CONNECTICUT STATE LIBRARY Standard Photogravure History of the War A CONTEMPORARY RECORD OF EPOCH-MAKING EVENTS FROM OFFICAL SOURCES, DIPLOMATIC CORRESPON­ DENCE, MILITARY ORDERS and PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITS (SEE THE INSIDE BACK COVER FOR A FULL DESCRIPTION OF THIS WORK) EDITOR-IN -CHIEF FRANCIS TREVELYAN MILLER, LITT.D., LL.D. Editor-in-chief of the ten volume "Photographic History of the Civil War," Founder of "The Journal of American History" ASSOCIATE EDITORS ADVISORY BOARD OF MILITARY EGBERT GILLISS HANDY AUTHORITIES Founder of The Search-Light Library Major-General A. W. Greely, U.S. A. Major John Bigelow, U.S. A. WALTER R. BICKFORD Captain A. L. Conger, U. S. A. Formerly of Editorial Board uf the "Photagraphic Rear-Admiral Austin M. Knight, U. 8. N. History of the Civil War" and "The Journal of Rear-Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, U. S. N. American History." Rear-Admiral Colby M. Chester, U. S. N. ----- SYMPOSIUM OF CONTEMPORARY OPINIONS BY AMERICAN HISTORIANS Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, LL.D., Litt.D., Dr. Guy Potter Benton, LL.D., D.D. Ph.D. President of U ni·oersity of Vermont President of Columbia University Dr. Albert A. Murphree, LL.D. Dr. John Grier Hibben, LL.D., Ph.D. President of Uni~ersit.IJ of Florida President of Princeton U nit•enity Dr. Samuel Black McCormick, LL.D., D.D. Dr. William H. P. Faunce, LL.D., D.D. Pre.~idcnt of Univcrs1'ty of Pittsburgh President uf Brown University J. C. Futrall, M.A. Dr. William DeWitt Hyde, LL.D., D.D., S.T.D. President of University of Arkansa11 Pre"aident of Bowdoin College Dr. Clyde A. Duniway, Ph.D. Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart, LL.D., Litt.D., Ph.D. Prt>sident of University of Wyoming Professrn of G011ernment in Harvard Unirenitu · Dr. James W. Cain, LL.D. Dr. Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., Ph.D. President of Washington College 1 President Emeritus of Harl!ard University Dr. Mary E. Woolley, LL.D. Dr. Arthur Twining Hadley, LL.D., Ph.D. President of Mount Holyoke College Prel!ident of Yale University Dr. Thomas Fell, LL.D., Ph.D. Dr. Benjamin Ide Wheeler, LL.D.,Litt.D.,Ph.D. President of St. John's College · President of University of Califrnnia Dr. William Milligan Sloane, LL.D., Ph.D. Dr. Charles R. VanHise, LL.D., Ph.D. Professor in Columbia University P~esident of Unive-rsity of Wisc<msin Dr. Irving Fisher, Ph.D. Dr. G. Stanley HaU, LL.D., Ph.D. Professor of Political Economy, Yale University President of Clark University Dr. Brander MattJtews, .LL.D., Litt.D. Dr. Charles Franklin Thwin~ LL.D.. D.D. Professor of Literature in Columbia Uni11ersity Pre"aide-nt of Western Reserve University Dr. Hugo Munsterberg, LL.D., Litt.D.,Ph_.D. Dr. Joseph Swain, LL.D. Professor of Psychology in Harvard University President of Swarthmrne College Dr. Albert Bernhardt Faust, Ph.D. Dr. Elmer Ellsworth Brown, LL.D., Ph.D. Professor of German in Cornell University ChanceUrn of New York Uni~ersity Dr. Robert Louis Sanderson, Dr. Lyman P. Powell, LL.D., D.D. "' Professor of French in Yale University! President uf Hobart and William Smith College11 Dr. M. J. Bonn, Ph.D. Dr. George C. Chase, LL.D., D.D. Professor of Political Economy in University of President of Bates College Munich; Exchange Professor at U n i ~ e rait y of Dr. Flavel S. Luther, LL.D., Ph.D. California President of Trinity College and other contemporary American historians OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS AND PROCLAMATIONS BY THE GOVERNMENTS The contents of this work are based on official documents issued by the governments, including the diplomatic papers, and conferences with the Ambassadors of the belligerent Powers Published weekly at Ten Cents a copy; $1.2.5 a quarter; $5.00 a year. Photojlraphs and text copyright, 1914, b)• Tribune Asso<iation Appl~cation for entry at post office of New York as second class matk1'. ~ Photograph from collection of International News Service. Copyright, 1914. ON THE FIRI:\G LI:'\E IN AN ARMORED TRAIN-Photograph of an armored railroad train in action near Ypres, Bel­ gium, while King Albert's troops were fighting desperately in the las\. weeks of October, Hll-l, to hold the last remnant of Belgian soil around the Yprcs Canal that the Germans had not conqut•red. 75 I 1 •I Photograph from collection of International News Service. Copyright, 1914. WAR INVADES THE SANCTUARY OF CHRIST-Photograph taken after the bombardment <>f Termonde, Belgium, by the Germans on September 3, 1914. The shell from a siege gun burst directly over the statue of Christ descending from the cross, 1eaving ruin at the feet of the Great Apostle of Peace and Love. The city was retaken by the Belgians. 76 Contemporary Judgment by American Historians Just who are to blame for beginning the war and how the blame is to be dis­ tributed can certainly not be determined now. After many decades, when all the evidence has been collected, history will assign its exalted verdict. We are but just now coming to understand through the sifting of all the evidence precisely what was involved in the wars of the early part of the nineteenth century. Nation after nation slipped into war as helplessly as logs slip over Niagara into the chasm. Reason was so slight that chance predominated. The whole hodgepodge of occurrences is rich in warning to us as a people against the dangers of alliances and even of treaties. Nations were pulled this way and that into arbi­ trary combinations by previous understandings. "\rVe have renewed reason to respect the wisdom of Washington, who warned us against entangling alliances, and renew~ reason to stand by our Monroe Doctrine. We have further to learn that we cannot expect universal and wholesale peace in this world. Certainly we cannot expect to secure it by concatenations of treaties. Treaties between states pair by pair have proved more a danger than a safeguard. What we need is an international clearing house, made up of eight or ten great nations, who shall constitute a forum in whose presence every treaty shall be registered, so that treaties and understandings may become matters of the great whole world. We have reached a warlike epoch in the history of the world, and it is an epoch determined by racial readjustments at certain sensitive spots on tha world's crust. As against the tremendous force of this inevitable tendency the cold form of legal­ ity as represented in the customary devices of arbitration is utterly hopeless. For the great overflow which arbitration cannot deal with the arbitrament of the sword is inevitable. In the place of petty arbitrations the world must establish one central clearing house and one central policing of the world. BENJAMIN IDE \VHEELER, LL.D., Litt.D., Ph.D., President of University of California. It is utterly irrational to labor for fifty years to build up a system of inter­ national exchange, creating a world of credit sensitive as a spider's web, and then to destroy that credit in order to achieve economic advance. It is absurd for armed , men aiming at each other's hearts to call on the same God to make their aim true and send their bullets home. The old polytheism was more consistent. When the Goths and Vandals sacked Rome they did not ask the Roman gods to help them do it. It is absurd that modern science should arm one section of humanity with weapons intended to cripple and kill, and another section with surgical in­ struments and drugs intended to heal. It is preposterous to exhaust the resources of applied science in creating machine guns to vomit lead, and at the same time send out an army of doctors and nurses to heal the wounds we ourselves have lnade. We can call home the Red Cross or we can call back the mailed fist; but to send them both at the same time, and in ever increasing numbers, is sheer unreason. WILLIAM H. P. -FAUNCE, LL. D., D. D., President of Brown University. 77 T l 1 Photograph f rom collection of International News Service. Copyright. 1914. B RITISH TROOPS ON BATTLEGROUNDS IN FRANCE-Photograph taken in northern France showing a file of English soldiers lying in shallow trenches awaiting the coming of the gray-clad German troops of invasion. In the foreground is seen the deadly machine gun whose continuous stream of bullets mowed down the enemy's ranks like a scythe. 78 CHAPTER III The Crisis in World Politics - and the Battlefields of Diplomacy HE crisis in world politics- and the forebodings of a world war-were ill omens that had been hanging like a blood-red cloud over the nations for a generation. Statesmen frequently issued their warnings in the halls of legislation; while novelists described it in prophetic fiction, with stirring scenes of battles in the T air and under the seas. Military men drank toasts to "The Day" and the ""War of To-morrow." Humanitarians labored diligently to avert it with peace societies and tri­ bunals-and believed that the Great Crisis would finally be fought out in the Temple of The Hague by the world's statesmen rather than at the point of the sword. But all the while, day and night, the anvils and forges of the nations were shaping the armaments and creating gigantic fighting machine for the day of doom. That a crisis was approaching was never doubted. The only questions were. when and how will it arrive- and in what manner will it be mel? What nations will be im·olved- if there be war? ""hich will be the conquerors and whieh the conquered? .And what will b<· its effect upon civilization? We have seen in the preceding chapters how this Great \Yar is the result of essential and fundamental causes that have been indicated, and \'\·hich will become further apparent in the perspective of years; and how it is the natural consequence of political polieies that have long been creating an economic condition that sooner or later must meet the supreme test.