policy not to give up that policy at the dictation of any other power—for, among other things, modern Germany lived on prestige; her whole internal structure depended upon it, and for Prussia to lose faith before Europe would be the end of the Germany that Prussia had made.

There are those who say that a Germany conducted by some Richelieu, or even by a surviving Bismarck, would never have attempted the building of a great fleet until accounts had been finally settled with France. There are those who say that the elements of statesmanship required the German Empire first to settle herself politically upon the shores of the Straits of Dover and the Netherlands, first to destroy the danger of a great war in the west on land, then and then only to begin building that fleet which must inevitably challenge Great Britain. It is no part of this criticism to consider the statesmanship of another nation, but at any rate once the policy of building the fleet was begun conflict with England was in sight.

2. The second cause of England's joining in this war is the effect of a number of internal arrangements, some of them of minor importance, but all leading in one direction and ultimately placing the Government of Great Britain in a position from which it was difficult to retire. In general terms these arrangements were based upon the idea of joining the group of powers, French and Russian, which formed the counterpoise to the Germanic group in Europe, the German Empire and Austria. At the same time there was running through these arrangements the idea of detaching Italy, whose Government was firmly attached to Germany, but whose population was very doubtful, from the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, which had been the cardinal point in European affairs for a generation.

The various steps by which Great Britain approached this position are well known. In the first place, she came to an arrangement with France whereby she should have a free hand in Egypt and France should be supported by England in the occupation of Morocco. This was done behind the back of Germany to the manifest loss of Germany's colonial ambition and, what is more noticeable, England was openly paying a very high price for the new state of affairs she hoped to create, for she had pretty well a free hand in Egypt, already, while France's opportunity of going to Morocco and exploiting a very large area of valuable territory—something quite new and additional to her—depended upon England's withdrawing her opposition.

That opposition was withdrawn; and though the most violent effect was produced in Germany, though there were threats of war, pitiable quarrels within the French Cabinet and a moment of grave danger, the pact was accomplished, and Morocco, all save the strip opposite Gibraltar, became French, while all that Germany had to show for her share was an irregularly shaped and not valuable couple of slices cut out of tropical Africa in the Congo Basin from the vast French possessions there, and added to her own still insufficient share.

Another group of arrangements was that with Russia, and here again England willingly paid a heavy price, and again completely reversed her traditional policy. She gave all that is vital in Persia to Russian control. She forgot her old anxiety about the Indian frontier; she lost her old and hitherto unbroken policy of supporting Turkey in Europe. When the war came she was with the French in supporting the Balkan powers, "The Little Nations."

Finally, in the matter of Italy, she supported or permitted the Italian attack upon and annexation of Turkish territory in North Africa, and consistently, before and after that event, worked for the strengthening of Italy in the Triple Alliance and for securing the neutrality of that country, at least in case of a European war.

There were many other arrangements besides these three principal and typical ones, but all, small or great, were based upon the same idea, and pointed in the same direction. England was leaning upon the Russian side against Germany. The most important in the minor details in this new policy, the one which has had most effect perhaps in producing the war, was an understanding whereby the French fleet should virtually evacuate the Northern Seas and undertake for England the policing of the Mediterranean trade routes, and the guardianship of that source of food supply to Great Britain, thus leaving the whole weight of the British Navy free to guard the North Sea, and to face the new and growing German naval force.

Now, it must always be borne in mind that these arrangements, large and small, detailed and general, whereby Great Britain gradually involved herself in a network of French and Russian supports and reciprocal duties, never took the form of an alliance. The utmost pains were taken by English diplomatists and permanent officials at the English Foreign Office, experts and servants, to state that England remained free in spite of all to act as her conscience or her interest might dictate, whenever, or if, war should break out between the two groups of Continental powers. No one can read the conflict of evidence between the German Ambassador and Sir Edward Grey in the highly typical telephone incident which took place immediately before the recent declaration of war without seeing that liberty of action was maintained by the Government of Great Britain until the very last moment.

But one cannot do a number of things, each weighted with a similar tendency, without one's whole conduct and fate being determined in the direction to which those actions tend. To preserve one's legal or technical independence is not enough. In this specific case, for instance, the naval arrangement proved an exceedingly weighty thing. France could say:

"Relying on your explicit, though not expressed, support of myself and Russia, I guarded your trade routes in the Mediterranean and left my northern coasts undefended. Here is war about to break out with those northern coasts of mine bare against the overwhelming attack from the German fleet, and with nothing wherewith I can guard it; and that nakedness is entirely due to having trusted you. You may not have a legal obligation, but the moral one is not to be shirked."

At any rate, I insist upon the tendency of all these various diplomatic acts, because it has been they that might have dragged the most reluctant Government into this conflict, and it was they which, in combination with the cardinal policy of preventing maritime rivalry in the narrow seas, decided the present policy of this country.

3. But, as I have said, there was a third cause, much vaguer and, until war actually broke out, of little effect. Though there had existed for thirty years from 1880 until after the beginning of the new century such strong bonds of sympathy between Great Britain and North Germany—bonds riveted by Court influence and much more strengthened by the influence of the universities and of religious leaders—though some contempt for and alienation from the French had become of increasing note in English public utterances and literature, yet Great Britain retained upon the whole the Western doctrine of civilization and of its traditions.

The increasing German reaction against those traditions, particularly in morals, was not wholly sympathetic to the temper of the gentry, at least in England, and was sometimes exasperating.

All nations have cynically violated treaties at one time or another, but there is about a solemnly undertaken treaty by the great European powers and affecting the happiness of the smaller neutral States something particularly sacred. And though it must not for one moment be regarded as the principal cause of the war, it is true that the crudity of Prussia's neglect of treaties, the too simple fashion in which Prussia proposed a breach of international obligations in the matter of Belgium, did affect the conscience of not a few powerful men in England, and, what is perhaps more important, furnished a definite and concrete point on which the doubtful issue of peace or war could repose.

It must be remembered in this connection that Prussia had a novel tradition of her own in such matters. The phrase "The Frederickian tradition" is an accurate phrase. Frederick the Great did start the open and avowed doctrine that a breach of international convention and of international morals is always tolerable in the aggrandizement of one's country.

I think one is not telling the truth if one says that the proposed violation of Belgian territory for the invasion of France was of a nature to cause an explosion of anger in the very hardened minds of the professional politicians in any modern country. There is not one group of them that has not been guilty of something of the sort before. But I think one is telling the truth if one says that the over-simple and cold way in which Prussia took it for granted that the violation of a solemn and most important treaty was nothing just shocked opinion, even of the politicians, sufficiently to help to incline the balance against her.

There is much more. The Prussian estimate of Russian, of French, and even of English psychology was very erroneous. The Prussian way of getting France not to join is about as subtle as spitting in a man's face, and the elephantine gambols of the German diplomats in London during the fatal week preceding the war were a positive aid to the catastrophe that was about to take place. They blundered as hard and as heavily as it was possible to blunder; going to the wrong people; despising the subtly powerful; paying court to the more advertised and less controlling of the English public men, and in a word behaving themselves after that fashion for which we have coined the adjective "newspaper."

There was further the peculiar aggravation of the tone in which the Austrian note had been addressed to Servia. There was further the patent and almost puerile double dealing of Berlin in the attempted negotiations for peace between Russia and Austria—in which negotiations the British Cabinet was very prominent. But beyond all these other minor points, these three causes I have mentioned, by their convergence, seem to have determined England's participation in the war, with all the enormous but as yet unguessed consequences that will follow therefrom.

I repeat, I do not say that any one of those three causes would in itself have been sufficient. The three combining were just sufficient, and this account, if I am not mistaken, justly presents the picture that history should have of the manner in which Great Britain determined to conclude the long process of her recent diplomatic revolution and to engage with the Allies against the German Empire and the Hapsburg house, which the German Empire tows in its wake.

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AT THE VILLA ACHILLEION CORFU.

By H.T. SUDDUTH.

A HAUNTING presence seems to fill the air, A shade of grandeur gone and e'er to be One with the legends of the Ionian Sea— One memory more linked with Corcyra fair, Disjoined, alas! from presence otherwhere— A lost illusion of the years once free And glorious in the kindling memory Of grand Homeric Past still lingering there! The olive orchards crown the hills; the vine And rose still flourish on the sunny slopes As in Alcinous' Gardens; Morning opes Her eyes irradiant with the dawn divine! But now no longer at Achilleion The Kaiser wakes to see fair Eos dawn. In Belgian or in Russian lands afar, Beneath the smoke-cloud cope of shrouded Heaven Where hissing shot and shell and War's red levin Spread far and wide the canopy of War! Where Nature shudders and seems to abhor The awful scene; where myriad souls, unshriven, From life and all its joys at once are riven, Behold the Kaiser now 'neath Mars' red star! A stern and sombre, gray-haired figure he, And standing midst the wreck of youthful dreams Sees he at times through battle smoke the gleams Of rippling waves on blue Ionian Sea? Thinks he not sadly on the days now gone, And dreams he dreamed at fair Achilleion?

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Germany's Strategic Railways

By Walter Littlefield.

GERMANY'S explanation of her violation of Belgium's neutrality has thus far assumed two successive phases which have been placed on record by the Imperial Chancellor in as many speeches in the Reichstag. Before that body Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg said on Aug. 4, 1914:

Our troops have occupied Luxemburg, and perhaps have also found it necessary to enter Belgium territory. This is contrary to international law. The French Government has declared in Brussels that they will respect the neutrality of Belgium as long as she respects the opponent. We know, however, that France was ready to invade Belgium. France could wait; we, however, could not, because a French invasion in our lower Rhein flanks would have proved fatal. So we were forced to disregard the protests of the Luxemburg and Belgian Governments. We shall try to make good the injustice we have committed as soon as our military goal has been reached. Who, like we, are fighting for the highest, must only consider how victory can be gained.

On Dec. 2 last Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg said:

When, on Aug. 4, I spoke of the wrong which we were committing with our march into Belgium, it was not yet established whether the Belgian Government at the last moment would not desire to spare the country and retire under protest to Antwerp.... Now, however, that it is demonstrated by documents found in Brussels how the Belgians surrendered their neutrality to England the entire world knows two facts. One is that when our troops on the night of Aug. 3-4 entered Belgian territory they were on the ground of a State which had given up its neutrality long ago....

To both these charges the Belgium Government has made reply. To the first it said that, while the assurance that France would not invade Belgium was sufficient, yet if France did take the initiative the Belgian Army stood ready to defend its territory from a French invasion.

To the second, it said that the documents found in Brussels merely showed an exchange of ideas as to how England might aid Belgium in defending her neutrality against an attack by Germany, and that there was nothing binding on either England or Belgium as to the outcome of these "conversations" of military experts.

In rebuttal Germany has asked: But why were we also not taken into the confidence of Brussels and similar plans formulated by which we might aid Belgium in repelling an invasion from either France or England?

To this the answer is simple: It has always been one of the objects of British policy to preserve Belgian neutrality, and that, aside from moral considerations, it would not be good military science for France to seek Germany via Belgium.

But this answer is capable of an expansion it has not hitherto received. Why did Belgium appear to fear an invasion from Germany and not one from England or France?

One has heard a great deal about Germany's supposed ambition to expand her North Sea coast at the expense of Denmark, Holland and Belgium, by coercing the Danish and the Dutch Governments to rebuild their coast fortifications toward England and to dismantle their forts on the German frontier. Much has also been said of Germany's contemplated invasion of the Low Countries at the time of the Agadir incident in 1911.

Documentary proof of Germany's contemplated initiative has hitherto been missing. Certain facts have, however, recently come to hand which enable one to review the German explanation. One of these facts embraces a project for railway expansion engineered and carried out on the Belgian frontier, which can leave no doubt in any reasonable mind that Germany deliberately planned to violate Belgium's neutrality the moment it became a military expediency to invade France.[8]

If, according to jurisprudence, the planning to commit crime is legally on a par with its achievement, then Germany, for five years prior to the war, had been guilty of violating Belgium's neutrality—guilty in such a manner as to leave no doubt in the minds of Belgian, French, and English statesmen and military experts that the actual commission of the crime would some day take place.

It was Belgium's peculiar duty, as will be seen, to prepare for that day. To have taken Germany into her confidence on a point on which Germany was already fully informed would very likely have hastened the day and the tragedy thereof.

In keeping up her forts facing Germany and building none on the French frontier, in exchanging ideas with English military experts as to how best her neutrality could be defended, Belgium was preparing for the inevitable. This inevitableness is no longer a matter of moral conjecture. It is a matter of material evidence.

First, let us see what it was that Germany violated. Belgium, partly by a decree of the Vienna Congress in 1815 and partly by revolution, secured her independence from the Netherlands in 1830. The next year she inaugurated her Constitution, and by the Treaty of London, signed Nov. 15, 1831, became the god-child, as it were, of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, who guaranteed her neutrality for all time in the following manner:

Article 7—Belgium, within the limits specified in Articles 1, 2, and 4, shall form an independent and perpetually neutral State. She shall be bound to observe this same neutrality toward all other States.

Article 26—Consequent upon the stipulation of the present treaty there shall be peace and unity between H.M. the King of the Belgians, on one part, and H.M. the Emperor of Austria, the King of the French, the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of all the Russians, on the other, respectively, forever.

The treaty, however, was not at once put into force, for there was a pending quarrel between Belgium and the Netherlands. When peace was made in 1839 the treaty was again brought forward, signed, and promulgated. Thereupon all the States of Europe recognized the Kingdom of Belgium. The plenipotentiaries who then signed the treaty were Palmerston for Great Britain, Sylvan van de Weyer for Belgium, Senfft for Austria, H. Sebastiani for France, Bülow for Prussia, and Pozzo di Borgo for Russia.

It has been asserted that, for various reasons, it was not incumbent upon the German Empire to observe the treaties contracted for by the Kingdom of Prussia. But these assertions, even to German statesmen, amount to nothing. That the German Government recognized that "the neutrality of Belgium is determined by international conventions" has been repeatedly asserted by its numbers, from the inauguration of the Imperial Constitution, April 16, 1871, down to Aug. 4, 1914, when the Imperial Chancellor admitted that the presence of German troops in Belgium was "contrary to international law."

This he stated in the Reichstag. "I speak openly," he had said. That same evening he is reported to have exclaimed to the British Ambassador that "just for a word—'neutrality,' a word which in war time had so often been disregarded—just for a scrap of paper Great Britain was going to make war on a kindred nation who desired nothing better than to be friends with her."

There can be no doubt that Germany realized just what she was doing when she marched her troops into Belgium. The question is, had she any preconceived idea of such a march?

In the southwest corner of Prussia is a rectangular piece of territory, the western and eastern sides of which are formed respectively by the Belgian and Luxemburg frontiers and the River Rhine. This territory includes about 3,600 square miles, and supports a population including the great centres of Cologne, Coblence, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Treves, of nearly 1,000,000 souls. In other words, it is an area about half as large as New Jersey, if we omit that State's water surface, and just about as thickly populated.

Map Showing Germany's Plan to Invade Belgium by a Strategic System of Railways Begun in 1909.

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Five years ago this little corner of Prussia had about 15.10 miles of railway to every 100 square miles of territory and New Jersey 30.23. In five years the Prussian territory has increased her railway mileage to 28.30 and New Jersey to a little less than 30.25.

Five years ago, in the Prussian territory, the only double lines existing were those from Cologne to Treves, from Coblence to Treves, and the two double lines, one on each side of the Rhine, from Cologne to Coblence, thus forming the three sides of a triangle. There was also the double track running from Cologne to Aix-la-Chapelle. These double lines were fed as commerce required, by only two sets of single-track lines, all amounting to a little less than 550 miles of traction—a very fair service, considering the products of the country covered.

In five years, without any apparent industrial and commercial demand for it, this traction has been increased to nearly twice its length, or to about 1,020 miles. Villages like Dumpelfeld, Ahrdorf, Hillesheim, Pronsfeld, and the health resort of Gerolstein of comic opera fame, all of less than 1,300 inhabitants, have been linked up by double-track lines with towns like Remagen, St. Vith, and Andernach, whose populations only range from 1,500 to 9,000.

Exactly what has been done? In the first place the Stolberg-St. Vith line has been relaid and doubled, and very extensive detraining stations constructed at various points along it, especially at Weiwertz and St. Vith. Then the Remagen-Adenau line has been doubled as far as Dumpelfeld, whence a double line has been continued to Hillesheim, with double branches outward from Hillesheim to Pelm and Junkerath, both on the Cologne-Treves railway.

Then from Ahrdorf, between Dumpelfeld and Hillesheim, a single line has been built to connect with the Cologne-Treves line at Blankenheim, and a most important double track laid across the barren country from Junkerath to Weiwertz on the Stolberg-St. Vith line.

It will thus be seen that five lines converge on Pelm: the double line from Cologne, the new double line from Remagen via Hillesheim, and the single line from Andernach. Pelm is 2-3/4 miles from Gerolstein, and yet over this short distance between the two villages there are laid down six parallel lines of rail, besides numerous additional sidings. Moreover, the double line from Hillesheim to Junkerath crosses over the main Cologne-Treves line by a bridge, and runs parallel to it for some distance before turning off to the left to reach Weiwertz.

In fact the knot of lines around Junkerath, Pelm and Gerolstein is a marvel of construction for heavy, rapid transit, for no congestion would arise in a case of a sudden flood of traffic going in various directions, and to secure still more freedom the line from Gerolstein to Pronsfeld has been doubled.

Few of these lines, it is to be noted, cross the frontier. Three of them as late as last May led to blind terminals within less than a day's march from it—the double line from Cologne via Stolberg to Weiwertz, the double line from Cologne via Junkerath and Weiwertz to St. Vith, and the double line from Remagen via Hillesheim and Pelm to Pronsfeld.

The cost of the whole system, with its numerous bridges and multiple sidings, must have been enormous. The German average of $108,500 to the mile would hardly cover it.

Here is what a traveler saw when he visited this corner of Prussia last May:

The —— is as much struck by the significance of the ordinary traffic along these lines as he is by the huge embankments and cuttings on which nothing has yet had time to grow, and by the inordinate extent and number of the sidings to be seen everywhere. Baby trains, consisting of a locomotive and four short cars, dodder along two or three times a day, and if a freight train happens to be encountered, it will be found to be loaded with railway plant.

Another point that is noticeable is that provision exists everywhere at these new junctions and extensions for avoiding an up-line crossing a down-line on the level; the up-line is carried over the down-line by a bridge, involving long embankments on both sides and great expense, but enormously simplifying traffic problems when it comes to a question of full troop trains pushing through at the rate of one every quarter of an hour, and the empty cars returning eastward at the same rate.

The detraining stations are of sufficient length to accommodate the longest troop train (ten cars) easily, and they generally have at least four sidings apart from the through up-and-down lines. Moreover, at almost every station there are two lines of siding long enough for troop trains, so that they can be used to some extent as detraining stations, and so that a couple of troop trains can be held up at any time while traffic continues uninterrupted.

It is impossible to believe that this system was constructed for any other purpose than to prepare for the exigency which might some day force Germany to ignore the Treaty of 1839 and invade Belgium. At least it presumably accounts for the vast armies which invested Liége and Namur in the early days of last August.

Its existence, in both the light and the darkness of the Treaty of Neutrality, shows that Belgium was justified in taking any measures which were likely to preserve her national existence, so obviously threatened. That these measures were always within the letter and spirit of the treaty of 1839 is so much to her credit.

The strategic lines that Germany built on her frontier would have justified her in going further. Her obligations to herself and to her pledged protectors prevented this. Germany went on with her railway building unchallenged. She laboriously constructed an edifice which is both a monument and an altar—a monument to military forethought and expediency, an altar on which she has sacrificed her national honor.

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GLORY OF WAR.

By ADELINE ADAMS.

"SINGER, why are you white and sad, And staring through the stars?" "The friend and brother I once had Is fallen in the Wars." "Was he at Mons, or by the Aisne, Or near the Flanders shore?" "Also at Rheims, and in Lorraine, And places many more." "Had he no children, fair of limb?" "Yes, he had many sons, But most are fallen there with him, Before the monstrous guns." "And were the daughters of his heart Crushed also to the sod?" "The nun who saw their lot and part Died maniac, cursing God." "His wife?" "The woman lives, yet dies Daily, and with the grace Men say befits her sacrifice, As it befits her race." "What was her race, and your friend's rank? Was he of the first line? And was he Briton, Russ, or Frank, Or from beside the Rhine?" "Ah, many thousand times untold My friend was each of these, And went from mart or forge or fold, To drown in red, red seas!"

Area of War in Western Europe.

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Area of War in East Prussia and Poland.

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Chronology of the War

Showing Progress of Campaigns on All Fronts and Collateral Events from Oct. 15, 1914, to and Including Jan. 7, 1915.[9]