British army $224,300,000
British navy 224,140,000
German army 183,090,00
German navy 111,300,000
French army 191,431,580
French navy 119,571,400
Russian army 317,800,000
Russian navy 122,500,000
Austrian army 82,300,000
Austrian navy 42,000,000
Total $1,618,432,980
It was evident that taxes to meet the extraordinary expenses of war would have to be greatly increased in Germany and France. As business became at a standstill throughout Europe and every port of entry blocked, experts wondered where the money was to come from. All agreed that, when peace should be declared and the figures were all in, the result financially would be staggering and that the heaviest burden it had ever borne would rest upon Europe for fifty years to come. For when the roar of the cannon ceases and the nations are at rest, then dawns the era of payment, inevitable, unescapable, one in which for generations every man and woman must share.
Chapter II.
UNDERLYING CAUSES OF THE GREAT EUROPEAN WAR
Assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince—Austria’s Motive in Making War—Servia Accepts Austria’s Demand—The Ironies of History—What Austria Has to Gain—How the War Became Continental—An Editorial Opinion—Is the Kaiser Responsible?—Germany’s Stake in the War—Why Russia Entered the Field—France’s Hatred of Germany—Great Britain and Italy—The Triple Alliance and Triple Entente
What brought on the mighty war which so suddenly sprang forth? What evident, what subtle, what deep-hidden causes led to this sudden demolition of the temple of peace? What pride of power, what lust of ambition, what desire of imperial dominion cast the armed hosts of the nations into the field of conflict, on which multitudes of innocent victims were to be sacrificed to the insatiate hunger for blood of the modern Moloch?
Here are questions which few are capable of answering. Ostensible answers may be given, surface causes, reasons of immediate potency. But no one will be willing to accept these as the true moving causes. For a continent to spring in a week’s time from complete peace into almost universal war, with all the great and several of the small Powers involved, is not to be explained by an apothegm or embraced within the limits of a paragraph. If not all, certainly several of these nations had enmities to be unchained, ambitions to be gratified, long-hidden purposes to be put in action. They seemed to have been awaiting an opportunity, and it came when the anger of the Servians at the seizure of Bosnia by Austria culminated in a mad act of assassination
ASSASSINATION OF THE AUSTRIAN CROWN PRINCE
The immediate cause, so far as apparent to us, of the war in question was the murder, on June 29, 1914, of the Austrian Crown Prince Francis Ferdinand and his wife, while on a visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, the assassin being a Servian student, supposed to have come for that purpose from Belgrade, the Servian capital. The inspiring cause of this dastardly act was the feeling of hostility towards Austria which was widely entertained in Servia. Bosnia was a part of the ancient kingdom of Servia. The bulk of its people are of Slavic origin and speak the Servian language. Servia was eager to regain it, as a possible outlet for a border on the Mediterranean Sea. When, therefore, in 1908, Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had been under her military control since 1878, the indignation in Servia was great. While it had died down in a measure in the subsequent years, the feeling of injury survived in many hearts, and there is little reason to doubt that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was a result of this pervading sentiment.
In fact, the Austrian government was satisfied that the murder plot was hatched in Belgrade and held that Servian officials were in some way concerned in it. The Servian press gave some warrant for this, being openly boastful and defiant in its comments. When the Austrian consul-general at Belgrade dropped dead in the consulate the papers showed their satisfaction and hinted that he had been poisoned. This attitude of the press evidently was one of the reasons for the stringent demand made by Austria on July 23d, requiring apology and change of attitude from Servia and asking for a reply by the hour of 6 P.M. on the 25th. The demands were in part as follows:
1. An apology by the Servian government in its official journal for all Pan-Servian propaganda and for the participation of Servian army officers in it, and warning all Servians in the future to desist from anti-Austrian demonstrations.