A History of the Nations and Empires Involved and a Study of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict Part 6

A CONTINENT IN ARMS

In the giant warfare here described we behold a continent, well nigh a world, in arms. Along the rivers north of Paris three powerful nations, Germany, France and Britain, wrestled like mighty behemoths for supremacy. Far eastward, on the borders of Russia, Austria and Germany, two other great Powers, Russia and Austria, with German armies to aid the latter, strove with equal fury for victory.

Thus raged the Great War. How many took part it is difficult to estimate. Among the war tales of the past the most stupendous army on record is that of Xerxes, said by Herodotus to number 2,317,600 men, who marched from Asia to face defeat in the diminutive land of Greece. How large this fabulously great army really was we shall never know, but even at the figures given it was dwarfed by the hosts in arms in the Great European War, in which between four and five million men fought with fierceness unsurpa.s.sed.

The field of action of this mighty contest was not confined to Europe. On the far-off border of Asia another Power, the warlike empire of j.a.pan, sent forth its soldiers to drive the Germans from China. In Africa and on the South Pacific the colonists of Britain set other forces in motion to invade the German colonial regions. From British India sailed a strong array of dark-skinned warriors to take part in the war in France. From Algeria and Senegal came hordes of sable recruits for the French army, and from the cities and provinces of the Dominion of Canada came still another army of ardent patriots eager to aid the forces of their fatherland. We may well speak of the contest as not one of a continent but of the entire world.

HOW CANADA PREPARED FOR WAR

The story of the patriotic ardor of the Canadians is of interest, as given by a correspondent of the London GRAPHIC, who pa.s.sed through the Dominion after the opening of the war.

"The news of the great war came like a bolt from the blue. The effect was startling. The ordinary flow of Canadian life was suddenly arrested. The customary routine seemed to stop dead still. The whole of Canadian thought and much of the people's energy were switched on to the great staggering fact that Europe was at war, and the old country fighting for its life. A most wonderful and touching patriotism welled up in the heart of the Canadians. The air became electric with excitement and enthusiasm. The prairie was indeed on fire. Pa.s.sing through English towns on my journey to London the calm and peaceful demeanor of the people and the even flow of life seemed in strange contrast with the land I had just left, where the population was throbbing with loyal pa.s.sion, and the war dominated the existence of the inhabitants, high and low, from Victoria to Halifax. One Canadian scene that remains impressed upon my mind was the sea of upturned faces in front of the offices of the Calgary News Telegram - every ear straining to the point where the war news was announced at intervals through a megaphone.

"'We stand shoulder to shoulder.' Sir Robert Borden, the Premier, had said, 'with Britain and the other British Dominions in this quarrel, and that duty we shall not fail to fulfil as the honor of Canada demands.' It is being fulfilled in a score of different ways, but mainly in the practical spirit that is characteristic of the country. The Dominion is the Empire's granary, and through the granary doors, as the Motherland knows, are pa.s.sing huge gifts of food to the British population. At the same time the stoppage of the export of all foodstuffs to other countries is proposed.

"Soon the Dominion began to mobilize. Regiments seemed to spring up, as if by magic, from the ground - not hordes of untrained men, but stalwart hors.e.m.e.n, accustomed to the rifle and inured to a hard outdoor life. The Germans will knock against another 'bit of hard stuff' when they meet the Canadian contingents. One of the regiments carries the name of the Princess Patricia, who, by the way, holds quite a unique position in the hearts of the people. The popular Princess was, shortly after I left, to have presented her regiment with their colors - worked by her own hands.

"Londoners were happy in the knowledge that more such men could be sent, if necessary, up to 200,000 in number - such was the earnestness of the people. One met this practical earnestness in a dozen different directions - in such facts, for instance, as the conversion of the great Winnipeg Industrial Hall into a military training center - and not the least significant feature in the situation is the manner in which the prevalent enthusiasm had spread to the American inhabitants of the country. The trade intimacy between the United States and the Dominion was, indeed, constantly growing, and the many great American manufacturing concerns which had planted themselves in Canada had attained prosperity. It was pleasant and rea.s.suring to think that this had not weakened the ties of attachment to the old country. In the days to succeed the war the Dominion can look back with pride upon the part she bore in sustaining the arms of Mother England, and can take her place with happy confidence and added strength as the eldest daughter in the great family of British peoples."

The enthusiasm thus indicated among the Canadians, which had its outcome in the despatch of 323,000 sons of the dominion in late September to the seat of war, to be quickly followed by a second contingent, was paralleled in India, which sent to France 70,000 of its dusky sons to join the struggling hosts. As for the remaining countries of the British empire, Australia, South Africa, East Africa, etc., a similar sentiment of loyalty prevailed, manifested there by the sending of contingents or in expeditions against the German colonies in the South Sea and in Africa. The whole empire was ready to support the mother country.

Certainly the Kaiser of Germany, William the War Lord, had set loose in the air a nest of hornets to sting his well-trained warriors. By his side stood only Austria, a composite empire which soon found all its strength too little to hold back the mighty Russian tide that swept across its borders. Thus this one stalwart nation, with its weak auxiliary, was forced to face now east, now west, against a continent in arms. It is difficult to imagine that the Kaiser could have hoped to succeed, despite the training of his people and the strength of his artillery. "G.o.d fights with the heaviest battalions," said one who knew, and the weight of battalions, though at first on William's side, could not remain so.

THE BRITISH SENTIMENT

While the British people, with their lack of a system of militarism, were not in condition to send large bodies of troops at once to the aid of the mobilized French, they were soon ready to despatch a useful contingent of trained men. Probably the German emperor counted upon the disturbance in Ireland between the Ulsterites and the people of the Catholic provinces to tie the hands of the government, but these people at once suspended their hostile sentiments in favor of the larger needs of their country. In England itself the militant suffragettes showed equal patriotism, at once agreeing to desist from all acts of violence and offering to aid their country to the extent of their powers.

LORD KITCHENER'S CAREER

The British government appointed Lord Kitchener, the hero of many successful expeditions, Secretary of State for War, putting the whole management of military affairs into his competent hands.

His fitness for this was thoroughly attested by his long and brilliant service, and as the presence of Napoleon was said to be equal to an army, so was that of this able military leader.

For those who are not familiar with Kitchener's career a brief statement concerning it may be useful. Born in 1850, Horatio Herbert Kitchener entered the army in 1871, was in civil life 1874-82, then returned to army duty. He took part in the Nile expedition of 1884 for the rescue of General Gordon and commanded a brigade in the Suakim campaign of 1888. Governor of Suakim 1886-88, adjutant-general of the Egyptian army 1888-92, he was appointed to the command of this army, with the Egyptian rank of Sirdar, in 1890.

His service in Egypt was during the period of the Mahdi outbreak, which began in 1883, defeated all the armies sent to quell it, and for years held the Sudan region of Egypt. In 1896 Kitchener set out for its suppression, recovering Dongola, and organizing an expedition against the Khalifa, the successor of the Mahdi. He defeated the Dervish army of the Khalifa in April, 1898, and on September 2d of that year utterly crushed the Dervish hosts at Omdurman, regaining the Sudan for Egypt and Britain.

This exploit brought him the thanks of parliament and the t.i.tle of baron, with a grant of 30,000 pounds and a sword of honor. In 1899 he went with Lord Roberts to South Africa as chief of staff, and on Lord Roberts' return in 1900 he succeeded him as commander-in-chief and brought the Boer War to a successful conclusion. He was now made full general, with the rank of viscount, and subsequently served as commander-in-chief in India.

A FORCEFUL CHARACTER

In an illuminating article in COLLIER'S WEEKLY, the well-known Irish journalist, T. P. O'Connor, thus brought out the character of the hero of Khartoum:

"I attribute something of the Lord Kitchener we know to the fact that, though English by blood, he spent the first years of his life in wandering over the hills and looking down on the sea-tossed sh.o.r.es of County Kerry. That tact which enabled him to settle the issue with Marchand, the French explorer, at Fashoda, suggests some of the lessons in the soft answer which Ireland can teach. You remember how, when it was possible that a collision between him and Marchand might mean a war between England and France, Lord Kitchener sent some fresh vegetables and champagne to the daring French explorer, who had gone through the hunger, thirst, and hards.h.i.+p of the desert for months. Marchand had to go from Fashoda all the same, but he went with no personal grievance.

"If I look for the roots of Lord Kitchener's greatness, I trace them to intense ambition to succeed, to make the most of his opportunities - above all, to the incessant desire to work and fill every hour of his days with something done. He is sent as a youngster to Palestine, through peril to life, through great privation, through heart-breaking drudgery, he pursues his work until he has completed a map of all western Palestine to the amazement and delight of his employers. And he values this experience so largely because he learns Arabic, and, above all, he learns the Arabic character. One of the chroniclers of his career makes the apt observation that, while the baton of the marshal is in every French soldier's knapsack, Kitchener found his coronet in the Arab grammar. But how many soldiers or men of any cla.s.s would have devoted the leisure hours of a fiercely active task like Kitchener's in Palestine to the study of one of the most difficult of languages?

"Hard work, patience, and the utilization of every second of time, the eagerness always to learn - these are the chief secrets of Lord Kitchener's enormous success in life. But the man who works himself is ineffective in great things unless he has the gift to choose the men who can work for him and with him. This choice of subordinates is one or Lord Kitchener's greatest powers. He nearly always has had the right man in the right place. And his men return his confidence because he gives them absolute confidence. He never thinks of asking a subordinate whether he has done the job he has given him; he takes that for granted, knowing his man; and he never worries his subordinates.

"This is one of the reasons why, though he works so terrifically, he never is tired, never worried. He sits down at his desk at the War Office for about ten hours a day; but he sits there calmly, isn't ringing at bells and shouting down pipes; he does it all so quietly that it seems mere pastime; and the effect of this perfect tranquillity produces an extraordinary result on those who work with him. They also do their work easily, tranquilly, and without feeling it.

"A great soldier certainly; but perhaps a greater organizer than anything else. This is his supreme quality, and for that quality there is necessary, above all things, a clear, penetrating brain.

He doesn't form any visions - as Napoleon used to complain of some of his marshals. At school he was celebrated for his knowledge of mathematics, and especially for his phenomenal rapidity in dealing with figures, and it was not accident that so truly a scientific mind found its natural place in the engineers.

A mathematician, an engineer, a man of science, a great accountant - these things he has been in all his enterprises. It was these qualities that enabled him to make that astounding railway which brought Cairo almost into touch with the Khalifa, who, with his predecessor, the Mahdi, and with his tragically potent ally, the hungry and all-devouring desert, had beaten back so many other attempts to reach and to beat him.

"This man, who has fought such tremendous and historic battles and confronted great odds, is yet a man who prefers a deal to a struggle; and, though he can be so stern, has yet a diplomatic tact that gets him and his country out of difficult hours. The nature, doubtless, is complex, and stern determination and tenacity are part of it; but there is also the other side, which is much forgotten - especially by that cla.s.s of writers who have to describe human character as rigidly symmetrical and unnaturally harmonious.

"That cold and penetrating eye of his makes it impossible to imagine anybody taking any liberties with Lord Kitchener; yet one of his greatest qualities, at once useful and charming, is his accessibility. Anybody who has anything to say to him can approach him; anybody who has anything to teach him will find a ready and grateful learner. This is one of the secrets of his extraordinary success and universal popularity in Egypt. Lord Cromer was a great Egyptian ruler, and his services are imperishable and gigantic; but Lord Cromer was the stern, solitary, and inaccessible bureaucrat who worked innumerable hours every day at his desk, never learned the Arabic language, and possibly never quite grasped the Arab nature. Lord Kitchener is the cadi under the tree. The mayor or the citizens of the little Arab village can come to him, and the old soldier, and even the fellah, alone; and they will find Lord Kitchener ready to listen and to talk to them in their own tongue, to enter with gusto into the pettiest details of their daily and squalid lives, and ready also to apply the remedy to such grievances as commend themselves to his judgment.

"As an ill.u.s.tration of his accessibility, let me repeat a delicious story which delighted all Egypt. An old peasant came out of the depths of the land all the way to Cairo to see the great Kitchener, with the complaint that his white mule had been stolen. The whole official machinery was interrupted for a while, and the old fellah went back with his white mule. You can fancy how that story was repeated in every fellah cabin in the land, and how the devotion to Kitchener and trust in his justice and in his sympathy went trumpet-tongued among this race, downtrodden and neglected almost from the beginning of time."

Such is the man who, when chosen to head the British War Department, had his bed sent to the office, that he might be on duty day and night if needed; who insisted that no raw recruits should be sent to the front, but put them through a rigid system of drill and physical exercise to toughen their muscles and fit them for the work of a soldier; who said that there would be abundant time for fighting, as in his judgment there was a year or more of war in prospect.

Chapter VI. THE EARTHQUAKE OF NAPOLEONISM

Its Effect on National conditions Finally Led to the War of 1914

Conditions in France and Germany - The Campaign in Italy - The Victory at Marengo - Moreau at Hohenlinden - The Consul made Emperor - The Code Napoleon - Campaign of 1805 - Battle of Austerlitz - The Conquest of Prussia - The Invasion of Poland - Eylau and Friedland - Campaign of 1809 - Victory at Wagram - The Campaign in Spain - The Invasion of Russia - A Fatal Retreat - Dresden and Leipzig - The Hundred Days - The Congress of Vienna - The Holy Alliance

When, after a weary climb, we find ourselves on the summit of a lofty mountain, and look back from that commanding alt.i.tude over the ground we have traversed, what is it that we behold? The minor details of the scenery, many of which seemed large and important to us as we pa.s.sed, are now lost to view, and we see only the great and imposing features of the landscape, the high elevations, the town-studded valleys, the deep and winding streams, the broad forests. It is the same when, from the summit of an age, we gaze backward over the plain of time. The myriad of petty happenings are lost to sight, and we see only the striking events, the critical epochs, the mighty crises through which the world has pa.s.sed. These are the things that make true history, not the daily doings in the king's palace or the peasant's hut.

What we should seek to observe and store up in our memories are the turning points in human events, the great thoughts which have ripened into n.o.ble deeds, the hands of might which have pushed the world forward in its career; not the trifling occurrences which signify nothing, the pa.s.sing actions which have borne no fruit in human affairs. It is with such turning points, such critical periods in modern history, that we are here dealing; not to picture the pa.s.sing bubbles on the stream of time, but to point out the great s.h.i.+ps which have sailed up that stream laden with a n.o.ble freight. This is history in its deepest and best aspect, and we have set our camera to photograph only the men who have made and the events which const.i.tute history in the phase here outlined.

The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe yield us the history of a man rather than of a continent. France was the center of Europe; Napoleon, the Corsican, was the center of France. All the affairs of all the nations seemed to gather around this genius of war. He was respected, feared, hated; he had risen with the suddenness of a thunder-cloud on a clear horizon, and flashed the lightnings of victory in the dazzled eyes of the nations. All the events of the period were concentrated into one great event, and the name of that event was Napoleon. He seemed incarnate war, organized destruction; sword in hand, he dominated the nations, and victory sat on his banners with folded wings. He was, in a full sense, the man of destiny, and Europe was his prey.

Never has there been a more wonderful career. The earlier great conquerors began life at the top; Napoleon began his at the bottom. Alexander was a king; Caesar was an aristocrat of the Roman republic; Napoleon rose from the people, and was not even a native of the land which became the scene of his exploits. Pure force of military genius lifted him from the lowest to the highest place among mankind, and for long and terrible years Europe shuddered at his name and trembled beneath the tread of his marching legions. As for France, he brought it glory and left it ruin and dismay.

The career of Napoleon Bonaparte began in a very modest way. Born in Corsica and trained in a military school in France, his native ability as a man of action was first made evident in 1794, when, under the orders of the National Convention, he quelled the mob of Paris with loaded cannon and put a final end to the Reign of Terror that had long prevailed.

Placed at the head of the French army in Italy, Napoleon quickly astonished the world by a series of the most brilliant victories, defeating the Austrians and the Sardinians wherever he met them, seizing Venice, the city of the lagoon, and forcing almost all Italy to submit to his arms. A republic was established here and a new one in Switzerland, while Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine were held by France.

His wars here at an end, Napoleon's ambition led him to Egypt, inspired by great designs which he failed to realize. In his absence anarchy arose in France. The five Directors, then at the head of the government, had lost all authority, and Napoleon, who had unexpectedly returned, did not hesitate to overthrow them and the a.s.sembly which supported them. A new government, with three Consuls at its head, was formed, Napoleon, as First Consul, holding almost royal power. Thus France stood in 1800, at the end of the eighteenth century.

CONDITIONS IN FRANCE AND GERMANY

In the remainder of Europe there was nothing to compare with the momentous convulsion which had taken place in France. England had gone through its two revolutions more than a century before, and its people were the freest of any in Europe. Recently it had lost its colonies in America, but it still held in that continent the broad domain of Canada, and was building for itself a new empire in India, while founding colonies in twenty other lands. In commerce and manufactures it entered the nineteenth century as the greatest nation on the earth. The hammer and the loom resounded from end to end of the island, mighty centers of industry arose where cattle had grazed a century before, coal and iron were being torn in great quant.i.ties from the depths of the earth, and there seemed everywhere an endless bustle and whirr.

The s.h.i.+ps of England haunted all seas and visited the most remote ports, laden with the products of her workshops and bringing back raw material for her factories and looms. Wealth acc.u.mulated, London became the money market of the world, the riches and prosperity of the island kingdom were growing to be a parable among the nations of the earth.

On the continent of Europe, Prussia, destined in time to become great, had recently emerged from its medieval feebleness, mainly under the powerful hand of Frederick the Great, whose reign extended until 1786, and whose ambition, daring, and military genius made him a fitting predecessor of Napoleon the Great, who so soon succeeded him in the annals of war. Unscrupulous in his aims, this warrior king had torn Silesia from Austria, added to his kingdom a portion of unfortunate Poland, annexed the princ.i.p.ality of East Friesland, and lifted Prussia into a leading position among the European states.

Germany, now - with the exception of Austria - a compact empire, was then a series of disconnected states, variously known as kingdoms, princ.i.p.alities, margravates, electorates, and by other t.i.tles, the whole forming the so-called Holy Empire, though it was "neither holy nor an empire." It had drifted down in this fas.h.i.+on from the Middle Ages, and the work of consolidation had but just begun, in the conquests of Frederick the Great. A host of petty potentates ruled the land, whose states, aside from Prussia and Austria, were too weak to have a voice in the councils of Europe. Joseph II, the t.i.tular emperor of Germany, made an earnest and vigorous effort to combine its elements into a powerful unit; but he signally failed, and died in 1790, a disappointed and embittered man.

Austria, then far the most powerful of the German states, was from 1740 to 1780 under the reign of a woman, Maria Theresa, who struggled in vain against her ambitious neighbor, Frederick the Great, his kingdom being extended ruthlessly at the expense of her imperial dominions. Austria remained a great country, however, including Bohemia and Hungary among its domains. It was lord of Lombardy and Venice in Italy, but was destined to play an unfortunate part in the coming Napoleonic wars.

We have briefly epitomized Napoleon's early career, his doings in the Revolution, in Italy, and in Egypt, unto the time that France's wors.h.i.+p of his military genius raised him to the rank of First Consul, and gave him in effect the power of a king. No one dared question his word, the army was at his beck and call, the nation lay prostrate at his feet - not in fear but in admiration.

Such was the state of affairs in France in the closing year of the eighteenth century. The Revolution was at an end, the Republic existed only as a name; Napoleon was the autocrat of France and the terror of Europe. From this point we resume the story of his career.

The First Consul began his reign with two enemies in the field, England and Austria. Prussia was neutral, and he had won the friends.h.i.+p of Paul, the emperor of Russia, by a shrewd move.

While the other nations refused to exchange the Russian prisoners they held, Napoleon sent home 6,000 of these captives, newly clad and armed, under their own leaders, and without demanding ransom.

This was enough to win to his side the weak-minded Paul, whose delight in soldiers he well knew.