The Audacious War | Page 3

They do not claim to be from beginning to end a harmonious book-presentation of the war, but it is believed that they contain the essential fundamental war-facts; and the aim was to present them in most condensed expression.
They cover the first six months of this most Audacious War. Whether it is to continue for another six months or another sixteen months is not so material as the character of the peace and what is to follow.
No greater problem can be placed before the world than that of how the peace of nations may be maintained. Having cleared my own mind upon this subject, I submit it in the final chapter, which naturally follows after that treating of the lessons for the United States from this war.
Only in an international organization, with power to make decrees of peace and enforce them, and with insurance of powers above those of all dissenters, can we find the peace of nations as we have found the peace of cities. This Audacious War has forced such an alliance as can yield this power. Its transfer to the support of an International tribunal can make and keep the peace of Europe and eventually of the world.
Then may the earth cease to be, in history, that steady round of Prosperity, Pride, and War.
C. W. Barron.
February 15, 1915.

CONTENTS
I. THE WORLD'S GREATEST CONTEST II. TARIFFS AND COMMERCE THE WAR CAUSES III. THE POLITICAL CAUSES OF THE WAR IV. PEACE PROPOSALS V. FRANCE AND THE FRENCH VI. THE POSITION OF FRANCE VII. FRENCH FINANCE VIII. THE BELGIAN SACRIFICE IX. RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS X. THE ENGLISH POSITION XI. ENGLISH WAR FORCES XII. ENGLISH WAR FINANCE XIII. GERMAN RESOURCES XIV. IS IT THE PEOPLE'S WAR? XV. THE GERMAN POSITION XVI. THE LESSONS FOR AMERICA XVII. WHAT PEACE SHOULD MEAN

THE AUDACIOUS WAR
CHAPTER I
THE WORLD'S GREATEST CONTEST
The Censorship--The Warship "Audacious"--Mine or Torpedo?--The Battle Line--War by Gasolene Motors--The Boys from Canada--The Audacity of it.
The war of 1914 is not only the greatest war in history but the greatest in the political and economic sciences. Indeed, it is the greatest war of all the sciences, for it involves all the known sciences of earth, ocean, and the skies.
To get the military, the political, and especially the financial flavor of this war, to study its probable duration and its financial consequences, was the object of a trip to England and France from which the writer has recently returned.
One can hear "war news" from the time he leaves the American coast and begins to pick up the line of the British warships--England's far-flung battle line--until he returns to the dock, but thorough investigation would convince a trained news man that most of this war gossip is erroneous.
This war is so vast and wide, from causes so powerful and deep, and will be so far-reaching in its effects that no ill-considered or partial statements concerning it should be made by any responsible writer.
The difficulty of obtaining the exact facts by any ordinary methods is very great. There is a strict supervision of all news, and to insure that by news sources no "aid or comfort" is given to the enemy, a vast amount of pertinent, legitimate, and harmless news and data is necessarily suppressed. The censors are military men and not news men, and act from the standpoint that a million facts had better be suppressed than that a single report should be helpful to the enemy. Only in Russia are reports of news men from the firing line allowed.
One hears abroad continually of the battle of the Marne, of the battle of the Aisne, of the contest at Ypres, and the fight on the Yser, but no outside man has yet been permitted to describe any of these in detail, or to give the strategy, beginning, end, or boundaries of them, or even the distinct casualties therefrom. Indeed, it is doubtful if the official histories, when they are written, can do this, for these are the emphasized portions of one great and continuous battle that went on for more than one hundred days.
To illustrate the strength of the hand on the English war news, it may be noted that there is no mention permitted in the English press of such a ship as the "Audacious." Yet American papers with photographs of the "Audacious" as she sinks in the ocean are sold in London and on the Continent. Outside of London not ten per cent of the people know anything concerning this boat or her finish.
This word "finish" would be disputed in any newspaper or well-informed financial office in London where it is daily declared that although the "Audacious" met with an accident, her guns have been raised and will go aboard another ship of the same size, purchased, or just being finished, and named the "Audacious." Indeed,