A History of the Nations and Em

and commerce and world-finance to the cost of food and the price of labor. The whole world, civilized and uncivil

dous in the numbers of men in arms - could come, as some commentators say, like a thief in the night or have fallen upon the world like a bolt from the blue! All available informatio

OF GERMAN

to the first place in strength of military power and organized fighting force, to the second place in naval strength and commercial progress. The growth itself was a legitimate one in the main; and, given the character of its people and their cultivated convictions as to inherent greatness, was ine

N MIL

ia improved her military position after the Japanese was as she was bound to do; Germany appeared to set the pace upon sea and land with an aggressive diplomacy in Morocco and in China, at Paris and at St. Petersburg, which was bound to cause trouble and to promote what is commonly called militarism. The vast ambitions and persistent policy of the German ruler and his people, the unsatisfied characteristics of Germ

TAIN'S PE

Grear Britain actually reduced her naval expenditures and limited her construction of battleships in the hope that Germany would follow the lead, pleaded at two Hague Conferences for international reduction of armaments, kept away from all increase in her own almost ridiculous military establishment, urged upon two occasions (in 1912-1913) a naval holiday in construction. The following figures from Brassey's authoritative NAVAL ANNUAL shows that her naval expenditure upon new ships in 1913 was actually less than in 1904, that Germany's was nearly three times greater, that France and Russia and Italy had doubled theirs: ----------------------------- Great Britain/Germany/France/Russia/Ital

'S NAVA

and commercial injury, to prepare at leisure for the war which would conquer England and acquire her colonies. In the first-named year British statesmen of both parties told an amazed Parliament and country that German naval construction of big ships was approaching the British standard, that the cherished policy of a British navy equal to those of any two other nations was absolutely gone, that England would be lucky if, in a few years, she held a 60 per cent superiority over that of Germany alone, that the la

1911 if Great Britain had not ranged herself behind the French republic; it held the issues of peace and war between the great Powers during the Balkan struggles of 1912 and 1913 and prevented Servia from winning its legitimate fruits of victory or Montenegro from holding what it had won; it had watched with delight the defeat of unorganized Russia at the hands of Japan and saw what its writers described

N AMB

ies and friends of England. After that, Prussia, and then the German Empire, became gradually a great national force in the world and its spirit of unity, pride of power, energy in trade, skill and success in industry, vigor of development in tariffs, progress in military power and naval cons

100,000 Germans had settled and where trade relations had become very close. British diplomacy of a trade, as well as political character, in Persia, prevented certain railway schemes from being carried out, which would have given Germany a dominating influence in Asia Minor and on the Persian Gulf. Although the partition of Africa gave the German Empire nearly one million square mil

aries. Since then it had become a closely-united people with an army of over five million men - admittedly the best-trained troops in the world; with a trade totalling $4,400,000,000 and competing in Britain's home market, taking away her contracts in India and some of the colonies, beating her in many foreign fields; with an industrial production which included great steel works such as Krupps, ship-building yards said to be o

; a productive force of industry increasing out of all proportion to home requirements, competing with British commerce in every corner of the world and threatened by a possible but finally postponed combination of British countries in a system of inter-Empire tariffs; a population of 64,000,000, i

was passed in 1900 during the Boer War, and the preamble to this Act stated that its object was to give Germany "a fleet of such strength that even for the mightiest Naval Power, a war with her would involve such risks as to endanger its own supremacy." Other Acts were passed

Germany's 14, with 27 armored cruisers, 17 protected cruisers and 55 destroyers to Germany's 5, 16 and 35 respectively, or a total of 125 to 70. In 1905-11 Great Britain launched 20 battleships to Germany's 15, with 13 armored cruisers, 10

ATION

of a world-power;" the universities and schools and press teemed with militarist ideals and practices; the army charges rose to $250,000,000 and the trained soldiers available at the beginning of 1910 were alleged to have 6,000 field-guns; Colonel Gaedke, the German naval expert, stated on February 24th of that year that the German government was building a fleet of

, Heligoland, the island handed over by Britain in 1890 in exchange for certain East African rights, became the key and center of the whole German coast defense system against England. Cuxhaven, Borkum, Emden, Wilhelmshaven - with twice as many Dreadnought docks as Portsmouth - Wangeroog, Bremerhaven, Geestemunde, etc., were magnificently fortified and guarded. Whether dictated by diplomatic consider

holly dependent upon sea-borne supplies, possessing no considerable army, either for home defense or foreign service, and compelled therefore to play for very unequal stakes should Germany be our opponent in the hazardous game of war. It is this last consideration which I should earnestly ask enlightened Germans to weigh well if they would understand the British point of view. It can be made clear in a very few sentences

few days and a million armed men leap into war at a word. The enormous German special taxation of $250,000,000 authorized in the first part of 1913 for an additional military establishme

ON TH

included India, Burmah, South Africa, Australia, Canada and a multitude of smaller states and countries. Not the least remarkable of the events which ensued in the succeeding early weeks of the great War was the extraordinary way in which this vast and complex Empire found itself as a unit in fighting force, a unit in sentiment, a unit in co-operative action. Irish sedition, whether "loyal or disloyal," Protestant or Catholic, largely vanished like the shadow of an ev

----- France 65,000,000,000/39,000,000/2,100,000/382/41,000,000 -------------------------- Russia 40,000,000,000/171,000,000/8,000,000/249/5,000,000 ------------------------

arious Colonies of these Powers and in the case of Great Britain, notably, countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India were pouring out men and gifts to aid the

tion should have included the countless millions from which Britain could draw and did draw in the day of emergency. In this vast Empire British capital had been invested to an enormous amount - the estimated total in 1914 being $2,570,0000,000 for Canada and Newfoundland, $1,893,000,000 in India and Ceylon,$1,85

DOMI

and machine guns. Two submarines, for general service ($1,050,000); H.M.C.S. Niobe and Rainbow for general servic

PROV

shels of oats; 5,00

ce, 5 per cent of sal

ent in excess of th

otic

5,000 cases of cann

n Reli

; 50,000 bags of flo

ef F

00 bushels of potatoes, 15,000

e of Wales Fund; apples for the tr

100,000 lbs of evaporated apples for the

: 100,000 bushels of

of cheese; $25,000 t

orses ($250,000); $5,

u

0 to the Canadia

CI

guns on armored motors and a detachment of 30

Patriotic fund; insuring

tic Fund); battery of quick-firing

adian Patriotic Fund)

00 horses for trainin

f canned p

00 monthly to

omfort of the city's

n Reli

MEN (Legion o

atriotic Fund; $5,0

0,000 Patr

,000 Patriotic Fund

pplement Naval Hospital at Haslar ($182,857); $100,000 To War Office (40 motor ambulance cars purchased).

ND THE PATR

MONTREAL

ION BANK 25,000 UNION BANK OF CANADA 25,000 BANK OF TORONTO 25,000 BANK OF OTTAWA 25,000

y, captured the Emden of German fame, while the New Zealand, a dreadnought from the Island Dominion of that name, held a place in the North Sea fighting line. Australia also sent 20,000 men who saw service before the end of the year in Egypt, provided reserves and prepared two more contingents, while se

ion bags of jute for the army and the Maharajah of Mysore proffered 3,500 men and 50 lakhs of rupees (about $350,000). Practically all the 700 native rulers of states in India offered personal services, men and money. For active personal service the Viceroy selected the Chiefs of Jodhpur, Bikanir, Kishangarh, Rutlam, Sachin, Patiala, Sir Pertab Singh, Regent of Jodhpur, and others. Contingents of cavalry and infantry, supplies and transports were forwarded besides a camel corps from Bikanir, horses from many st

ts pledges to Belgium and adherence to its French obligations - Russia only coming indirectly into the first stag