d struggling for rehabilitation after a
century of war--and, underneath it all, bearing it on bent shoulders,
men like this German prisoner, alone in his room and puzzling it out!
It makes one wonder if the result of this war will not be a great and
overwhelming individualism, a protest of the unit against the mass; if
Socialism, which has apparently died of an ideal, will find this ideal
but another name for tyranny, and rise from its grave a living force.

Now and then a justifiable war is fought, for liberty perhaps, or like
our Civil War, for a great principle. There are wars that are
inevitable. Such wars are frequently revolutions and have their
origins in the disaffection of a people.

But here is a world war about which volumes are being written to
discover the cause. Here were prosperous nations, building wealth and
culture on a basis of peace. Europe was apparently more in danger of
revolution than of international warfare. It is not only war without a
known cause, it is an unexpected war. Only one of the nations involved
showed any evidence of preparation. England is not yet ready. Russia
has not yet equipped the men she has mobilised.

Is this war, then, because the balance of power is so nicely adjusted
that a touch turns the scale, whether that touch be a Kaiser's dream
of empire or the eyes of a Czar turned covetously toward the South?

I tried to think the thing out during the long nights when the sound
of the heavy guns kept me awake. It was hard, because I knew so
little, nothing at all of European politics, or war, or diplomacy.
When I tried to be logical, I became emotional. Instead of reason I
found in myself only a deep resentment.

I could see only that blue-eyed German in his bed, those cheery and
cold and ill-equipped Belgians drilling on the sands at La Panne.

But on one point I was clear. Away from all the imminent questions
that filled the day, the changing ethics of war, its brutalities, its
hideous necessities, one point stood out clear and distinct. That the
real issue is not the result, but the cause of this war. That the
world must dig deep into the mire of European diplomacy to find that
cause, and having found it must destroy it. That as long as that cause
persists, be it social or political, predatory or ambitious, there
will be more wars. Again it will be possible for a handful of men in
high place to overthrow a world.

And one of the first results of the discovery of that c