The Audacious War | Page 3

make his own argument and reach his own
conclusions.
The reader will readily see that these chapters are day-to-day issues
aiming to present that news from the standpoint of finance. But under
all sound finance must be primarily the truth of humanity. 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