War is the attempt of two human groups each to impose its will upon
the other by force of arms. This definition holds of the most
righteous war fought in self-defence as much as it does of the most
iniquitous war of mere aggression. The aggressor, for instance,
proposes to take the goods of his victim without the pretence of a
claim. He is attempting to impose his will upon that victim. The
victim, in resisting by force of arms, is no less attempting to impose
his will upon the aggressor; and if he is victorious does effectually
impose that will: for it is his will to prevent the robbery.

Every war, then, arises from some conflict of wills between two human
groups, each intent upon some political or civic purpose, conflicting
with that of his opponent.

War and all military action is but a means to a non-military end, to
be achieved and realized in peace.

Although arguable differences invariably exist as to the right or
wrong of either party in any war, yet the conflicting wills of the two
parties, the irreconcilable political objects which each has put
before itself and the opposition between which has led to conflict,
can easily be defined.

They fall into two classes:--

1. The general objects at which the combatants have long been aiming.

2. The particular objects apparent just before, and actually
provoking, the conflict.

In the case of the present enormous series of campaigns, which occupy
the energies of nearly all Europe, the general causes can be easily
defined, and that without serious fear of contradiction by the
partisans of either side.

On the one hand, the Germanic peoples, especially that great majority
of them now organized as the German Empire under the hegemony of
Prussia, had for fully a lifetime and more been possessed of a certain
conception of themselves which may be not unjustly put into the form
of the following declaration. It is a declaration consonant with most
that has been written from the German standpoint during more than a
generation, and many of its phrases are taken directly from the
principal exponents of the German idea.

(I) THE GERMAN OBJECT.

"We the Germans are in spirit one nation. But we are a nation the
unity of which has been constantly forbidden for centuries by a number
of accidents. None the less that unity has always been an ideal
underlying our lives. Once or twice in the remote past it has been
nearly achieved, especially under the great German em