The World War and What was Behind It | Page 6

to fight with and plunder their neighbors; (2) the ambition of kings to enlarge their kingdoms; (3) the desire of the traders of one nation to increase their commerce at the expense of some other nation; (4) a people's wish to be free from the control of some other country and to become a nation by itself. Of the four reasons, only the last furnishes a just cause for war, and this cause has been brought about only when kings have sent their armies out, and forced into their kingdoms other peoples who wished to govern themselves.
Questions for Review
1. Why must foreigners in the United States return to their native lands when summoned by their governments? 2. How is it that war helps to breed diseases? 3. Is race hatred a cause of war or a result of it? 4. Whom do we mean by the government in the United States? 5. Who controls the government in Russia? 6. Who in England? 7. Who in Germany? 8. Who in France? 9. In Southey's poem, how does the children's idea of the battle differ from that of their grandfather? Why? 10. Are people less likely to protest against war if their forefathers have fought many wars? 11. What have been the four main causes of war?
CHAPTER II
Rome and the Barbarian Tribes
New governments in Europe.--Earliest times.--How civilization began.--The rise of Rome.--Roman civilization.--Roman cruelty.--The German tribes.--The Slavic tribes.--The Celtic tribes.--The Huns and Moors.--The great Germanic invasions of the Roman world.
To search for the causes of the great war which began in Europe in 1914, we must go far back into history. It should be remembered that many of the governments of today have not lived as long as that of our own country. This is, perhaps, a new thought to some of us, who rather think that, as America is a new country, it is the baby among the great nations. But, one hundred and thirty years ago, when the United States was being formed, there was no nation called Italy; the peninsula which we now know by that name was cut up among nine or ten little governments. There was no nation known as Germany; the land which is in the present German empire was then divided among some thirty or thirty-five different rulers. There was no Republic of France; instead, France had a king whose will was law, and the French people were cruelly oppressed. There was no kingdom of Belgium, no kingdom of Serbia, of Bulgaria, of Roumania. The kingdom of Norway was part of Denmark. The Republic of France, as we now know it, dates back only to 1871; the Empire of Germany and the United Kingdom of Italy to about the same time. The kingdoms of Roumania, Serbia, and Bulgaria have been independent of Turkey only since 1878. The kingdom of Albania did not exist before 1913. Most of the present nations of modern Europe, then, are very new. The troubles which led to the great war, however, originated in the dim twilight of history.
In the earliest days, there were no separate countries or kingdoms. Men gathered together in little bands, each of which had its leader. This leader was generally chosen because of his bodily strength and courage. He was the best fighter of the tribe. The people did not have any lasting homes. They moved around from place to place, wherever they could find the best hunting and fishing. When two tribes wanted the same hunting grounds, they fought, and the weaker party had to give way. Selfishness was supreme. If a man wanted anything which belonged to his weaker neighbor, he simply beat this neighbor over the head with his club, and took it. The stronger tribe attacked the weaker, without any thought of whether or not its quarrel was just.
Gradually, in the southern and warmer parts of Europe, the tribes began to be more civilized. Towns sprang up. Ships were built. Trade came to be one of the occupations. The fighting men needed weapons and armor; so there grew up artisans who were skilled in working metals. In Egypt and Syria there were people who had reached quite a high degree of civilization, and gradually the Europeans learned from them better ways of living. First the Greeks, then the Etruscans (E-trus'cans), a people who lived in Italy just north of where Rome now is, and finally the southern Italians learned that it was possible to live in cities, without hunting and plundering. Grazing (the tending of flocks of animals) came to be the occupation of many. The owners of sheep or cattle drove their flocks from place to place, as grass and water failed them where they were. There was no separate ownership of land.
At last came the rise of the city of Rome,