England and America certainly did not join in the war from motives of nationalism, though they recognized the principle of nationality and above all the right of the small European peoples to independence and freedom. For this reason the war cannot be described as a struggle between Germans and Slavs or Germans and Latins. It was a world war. Its origin and development show plainly that nationality or even national chauvinism was but one of several factors, another of which was religious. Yet the war is rarely interpreted as a fight between Churches and creeds, although the Orthodoxy of the Russians and the Serbians, the Catholicism of Austria, the Protestantism of the Germans and the Catholicism of the French, played a part in it. Indeed, none of the usual stereotyped definitions are applicable to it. It cannot be called a war of dynasties, of prestige, of religion, of liberation, of races, of expansion, or predatory or colonial. Therefore the quantitative description, a “world war,” indicates its special character and meaning.
The Rival War Aims.
The character of the world war is, to a great extent, discernible in a comparison of the respective war aims of the two belligerent parties and of their programmes—the programme of the West, which was that of the immense majority of mankind, and the programme of Germany, which was supported by a minority grouped round the Central Powers. This division of nations into two camps had not merely a temporary military significance but corresponded to different conceptions of civilization, to divergent ideas and views of life and conduct.
I am well aware that an attempt tersely to define racial and national aims, or conceptions of civilization, is bold even to rashness. Yet an analysis of the war in the light of history seems to warrant it. The universal Theocracy of the Middle Ages, centralized under the leadership of the Papacy, gave place, during the modern era, to the growing independence of individual States and Nations. The Reformation, classical Humanism, Science, Art and Philosophy, striving towards a fresh comprehension and knowledge of Nature, of men and of social relationships, established new spiritual and ethical ideals and foundations for the organization of society. By the Reformation, by Humanism, Science, Art and Philosophy, the Great Revolution in England, France and America was pre-
