The Great war - Volume 1
Nations, like individuals, pass through periods of crisis, when emotion
and moral conflict are so intense that the experience of generations seems
to be crowded into as many days. The current of human life was suddenly
engulfed in one of these whirlpools of excitement and anxiety during the
midsummer days of 1914, when the bewildering confusion of contrasted
sensations, hope and despair, enthusiasm and rancor, impressed their vivid
and ineffaceable mark upon the memory of those whose lives and happiness
were involved in the momentous decisions which were in suspense.
The Great war - Volume 2
The subject with which this volume deals is two fold. The mention of
material forces and their mobilization in the contents of a history of
a mitrhty war conveys at once an approximately adequate notion of the
intended treatment. An examination of the armament and military
establishments of the belligerent powers, which forms a natural part of
the history' of any war, becomes an indispensable feature of
a comprehensive account of the present conflict, by reason of the
astounding progress in the methods and equipment of warfare accomplished
in recent years, which very few persons outside the military profession
have had the leisure or inclination to follow intelligently. This part
of the subject requires neither apology nor explanation.
The Great war - Volume 3
Some of us had yielded to the seductive vision of a world in which the
nationalities, each through the medium of its own peculiar usages, without
aggression or constraint, should strive in friendly emulation for the
benefit of all,.the preservation of the rich diversity of human life
without the hard, intolerant spirit that had nourished its vitality. Our
blissful dream was suddenly transformed into a hideous nightmare. Startled,
chagrined, outraged in our tenderest emotions, we quivered with impulsive,
inconsiderate fury. Our feverish resentment cried for vengeance, sought
the author of our anguish, claimed a victim. The most conspicuous factors
attracted our inflamed imagination: the anachronism of a military caste
intolerant of criticism, arrogantly self-sufficient, disdainfully
refractory to popular control, violating our instinctive sense of political
propriety. Our impotent rage was deeply stirred by trite, invidious
catchwords. We reviled with passionate abuse the Chauvinistic spirit which
sows suspicion, emphasizes contrasts, hides its ugly, sordid countenance
behind the mask of sacrosanct traditions, the insidious deceit by means
of which reactionary parties seduce the multitude from the pursuit of
righteous aspirations.
The Great war - Volume 4
Throughout the ages life has been a struggle. From the time when primitive
man beset by constant peril sought with grovelling rites to propitiate
grotesque creations of his own imagination, the human race has groped its
way, blindly but instinctively, through violence and ignorance, towards
light and freedom. But whenever man, escaping the malignant spell of
superstition, has thrown off the crushing load of fear and has at last
dared to stand erect and look Nature in the face, assurance nourished,
pride usurped the place of fear, and nations, drunk with greed, arrogance,
and lust of power, were borne by their own madness down the path of ruin.
The present cataclysm seemed but the culminating disaster of this process.
The Great war - Volume 5
The present volume completes the series on the Great War with an account
of the general progress of events from the closing days of 1917 to the
formal acceptance of the terms of peace by Germany on June 28, 1919, the
fifth anniversary of the fatal murder at Sarajevo. It deals with the
disappointing outcome of the great hopes of the Allies in 1917; the
upheaval which detached Russia from the Western Powers; the economic
and political situation and prospects of the Central Empires at a time
when unlimited possibilities lay before them; the development of the
effective military strength of the United States; Germany's stupendous
efforts in the West, which in a few days swept away the laboriously
acquired gains of its opponents and created the supreme crisis of the
whole war; the sudden turning of the tide of victory; the collapse of
the Quadruple Alliance; and the deliberations from which the peace
treaty issued.
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