government, that country, with its millions of inhabitants, could, by the end of 1917, no longer be reckoned an active belligerent. Keeping these facts in mind, the following tables will make the situation clear. 1 The population is only approximate and in round numbers. The strength of the armies given is based on an estimate of the United States War Department, October, 1917. 2 At the end of 1917 the Russian armies were in a state of complete dissolution. CENTRAL POWERS, WITH COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES the few neutral countries As for the countries which remained neutral, they included Position of a population of perhaps one hundred and ninety millions. Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were far too close to Germany to risk breaking with her, although it would seem that many of their people abhorred her conduct. Spain and a number of Latin-American states, including Mexico and Chile, held aloof. But no country could escape the burdens and afflictions of a war of such magnitude. Real neutrality was almost impossible. Everywhere taxes and prices rose, essential supplies were cut off, and business and commerce were greatly dislocated. In addition to the increase in Germany's enemies the chief military events of 1917 were the following: In March the Germans decided to shorten their lines on the Western Front from Noyon on the south to Arras on the north. They withdrew, devastating the land as they went, and the French and English were able to reoccupy about one eighth of the French territory that the enemy had held so long. The Germans were disturbed by fierce attacks as they tried to establish their new line of defense; but in spite of great losses on the part of the French and English, and especially of the heroic Canadians, the "Hindenburg" line was so carefully fortified that it held, and underwent no considerable change during the year. The English The Western Russia out of the war by the end of 1917 Grave problems antedating the war made some progress in forcing back the enemy on the Belgian coast, with the hope of gaining Zeebrugge, the base from which German submarines made their departure to prey on English commerce. Attempts to take St. Quentin, the important mining town of Lens, and the city of Cambrai were not successful for another year, but the terrible slaughter went on and tens of thousands were killed every week. On the Eastern Front it will be remembered that the Russian attack in the summer of 1916 failed and that the Central Powers got control of two thirds of Roumania. After the great Russian revolution of March, 1917, in which the Tsar was deposed, the new popular leader, Kerensky, made a last attempt to rally the Russian armies, but his efforts came to naught.' He was supplanted in November, 1917, by the leaders of the extreme socialists, the Bolsheviki, who were opposed to all war except that on capital. They took immediate steps to open up peace negotiations with the Germans and their allies.2 Civil war followed in Russia between the Bolsheviki and the representatives of the old order, and Russia played no further part in the European conflict. THE ISSUES OF the War 121. The war rendered acute every chronic disease which Europe had failed to remedy in the long period of general peace. France had never given up hopes of regaining AlsaceLorraine, which had been wrested from her after the war of 1870-1871. The Poles continued to aspire to appear on the map as an independent nation. Both the northern Slavs of Bohemia and the southern Slavs in Croatia, Bosnia, and Slavonia were discontented with their relations to AustriaHungary, of which they formed a part. The Irredentists of Italy had long laid claim to important coast lands belonging to Austria. Serbia and Bulgaria were bitterly at odds over the arrangements made at the close of the Second Balkan War.a 2 See below, p. lxxii. 8 See above, p. xxxiii. 1 See above, pp. xiv ff. New problems due to the war War on war Roumania longed for Transylvania and Bukowina. Then there were the old questions as to whether Russia should have Constantinople, what was to be done with the remaining vestiges of the Turkish Empire, and who was to control Syria and Mesopotamia. In the Far East, Japan's interests in China offered an unsolved problem. The progress of the war added new territorial perplexities. The Central Powers at the end of 1917 were in military possession of Belgium, Luxemburg, northeastern France, Poland, Lithuania, Courland, Serbia, Montenegro, and Roumania (see map, p. lxi). Great Britain had captured Bagdad and Jerusalem. In Africa all the German colonies were in the hands of her enemies, and in Australasia her possessions had been taken over by Japan and Australia. Were all these regions conquered by one or the other of the belligerent groups to be given back or not? Then what about Belgium, whose people had been mulcted and pillaged by their conquerors, and what of northeastern France wantonly devastated? How were the belligerents to reach any preliminary understanding in regard to all these issues and so stop the war? But all these questions seemed of minor importance compared with the overwhelming world problem. How should mankind. conspire to put an end to war forever? The world of to-day, compared with that of Napoleon's time, when the last great international struggle took place, is so small - the nations have been brought so close together, they are so dependent on one another that it would seem as if the time had come to join in a last victorious war on war. It required a month or more to cross the Atlantic in 1815; now less than six days are necessary, and airplanes may soon be soaring above its waves far swifter than any steamer. Formerly the oceans were great barriers separating America from Europe, and the Orient from America; but, like the ancient bulwarks around medieval cities, they have now become highways on which men of all nations hasten to and fro. Before the war, express trains were |