bery's phrase)
"rattled into barbarism" in the uncompromising fashion which we see
before our eyes, we must distinguish between recent operative causes and
those more slowly evolving antecedent conditions which play a
considerable, though not necessarily an obvious part in the result. Recent
operative causes are such things as the murder of the Archduke Franz
Ferdinand at Serajevo, the consequent Austrian ultimatum to Servia, the
hasty and intemperate action of the Kaiser in forcing war, and--from a
more general point of view--the particular form of militarism prevalent in
Germany. Ulterior antecedent conditions are to be found in the changing
history of European States and their mutual relations in the last quarter
of a century; the ambition of Germany to create an Imperial fleet; the
ambition of Germany to have "a place in the sun" and become a large
colonial power; the formation of a Triple Entente following on the
formation of a Triple Alliance; the rivalry between Teuton and Slav; and
the mutations of diplomacy and _Real-politik_. It is not always possible
to keep the two sets of causes, the recent and the ulterior, separate, for
they naturally tend either to overlap or to interpenetrate one another.
German Militarism, for instance, is only a specific form of the general
ambition of Germany, and the Austrian desire to avenge herself on Servia
is a part of her secular animosity towards Slavdom and its protector,
Russia. Nor yet, when we are considering the present _debacle_ of
civilisation, need we interest ourselves overmuch in the immediate
occasions and circumstances of the huge quarrel. We want to know not how
Europe flared into war, but why. Our object is so to understand the
present imbroglio as to prevent, if we can, the possibility for the future
of any similar world-wide catastrophe.

EUROPEAN DICTATORS

Let us fix our attention on one or two salient points. Europe has often
been accustomed to watch with anxiety the rise of some potent arbiter of
her destinies who seems to arrogate to himself a large personal dominion.
There was Philip II. There was Louis XIV. There was Napoleon a hundred
years ago. Then, a mere shadow of his great ancestor, there was Napoleon
III. Then, after the Franco-German war, there was Bismarck. Now it is
Kaiser Wilhelm II. The emergence of some ambitious personality naturally
makes Europe suspicious and watchful, and leads to the formation of
leagues and confederations against hi