00,000 Bulgaria 2,000,000,000
Italy 12,000,000,000 ------------------
Roumania 3,000,000,000 Total $77,000,000,000
Serbia 3,000,000,000
--------------------
Total $172,000,000,000

Grand total of estimated cost in money, $249,000,000,000. Was the cost
too heavy? Was the price of international liberty paid in human lives
and in sacrifices untold too great for the peace that followed?

Even the most practical of money changers, the most sentimental
pacifist, viewing the cost in connection with the liberation of whole
nations, with the spread of enlightened liberty through oppressed and
benighted lands, with the destruction of autocracy, of the military
caste, and of Teutonic kultur in its materialistic aspect, must agree
that the blood was well shed, the treasure well spent.

Millions of gallant, eager youths learned how to die fearlessly and
gloriously. They died to teach vandal nations that nevermore will
humanity permit the exploitation of peoples for militaristic purposes.

As Milton, the great philosopher poet, phrased the lesson taught to
Germany on the fields of France:

They err who count it glorious to subdue
By conquest far and wide, to overrun
Large countries, and in field great battles win,
Great cities by assault; what do these worthies
But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave
Peaceable nations, neighboring or remote
Made captive, yet deserving freedom more
Than those their conquerors, who leave behind
Nothing but ruin wheresoe'er they rove
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy.

CHAPTER II

THE WORLD SUDDENLY TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

Demoralization, like the black plague of the middle ages, spread in
every direction immediately following the first overt acts of war. Men
who were millionaires at nightfall awoke the next morning to find
themselves bankrupt through depreciation of their stock-holdings.
Prosperous firms of importers were put out of business. International
commerce was dislocated to an extent unprecedented in history.

The greatest of hardships immediately following the war, however, were
visited upon those who unhappily were caught on their vacations or on
their business trips within the area affected by the war. Not only men,
but women and children, were subjected to privations of the severest
character. Notes which had been negotiable, paper money of every
description, and even