relations, and containing both rational and irrational
elements. The world is a vast field of stress in which the powers at
work are national wills rather than political forces as the projects
of rulers and the diplomats. These powers, when fully aroused, are
quite beyond the control of statesmen acting in their ordinary
capacities, and their final issues no historian ought now to try to
predict. History has been full of surprises because of the nature of
the forces which create history, and these surprises seem to have been
sometimes the greatest for those who were most intimately concerned in
making history. Events seldom run smoothly according to well laid
plans.

It would not fall within the scope of a psychological study of war to
describe or analyze the complex system of strains that exist in the
world to-day, and to point out the conditions that led to the great
war would be for the most part unnecessary, since they must be obvious
to all. The main items in such a study of history, however, may well
be recalled to mind. One would need to show the effects of England's
irresistible development through several centuries; the struggle for
the control of the Mediterranean; Germany's efforts to extend her
empire toward the East, and the closing of doors against Germany's
advance; Russia's pressure upon the Teutonic peoples, the ancient and
terrible dread of Russia on the part of the nations of Western Europe,
the shadow under which Turkey, Germany, and England had lived because
of the presence of the great Slavic state, with its mysticism, its
dynastic ambitions and its great growth force, its need of open ports,
and vital interest in the amalgamation of the South Slavic peoples,
and the determination to own Constantinople and to succeed to the
place of the Turkish Empire. We should need to take into account the
long history of the struggle for colonies, the colonial trust of
Russia, England and France, the ambitions of France for empire in
Africa, the operations of French finance in the Balkans and elsewhere,
Austria's aggressive hatred of Serbia, and her effort to prevent the
revival of Poland, the conflicts of Germany and Austria with Italy in
regard to the AEgean and the Adriatic and their shores, the fierce
irredentism of Italy, and the ambitions of Italy that have brought her
into conflict with the Teutonic powers and with Turkey, all the
conflicting purposes and ambitions of Greece, Roumania, Bulgaria, and
Serb