CHAPTER I THE CALLING OF THE PEACE CONFERENCE 1898. WITHOUT attempting to forestall the judgment of history, it may perhaps be taken for granted that the year 1898 will be chiefly remembered on account of three notable events, the Spanish-Three notable American War, the death of Prince Bismarck, and events in the circular letter of Count Mouravieff, by direction of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia, calling the International Peace Conference. While these three events had no causal connection whatever, it seems indisputable that the timeliness of the third was strikingly dependent upon the other two. The Spanish-American War, both in its inception The Spanishand its results, revealed to the world what had long war. been known to a comparatively small number of thoughtful observers; namely, the existence of a great and mighty power in the New World, with unlimited reserve force, which needed only to become interested in questions of foreign policy to. make it at once a factor of the very first importance. The wise warning of Washington against entangling alliances with foreign nations had been followed by the United States to a degree hardly foreseen or intended by its author; and standing apart in the world in more or less selfish isolation, American Chapter I The changed United States. the great Republic of the West had almost become a negligible quantity in the calculations of European diplomats. This is not the occasion to discuss the wisdom of position of the this policy, or of its modification. It is sufficient to emphasize the fact, as well as the momentous and permanent change which occurred when the people of the United States, with singular unanimity and zeal, but still with grave and serious purpose, drew the sword to put an end to an intolerable situation in Cuba. It was a war of aggression - but the American people felt that it was aggression for a high and noble object; and the fact that the great Republic was capable of such idealism-the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of volunteers crowding to enlist in a cause offering absolutely no material inducements served to deepen the impression made upon the rest of the world. The campaign, both on land and sea, was perhaps more remarkable' for the hidden possibilities which it revealed than for actual demonstrations. The general expectation, however, of many continental critics, that the American army and navy would first encounter defeats which might perhaps be -retrieved ultimately by the mere force of physical and numerical preponderance, was doomed to disappointment, and gave way, on the part of observers not blinded by jealousy or prejudice, to expressions of sincere respect for American prowess and efficiency. The revelation of the fundamental solidarity, in of the Anglo both feelings and interest, on the part of the two Chapter I great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race was beyond The solidarity. doubt the most important incidental result of the Saxon race. war. The people of the British Empire stood almost alone in their unwavering belief in the sincerity and unselfishness of the avowed purposes of the United States, and consequently in their warm sympathy and hope for American success. Without a formal alliance, without anything even in the nature of a diplomatic understanding, the world was surprised to observe that the two great English-speaking peoples of the world appeared to think and feel in unison; that all minor differences and causes of misunderstanding seemed to be forgotten, and that the feeling of kinship free from all hostility against any other power, and without the slightest impairment of national independence or separate interests, but still strong and true- dominated public and private opinion on both sides of the Atlantic. It is needless to add that this fact opened up to the continental statesman vistas of which he had never dreamed before, and that it necessitated a more or less complete revision of previous calculations, plans, and combinations. Prince Bis The death of Prince Bismarck was the outward The death of sign of the end of a period of European history, marck. justly called, after its dominant figure and his motto, the Bismarckian Epoch, or that of Blood and Iron. For more than a human generation the titanic mind of the Iron Chancellor had dominated the international policy of Europe, and so potent Chapter I Bismarck a friend of peace. had his ideas become, in Germany, that they had compelled even Science to bend to their support the masterly but "barrack-trained" minds of men like Treitschke and his pupils. The attempt was made, not entirely without success, to give a scientific and even a systematized philosophical basis to the policy of the most consistent and reckless realist and opportunist since Napoleon. There is probably little danger that this school of political science and philosophy will long outlive its mighty creator, but its very existence bears witness to the stupendous force of a master mind which could hold sway, even in a realm hitherto sacred to absolute freedom of thought and of teaching. History cannot fairly question the great Chancellor's right to be known as a sincere friend of peace. The problems which demanded solution at the outset of his career could not have been settled, humanly speaking, otherwise than with blood and iron. Germany at that time was little more than a geographical expression, and, at the threshold of the stupendous industrial and commercial development of the last fifty years, the German people were two centuries behind other Western nations politically and economically. The vastly greater part of the nation had no legal access to the sea, and the entire country bade fair to become an object of barter or division among powerful surrounding states, whose designs were but imperfectly concealed. The rivalry of Austria and Prussia had become too acute for |