Publisher's Synopsis
In face of the greatest tragedy in history, it is to history that we make appeal. What does it teach us to expect as the issue of the conflict? How far and in what form may we anticipate that the unity of mankind, centring as it must round Europe, will emerge from the trial? Only two occasions occur to the mind on which, since the break up of the Roman Empire, a schism so serious as the present has threatened the unity of the Western world. The first was the Reformation and the war which it entailed down to the Peace of Westphalia. The second was the struggle against Napoleon, terminated a hundred years ago. The latter was in many respects a closer parallel. It was a struggle of the independent nations of Europe against the overweening ambition and aggression of one Power. It united them in an alliance which achieved its purpose and survived the successful issue of the war for some years. Some such course, with a comity of nations far wider and more enduring than the Holy Alliance as its sequel, we hope and predict for the present war.
