and say that the fundamental conflict of wills in
Europe, which has produced this general war, is a conflict between the
German will, organized by Prussia to overthrow the ancient Christian
tradition of Europe (to _her_ advantage directly; and indirectly, as
she proposes, to the advantage of a supposedly necessary German
governance of the world under Prussian organization), and the will of
the more ancient and better founded Western and Latin tradition to
which the sanctity of separate national units profoundly appeals, and
a great deal more which is, in their eyes, civilization. In this
conflict, Prussia has called upon and received the support of not only
the German Empire, which she controls, but also the Hapsburg monarchy,
controlling the organized forces of Austria-Hungary; while there has
appeared against this strange Prussian claim all that values the
Christian tradition of Europe, and in particular the doctrine of
national freedom, with very much else--which very much else are the
things by which we of the civilized West and South, who have hitherto
proved the creators of the European world, live and have our being.
Allied with us, by the accident that this same German claim threatens
them also, is the young new world of the Slavs.

It is at this final point of our examination that we may see the
immensity of the issues upon which the war turns. The two parties are
really fighting for their lives; that in Europe which is arrayed
against the Germanic alliance would not care to live if it should fail
to maintain itself against the threat of that alliance. It is for them
life and death. On the other side, the Germans having propounded this
theory of theirs, or rather the Prussians having propounded it for
them, there is no rest possible until they shall either have "made
good" to our destruction, or shall have been so crushed that a
recurrence of the menace from them will for the future be impossible.

There is here no possibility of such a "draw" or "stalemate" as was
the result, for instance, of the reduction of Louis XIV.'s ambition,
or of the great revolutionary effort throughout Europe which ended
with the fall of Napoleon. Louis XIV.'s ambition cast over Europe,
which received it favourably, the colour of French culture. The
Revolutionary Wars were fought for a principle which, if it did not
appeal universally to men, appealed at least to all those millions
whose instincts were democratic in every country. B