Russia had lost the armored cruiser Pallada, and the Jemchug, a third-class cruiser, and the losses of the French and Austrian navies were not worth accounting.  With regard to interned vessels both sides had losses.  While the Germans were unable to use the great modern merchantmen which lay in American and other ports, and had to do without them either as converted cruisers or transports, the Allies were forced to detail warships to keep guard at the entrance of the various ports where these interned German liners might at any moment take to the high seas.

In naval warfare the number of ships lost is no determining factor in figuring the actual victory—­the important thing being the existence or nonexistence of the grand fleets of the combatants after the fighting is finished.  Viewed from such an angle, the fact that the Allies had left no German ships at large other than those in the North Sea, cannot entitle them to victory at the end of the first six months of war.  So long as a German fleet remained intact and interned in neutral ports, naval victory for the Allies had not come, though naval supremacy was indicated.

The fact was apparent, moreover, that while the Central Powers were being deprived of all their trade on the seas, the world’s commerce endangered only by submarines was remaining wide open to the Allies.

PART III—­THE WAR ON THE EASTERN FRONT

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CHAPTER XLI

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THEATRE OF WARFARE

World war—­the prophecy of the ages—­now threatened the foundations of civilization.  Whether or not the modern era was to fall under the sword, as did the democracy of Greece and the mighty Roman Empire, was again to be decided on battle grounds that for seventy centuries have devoured the generations.  The mountain passes were once more to reverberate with the battle cry—­the roar of guns, the clank of artillery, the tramp of soldiery.  The rivers were to run crimson with the blood of men; cities were to fall before the invaders; ruin and death were to consume nations.  It was as though Xerxes, and Darius, and Alexander the Great, and Hannibal, and all the warriors of old were to return to earth to lead again gigantic armies over the ancient battle fields.

While the war was gaining momentum on the western battle grounds of Europe, gigantic armies were gathering in the East—­there to wage mighty campaigns that were to hold in the balance the destiny of the great Russian Empire; the empire of Austria, the Balkan kingdoms-Serbia, Montenegro, Rumania, Bulgaria.  The Turks were again to enter upon a war of invasion.  Greece once more was to tremble under the sword.  Even Egypt and Persia and Jerusalem itself, the battle grounds of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Trojans, the bloody fields of paganism and early Christianity, were all to be awakened by the modern trumpets of war.