the German advance for two weeks and gave time to the English and French
armies to rally. For her pains she has been conquered and ruined. Servia
began the war by an atrocious crime, and as reparation for it might
weaken Russia's aims in the Balkans, she was encouraged to resist. She,
too, has played her temporary role and has followed in the wake of
Belgium. Montenegro is the next to go; and it would seem that the great
belligerent nations look to themselves only, and use their weaker
neighbours for their own purposes. This war is not waged by any of the
great Powers as a quixotic enterprise for lofty ideals. 'Small
nationalities' and other such sentimental pretexts are good enough for
platform addresses to an imaginative but uninformed people, but they do
not reveal the true inwardness of this war. All the belligerents have
had practical and substantial aims in view. France wants her lost
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine; Russia wants Constantinople; England
wants the undisputed supremacy of the sea and riddance from German
commercial rivalry; Austria wants domination in the Balkans and an
outlet on the AEgean; Italy wants Trieste and what is called _Italia
irredenta_; Germany wants a colonial empire and a powerful navy; and all
these Powers have formed alliances and laid their plans for many a day,
simply for the realization of their respective purposes.

"They planned and schemed solely for the sake of power and material
gain. All the talk about righteousness is simply the cloak for ambition,
and the worst of it is, that some of the belligerents have gone on
repeating the profession of their disinterestedness until they have come
to believe it themselves.

"Truth, and right, and justice have had very little to say to this war,
which is an outbreak of materialism and irreligion. The peoples did not
want this war; there is no hatred of one another amongst them: but the
governing cliques in each country have led or driven them like sheep to
the slaughter. God has been ignored; His law has been put aside;
Christianity is not allowed to govern the relations of nations. And now
the retribution is on them all. The fair dreams of victory and expanded
empire and increased wealth and prosperity with which they set out have
vanished long ago, and there is not a Government amongst them but is
trembling for the day when it shall have to answer for its stewardship
to its own people. If they knew as much in July 1914 as they do no