"M. Maubin," asked the lad, as they sat down to their hasty meal, "before you go, I wish you'd explain to me a little what this war is about. Being an American, I'm not up on European politics, and I can't quite make head or tail out of the muddle. So far as I understand, Austria quarreled with Servia because the Crown Prince was shot by a Servian. That's natural enough, although it doesn't seem enough to start a war. Suddenly, Germany invades Belgium. What's Germany got to do with Servia? And where does Belgium come in?"
The master glanced at his pupil.
"It's impossible to explain the tangle of European politics in a few words," he said, "but you are right in wanting to know the causes of the war. I'll put them as simply as I can.
"Every international war in the world's history has been an aggressive war, waged either to win new territory or commerce, or to take back territory or commerce which had been wrested from its former owner. Very often, this indirect but real cause is cloaked by some petty incident which looms up as the direct cause, and, not infrequently, the antagonism of one nation to another has a powerful effect. Civil wars, on the other hand, are generally due to money conditions."
"Was our American Civil War due to that?" Horace asked.
"Yes," the master answered, "it was due to the disturbed balance of economic conditions between slave-holding and non-slave-holding States."
"And was our Spanish-American War a war of aggression?"
"Certainly, on the part of Cuba. The Cubans tried to shake off the yoke of Spain and possess the territory for themselves, and Spain, not altogether unnaturally, resented America's sympathy with the rebels."
"And this war?" asked Horace. "Is it for commerce or for territory?"