gland was out of the running: Ireland in revolution,
India in sedition, Canada, Australia, and South Africa just ready to
break away from the British yoke.

The conception of the British empire as a federation of free peoples
governing themselves, under a constitutional monarchy, is something
incomprehensible in the German idea of government. The German idea is
of colonies attached to and paying tribute to the crown, something to
be ruled over, governed, taxed, and made to serve.

Russia might go to war exposing in the field her weakness already
spread out on paper by Russian authorities, with copies in Vienna and
Berlin; but that England or Great Britain could or would fight at this
time was an impossibility; although later England was to become "The
vassal of Germany."

And the wonderment of Germany has become the wonderment of the world.
"Roll up," said Kitchener, and 2,000,000 men sprang to arms. More than
800,000 of them are on the Continent; 1,700,000 of them are in training.

"Roll up," said Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the British Exchequer;
and $1,700,000,000 of war loan is rolling into the British Treasury, a
sum one half the national debt of England and nearly twice the national
debt of the United States.

If necessary, the number of men in arms will be doubled to 4,000,000
and the enormous subscription just made to England's war loan will be
doubled and quadrupled.

The life of the empire as respects money and men is at stake, and no
sacrifice is too great. If treaties are "scraps of paper" and neutral
states are to have no rights or protection, there is no safety in the
world, no sacredness of contracts; the world is at an end and chaos
reigns.

CHAPTER IV

PEACE PROPOSALS

The Bagdad Railroad--The English Oil Concession--The German Alliance
with Turkey--Austria the Hand of Germany--The Decay of Turkey--The New
Map.

How ridiculous are American peace proposals concerning the Audacious
War of 1914 may be judged from this announcement which I am able to
make:--

The return of the French government from Bordeaux to Paris was
determined upon from two points of view: safety and political
necessity. The French people were angered that Paris should have been
deserted, but notwithstanding the political reasons, which were more
forceful than the public will be permitted to know, the return would
not have been undertaken had not the military authorities considered
the move a safe one.