[Illustration]
The World War and What Was Behind It
or
The Story of the Map of Europe
By
L. P. Bénézet
SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, EVANSVILLE, INDIANA
[Illustration: The Peace Palace at the Hague]
Preface
This little volume is the result of the interest shown by pupils,
teachers, and the general public in a series of talks on the causes of
the great European war which were given by the author in the fall of
1914. The audiences were widely different in character. They included
pupils of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, students in high
school and normal school, teachers in the public schools, an
association of business men, and a convention of boards of education.
In every case, the same sentiment was voiced: “If there were only some
book which would give us these facts in simple language and illustrate
them by maps and charts as you have done!” After searching the market
for a book of this sort without success, the author determined to put
the subject of his talks into manuscript form. It has been his aim to
write in a style which is well within the comprehension of the children
in the upper grades and yet is not too juvenile for adult readers. The
book deals with the remarkable sequence of events in Europe which made
the great war inevitable. Facts are revealed which, so far as the
author knows, have not been published in any history to date; facts
which had the strongest possible bearing on the outbreak of the war.
The average American, whether child or adult, has little conception of
conditions in Europe. In America all races mix. The children of the
Polish Jew mingle with those of the Sicilian, and in the second
generations both peoples have become Americans. Bohemians intermarry
with Irish, Scotch with Norwegians. In Europe, on the other hand, Czech
and Teuton, Bulgar and Serb may live side by side for centuries without
mixing or losing their distinct racial characteristics. In order that
the American reader may understand the complicated problem of European
peace, a study of races and languages is given in the text, showing the
relationship of Slav, Celt, Latin, and Teuton, and the various
sub-divisions of these peoples. A knowledge of these facts is very
essential to any understanding of the situation in Europe. The author
has pointed out the fact that political boundaries are largely
king-made, and that they have seldom been drawn with regard to the
natural division of Europe by nationalities, or to the wishes of the
mass of the population.
The chapter, entitled “Europe as it Should Be,” with its accompanying
map, shows the boundaries of the various nations as they would look if
the bulk of the people of each nationality were included in a single
political division. In many places, it is, of course, impossible to
draw sharp lines. Greek shades off into Bulgar on one side and into
Skipetar and Serb on the other. Prague, the capital of the Czechs, is
one-third German in its population. There are large islands of Germans
and Magyars in the midst of the Roumanians of Transylvania. These are a
few examples out of many which could be cited. However, the general aim
of the chapter has been to divide the continent into nations, in each
of which the leading race would vastly predominate in population.
It is hoped that the study of this little work will not only throw
light upon the causes of war in general, but will also reveal its
cruelty and its needlessness. It is shown that the history of Europe
from the time of the great invasions by the Germanic tribes has been a
continuous story of government without the consent of the governed.
A preventive for wars, such as statesmen and philanthropists in many
countries have urged, is outlined in the closing chapter. It would seem
as though after this terrible demonstration of the results of armed
peace, the governments of the world would be ready to listen to some
plan which would forever forbid the possibility of another war. Just as
individuals in the majority of civilized countries discovered, a
hundred years ago, that it was no longer necessary for them to carry
weapons in order to insure their right to live and to enjoy protection,
so nations may learn at last that peace and security are preferable to
the fruits of brigandage and aggression. The colonies of America, after
years of jealousy and small differences, followed by a tremendous war,
at last learned this lesson. In the same way the states of Europe will
have to learn it. The stumbling blocks in the way are the remains of
feudal government in Europe and the ignorance and short-sightedness of
the common people in many countries. Ignorance is rapidly waning with
the advance of education, and we trust that feudalism will not long
survive its last terrible crime, the world war of 1914.
Now that the United States has become a belligerent, it is very
essential that our people understand the events that led up to our
participation in the war. So many of our citizens are of a peace-loving
nature, we are so far removed from the militarism of continental
Europe, and the whole war seems so needless and so profitless to those
who have not studied carefully its causes, that there is danger of a
want of harmony with the program of the government if all are not
taught the simple truth of the matter. There is no quicker channel
through which to reach all the people than the public schools. With
this in mind, two entire chapters and part of a third are devoted to
demonstrating why no other course was open to this country than to
accept the war which was forced upon her.
In the preparation of this little work, the author has received many
helpful suggestions from co-workers. His thanks are especially due to
Professor A. G. Terry of Northwestern University and Professor A. H.
Sanford of the Wisconsin State Normal School at La Crosse, who were
kind enough to read through and correct the manuscript before its final
revision. The author is especially indebted to the Committee on Public
Information at Washington, D. C., for furnishing to him authoritative
data on many phases of the war. Acknowledgment is also made to Row,
Peterson and Company for kind permission to use illustrations from
_History Stories of Other Lands_; also to the International Film
Service, Inc., of New York City for the use of many valuable copyright
illustrations of scenes relating to the great war.
L. P. BÉNÉZET.
_Evansville, Indiana,
January 2, 1918_
Contents
Preface
I. The Great War
II. Rome and the Barbarian Tribes
III. From Chiefs to Kings
IV. Master and Man
V. A Babel of Tongues
VI. “The Terrible Turk”
VII. The Rise of Modern Nations
VIII. The Fall of Two Kingdoms
IX. The Little Man from the Common People
X. A King-Made Map and Its Trail of Wrongs
XI. Italy a Nation at Last
XII. The Man of Blood and Iron
XIII. The Balance of Power
XIV. The “Entente Cordiale”
XV. The Sowing of the Dragon’s Teeth
XVI. Who Profits?
XVII. The Spark that Exploded the Magazine
XVIII. Why England Came In
XIX. Diplomacy and Kingly Ambition
XX. Back to the Balkans
XXI. The War under the Sea
XXII. Another Crown Topples
XXIII. The United States at War—Why?
XXIV. Europe As It Should Be
XXV. The Cost of It All
XXVI. What Germany Must Learn
Pronouncing Glossary
Index
List of Maps
I. Distribution of Peoples According to Relationship
II. Distribution of Languages
III. Southeastern Europe in 600 B.C.
IV. Southeastern Europe 975 A.D.
V. Southeastern Europe 1690
VI. The Empire of Charlemagne
VII. Europe in 1540
VIII. The Growth of Brandenburg-Prussia 1400-1806
IX. Italy in 525
X. Italy in 650
XI. Italy in 1175
XII. Europe in 1796
XIII. Europe in 1810
XIV. Europe in 1815
XV. Italy Made One Nation—1914—
XVI. Formation of the German Empire
XVII. Southeastern and Central Europe 1796
XVIII. Losses of Turkey During the Nineteenth Century
XIX. Turkey As the Balkan Allies Planned to Divide It
XX. Changes Resulting from Balkan Wars 1912-1913
XXI. The Two Routes from Germany into France
XXII. The Roumanian Campaign as the Allies Wished It
XXIII. The Roumanian Campaign as It Turned Out
XXIV. Europe as It Should Be
List of Illustrations
I. The Peace Palace at the Hague
II. Fleeing from Their Homes, Around which a Battle is Raging
III. A Drill Ground in Modern Europe
IV. The Forum of Rome as It Was 1600 Years Ago
V. The Last Combat of the Gladiators
VI. Germans Going into Battle
VII. A Hun Warrior
VIII. Gaius Julius Caesar
IX. A Frankish Chief
X. Movable Huts of Early Germans
XI. Goths on the March
XII. Franks Crossing the Rhine
XIII. Men of Normandy Landing in England
XIV. Alexander Defeating the Persians
XV. A Knight in Armor
XVI. A Norman Castle in England
XVII. A Vassal Doing Homage to His Lord
XVIII. William the Conqueror
XIX. A Typical Bulgarian Family
XX. Mohammed II Before Constantinople
XXI. A Scene in Salonika
XXII. Louis XIV
XXIII. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough
XXIV. The Great Elector of Brandenburg
XXV. Frederick the Great
XXVI. Catharine II
XXVII. Courtier of Time of Louis XIV
XXVIII. The Taking of the Bastille
XXIX. The Palace of Versailles
XXX. The Reign of Terror
XXXI. The First Singing of “The Marseillaise”
XXXII. Charles the Fifth
XXXIII. The Emperor Napoleon in 1814
XXXIV. The Retreat from Moscow
XXXV. Napoleon at Waterloo
XXXVI. The Congress of Vienna
XXXVII. Prince Metternich
XXXVIII. The First Meeting of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel
XXXIX. Bismarck
XL. An Attack on a Convoy in the Franco-Prussian War
XLI. The Proclamation at Versailles of William I as Emperor of Germany
XLII. Peter the Great
XLIII. Entrance to the Mosque of St. Sophia
XLIV. The Congress of Berlin
XLV. An Arab Sheik and His Staff
XLVI. A Scene in Constantinople
XLVII. Durazzo
XLVIII. A Modern Dreadnaught
XLIX. Submarine
L. A Fort Ruined by the Big German Guns
LI. Russian Peasants Fleeing Before the German Army
LII. A Bomb-proof Trench in the Western War Front
LIII. Venizelos
LIV. The Deutschland in Chesapeake Bay
LV. Crowd in Petrograd During the Revolution
LVI. Revolutionary Soldiers in the Duma
LVII. Kerensky Reviewing Russian Troops
LVIII. Flight from a Torpedoed Liner
LIX. President Wilson Reading the War Message
LX. American Grain Set on Fire by German Agents
LXI. Polish Children
LXII. The Price of War
LXIII. Rendered Homeless by War
LXIV. Charles XII of Sweden
The Story of the Map of Europe
Chapter I.
The Great War
The call from Europe.—Friend against friend.—Why?—Death and
devastation.—No private quarrel.—Ordered by government.—What
makes government?—The influence of the past.—Four causes of war.
Among the bricklayers at work on a building which was being
erected in a great American city during the summer of 1914 were
two men who had not yet become citizens of the United States.
Born abroad, they still owed allegiance, one to the Emperor of
Austria, the other to the Czar of Russia.
Meeting in a new country, and using a new language which gave them a
chance to understand each other, they had become well acquainted. They
were members of the same labor union, and had worked side by side on
several different jobs. In the course of time, a firm friendship had
sprung up between them. Suddenly, on the same day, each was notified to
call at the office of the agent of his government in the city. Next
morning the Russian came to his boss to explain that he must quit work,
that he had been called home to fight for the “Little Father” of the
Russians. He found his chum, the Austrian, there ahead of him, telling
that he had to go, for the Russians had declared war on Austria and the
good Kaiser,[1] Franz Josef, had need of all his young men.
[1] In the German language, the title Kaiser means Emperor.
The two chums stared at each other in sorrow and dismay. The
pitiless arm of the god of war had reached across the broad
Atlantic, plucking them back from peace and security. With
weapons put into their hands they would be ordered to kill each
other on sight.
A last hand-clasp, a sorrowful “Good luck to you,” and they
parted.
Why was this necessary? What was this irresistible force, strong
enough to separate the two friends and drag them back five
thousand miles for the purpose of killing each other? To answer
these two questions is the purpose of this little volume.
Beginning with the summer of 1914, Europe and parts of Asia and
Africa were torn and racked with the most tremendous war that the
world has ever seen. Millions of men were killed. Other millions
were maimed, blinded, or disfigured for life. Still other
millions were herded into prison camps or forced to work like
convict laborers. Millions of homes were filled with grief.
Millions of women were forced to do hard work which before the
war had been considered beyond their power. Millions of children
were left fatherless. What had been the richest and most
productive farming land in Europe was made a barren waste.
Thousands of villages and towns were utterly destroyed and their
inhabitants were forced to flee, the aged, the sick, and the
infants alike.
In many cases, as victorious armies swept through Poland and
Serbia, the wretched inhabitants fled before them, literally
starving, because all food had been seized for the use of
fighting men. Dreadful diseases, which cannot exist where people
have the chance to bathe and keep themselves clean, once more
appeared, sweeping away hundreds of thousands of victims. The
strongest, healthiest, bravest men of a dozen different nations
were shot down by the millions or left to drag out a miserable
existence, sick or crippled for life. Silent were the wheels in
many factories which once turned out the comforts and luxuries of
civilization. There were no men to make toys for the children, or
to work for mankind’s happiness. The only mills and factories
which were running full time were those that turned out the tools
of destruction and shot and shell for the guns. Nations poured
out one hundred fifty million dollars a day for the purpose of
killing off the best men in Europe. Had the world gone mad? What
was the reason for it all?
[Illustration: Fleeing from their Homes, around which a Battle is Raging]
In 1913 Germans traveled in Russia and Englishmen traveled in
Germany freely and safely. Germans were glad to trade with
intercourse Russians, and happy to have Englishmen spend their
money in Germany. France and Austria exchanged goods and their
inhabitants traveled within each other’s boundaries. A Frenchman
might go anywhere through Germany and be welcomed. There was
nothing to make the average German hate the average Englishman or
Belgian. The citizen of Austria and the citizen of Russia could
meet and find plenty of ground for friendship.
We cannot explain this war, then, on the grounds of race hatred.
One can imagine that two men living side by side and seeing each
other every day might have trouble and grow to hate each other,
but in this great war soldiers were shooting down other soldiers
whom they had never seen before, with whom they had never
exchanged a word, and it would not profit them if they killed a
whole army of their opponents. In many cases, the soldiers did
not see the men whom they were killing. An officer with a
telescope watched where the shells from the cannon were falling
and telephoned to the captain in charge to change the aim a
trifle for his next shots. The men put in the projectile, closed
and fired the gun. Once in a while, a shell from the invisible
enemy, two, three, or four miles away, fell among them, killing
and wounding. When a regiment of Austrians were ordered to charge
the Russian trenches, they shot and bayoneted the Russians
because they were told to do so by their officers, and the
Russian soldiers shot the Austrians because their captains so
ordered them. The officers on each side were only obeying orders
received from their generals. The generals were only obeying
orders from the government.
In the end, then, we come back to the governments, and we wonder
what has caused these nations to fly at each other’s throats. The
question arises as to what makes up a government or why a
government has the right to rule its people.
In the United States, the government officials are simply the
servants of the people. Practically every man in our country,
unless he is a citizen of some foreign nation, has a right to
vote, and in many of the states women, too, have a voice in the
government. We, the people of the United States, can choose our
own lawmakers, can instruct them how to vote and, in some states,
can vote out of existence any law that they the people have made
which we do not like. In all states, we can show our disapproval
of what our law-makers have done by voting against them at the
next election. Such is the government of a republic, a
“government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as
Abraham Lincoln called it. In the leading British colonies, the
people rule. Australian citizens voted against forcing men to
serve in the army. The result was very close and the vote of the
women helped to decide it. Canada, on the contrary, voted to
compel her men to go. How is it in Europe? Have the people of
Germany or Austria the right to vote on war? Were they consulted
before their governments called them to arms and sent them to
fight each other? It is plain that in order to understand what
this war is about, we must look into the story of how the
different governments of Europe came to be and learn why their
peoples obey them so unquestioningly.
We must remember that government by the people is a very new
thing. One hundred and thirty years ago, even in the United
States only about one-fourth of the men had the right to vote.
These were citizens of property and wealth. They did not think a
poor man was worth considering. In England, a country which
allows its people more voice in the government than almost any
other nation in Europe, it is only within the last thirty years
that all men could vote. There are some European countries, like
Turkey, where the people have practically no power at all and
others, like Austria, where they have very little voice in how
they shall be governed.
For over a thousand years, the men of Europe have obeyed without
thinking when their lords and kings have ordered them to pick up
their weapons and go to war. In many instances they have known
nothing of the causes of the conflict or of what they were
fighting for. A famous English writer has written a poem which
illustrates how little the average citizen has ever known
concerning the cause of war, and shows the difference between the
way in which war was looked upon by the men of old and the way in
which one should regard it. The poem runs as follows:
The Battle of Blenheim
It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar’s work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
In playing there had found,
He came to ask what he had found
That was so large and smooth and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And, with a natural sigh—
“’Tis some poor fellow’s skull,” said he,
“Who fell in the great victory.
“I find them in the garden,
For there’s many hereabout;
And often when I go to plow,
The plowshare turns them out!
For many a thousand men,” said he,
“Were slain in the great victory.”
“Now tell us what ’twas all about,”
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes—
“Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for.”
“It was the English,” Kaspar cried,
“Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for
I could not well make out;
But everybody said,” quoth he,
“That ’twas a famous victory.
“My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.
“They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won—
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.
“Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
And our good Prince Eugene.”
“Why, ’twas a very wicked thing!”
Said little Wilhelmine.
“Nay, nay, my little girl,” quoth he,
“It was a famous victory.
“And everybody praised the duke
Who this great fight did win.”
“But what good came of it at last?”
Quoth little Peterkin.
“Why, that I cannot tell,” said he;
“But ’twas a famous victory.”
—_Robert Southey_.
Old Kaspar, who has been used to such things all his life, cannot
feel the wickedness and horror Of the battle. The children, on
the other hand, have a different idea of war. They are not
satisfied until they know what it was all about and what good
came of it, and they feel that “it was a very wicked thing.” If
the men in the armies had stopped to ask the reason why they were
killing each other and had refused to fight until they knew the
truth, the history of the world would have been very different.
One reason why we still have wars is that men refuse to think for
themselves, because it is so much easier to let their dead
ancestors think for them and to keep up customs which should have
been changed ages ago. People in Europe have lived in the midst
of wars or preparation for wars all their lives. There never has
been a time when Europe was not either a battlefield or a great
drill-ground for armies.
There was a time, long ago, when any man might kill another in
Europe and not be punished for his deed. It was not thought wrong
to take human life. Today it is not considered wrong to kill,
provided a man is ordered to do so by his general or his king.
When two kings go to war, each claiming his quarrel to be a just
one, wholesale murder is done, and each side is made by its
government to think itself very virtuous and wholly justified in
its killing. It should be the great aim of everyone today to help
to bring about lasting peace among all the nations.
[Illustration: A Drill Ground in Modern Europe.]
In order to know how to do this, we must study the causes of the
wars of the past. We shall find, as we do so, that almost all
wars can be traced to one of four causes: (1) the instinct among
barbarous tribes to fight with and plunder their neighbors; (2)
the ambition of kings to enlarge their kingdoms; (3) the desire
of the traders of one nation to increase their commerce at the
expense of some other nation; (4) a people’s wish to be free from
the control of some other country and to become a nation by
itself. Of the four reasons, only the last furnishes a just cause
for war, and this cause has been brought about only when kings
have sent their armies out, and forced into their kingdoms other
peoples who wished to govern themselves.
Questions for Review
Why must foreigners in the United States return to their
native lands when summoned by their governments?
How is it that war helps to breed diseases?
Is race hatred a cause of war or a result of it?
Whom do we mean by the government in the United States?
Who controls the government in Russia?
Who in England?
Who in Germany?
Who in France?
In Southey’s poem, how does the children’s idea of the battle
differ from that of their grandfather? Why?
Are people less likely to protest against war if their
forefathers have fought many wars?
What have been the four main causes of war?