In many cases, as victorious armies swept through Poland and Serbia, the wretched inhabitants fled before them, literally starving, because all food had been seized for the use of fighting men.  Dreadful diseases, which cannot exist where people have the chance to bathe and keep themselves clean, once more appeared, sweeping away hundreds of thousands of victims.  The strongest, healthiest, bravest men of a dozen different nations were shot down by the millions or left to drag out a miserable existence, sick or crippled for life.  Silent were the wheels in many factories which once turned out the comforts and luxuries of civilization.  There were no men to make toys for the children, or to work for mankind’s happiness.  The only mills and factories which were running full time were those that turned out the tools of destruction and shot and shell for the guns.  Nations poured out one hundred fifty million dollars a day for the purpose of killing off the best men in Europe.  Had the world gone mad?  What was the reason for it all?

[Illustration:  Fleeing from their Homes, around which a Battle is Raging.]

In 1913 Germans traveled in Russia and Englishmen traveled in Germany freely and safely.  Germans were glad to trade with intercourse Russians, and happy to have Englishmen spend their money in Germany.  France and Austria exchanged goods and their inhabitants traveled within each other’s boundaries.  A Frenchman might go anywhere through Germany and be welcomed.  There was nothing to make the average German hate the average Englishman or Belgian.  The citizen of Austria and the citizen of Russia could meet and find plenty of ground for friendship.

We cannot explain this war, then, on the grounds of race hatred.  One can imagine that two men living side by side and seeing each other every day might have trouble and grow to hate each other, but in this great war soldiers were shooting down other soldiers whom they had never seen before, with whom they had never exchanged a word, and it would not profit them if they killed a whole army of their opponents.  In many cases, the soldiers did not see the men whom they were killing.  An officer with a telescope watched where the shells from the cannon were falling and telephoned to the captain in charge to change the aim a trifle for his next shots.  The men put in the projectile, closed and fired the gun.  Once in a while, a shell from the invisible enemy, two, three, or four miles away, fell among them, killing and wounding.  When a regiment of Austrians were ordered to charge the Russian trenches, they shot and bayoneted the Russians because they were told to do so by their officers, and the Russian soldiers shot the Austrians because their captains so ordered them.  The officers on each side were only obeying orders received from their generals.  The generals were only obeying orders from the government.

In the end, then, we come back to the governments, and we wonder what has caused these nations to fly at each other’s throats.  The question arises as to what makes up a government or why a government has the right to rule its people.