abroad.  Commercially isolated, she must, therefore, suffer an industrial and commercial collapse.  On the other hand, the total volume of unemployment, which would have been enormous during the first weeks of the war, has of course been considerably reduced by the withdrawal of great masses of men to join the colours, and by the stimulus which the war has given to industries supplying the needs of the German armies.  Then also Rotterdam, through which Germany does a great deal of its trade, remains open, whilst a fraction of her foreign trade is being carried on through Denmark, Scandinavia, and Switzerland.  Nevertheless, the amount of economic distress within a very few weeks after the outbreak of war, especially in the large towns, was considerable even on the showing of German newspapers.[2] The amount of distress was increased and intensified by steadily rising prices.  As the rise has taken place not only in commodities of which there is a shortage, but in others such as sugar, it may be concluded that it is due largely to the inflation of the currency, owing to the adoption of the fatally easy expedient of issuing large masses of paper money.

[Footnote 1:  Ibid. p. 217.]

[Footnote 2:  “Let us imagine,” says Bernhardi, “the endless misery which a protracted stoppage or definite destruction of our oversea trade would bring upon the whole nation, and in particular on the masses of the industrial classes who live on our export trade” (Germany and the Next War, p. 232).

According to The Times (Sept. 18, 1914) the German nautical newspaper Hansa on Sept. 12 admitted that England had captured many millions of marks worth of German shipping, and that “the cessation of business will cost our shipowners many millions more.”  “It will hold up the development of our shipping trade for years.”  The Neue Freie Presse of Vienna on Sept. 11 admitted that the activity of the exporters in Germany had been crippled.  According to The Times (Oct. 7), the German Socialist paper Vorwaerts, stated that “the state of want has reached an alarming extent, even though we are now only at the beginning of the catastrophe which has befallen the people of Europe.”  “Masses of unemployment grow every month.”]

Austria-Hungary, which is not an advanced industrial country, will not suffer quite so keenly, though even here the German newspapers admit that trade has come almost to a standstill.[1] In the western theatre of war the fighting has centred largely round the Franco-Belgian Coalfield, on or near which stand on both sides of the frontier many industrial towns.  Lille, Nancy, Epinal, Belfort, Reims, Amiens, and Valenciennes on one side, and Liege and Charleroi on the other, are all of economic importance.  Even apart from the actual destruction due to the war which in some of these towns has been serious, the mere presence of the contending armies will have a more or less paralysing