Of course, to discuss the chances of each or any of the combatants involved is out of the question; indeed, it would be a difficult task for the shrewdest military expert to establish a sound estimate, for there are probably few, perhaps none, to whom the armies under consideration are sufficiently well known for that.  Besides all this, moreover, the present conflict is taking place under conditions absolutely different from any we have before known, totally new to our experience.

Formerly, when the situation was more simple than at present, there were always at the outbreak of war a few experienced experts who could correctly estimate the prospects for each side in the struggle, for it was usually fairly clear from the very beginning what each side wanted to gain and what in the case of victory each would gain.  But in the present situation there is not a word of prophecy which can be uttered in face of the fact that the most terrible war known to history has broken out without any of the powers involved in the least wishing it.  It was in Russia first that at the last moment the war party seemed to have gained the upper hand and to have set in motion the whole bloody sport.  We may rely on it that the statesmen of Austria were of the honest belief that they could localize the conflict with Servia.

But it is impossible any longer to consider this world war as a continuation of that conflict.  Servia has vanished completely from the horizon, and in the moment when that end disappeared from view, each nation found itself suddenly fighting for nothing else save its own national integrity.  The real purposes in this war will not come to the surface until the balance of the power becomes a little more sharply defined.  Then in the victors’ camp all manner of purposes and desires will suddenly spring up wide awake.

When Everything Is Over.

Meanwhile, little as may be affirmed today concerning the prospects for the parties in this struggle and the manner of the war’s conclusion, this assertion may safely be put forth; this world will wear a vastly different appearance when everything is over.

We hope, and may reasonably expect, that the war will be relatively short.  The Franco-Prussian war lasted from the middle of July to the end of February; military operations began early in August and closed with the truce of Jan. 28.  That the present war will be dragged out to so great a length, involving so incredible a number of men, demanding so severe a straining of energies—­especially the financial—­on the part of all the nations, is hardly conceivable.  But however short a time it may last, we shall emerge a world very different from before.

The time is long since past when a great war brings in its train no changes other than the ceding of a few square miles of conquered territory.  Under the capitalistic method of production, continual changes, irreconcilable situations, constantly new problems pile up so rapidly that no great war is any longer possible which does not bring with it a prolonged breaking down as well as a building up of industrial organisms.