CHAP. xix. THE CURSE OF CIVILIZATION. 



out Europe; which region has now become a vast camp, 

 occupied by opposing forces greater in numbers than the 

 world has ever seen before. These great armies are con- 

 tinually being equipped with new and more deadly 

 weapons, at a cost which strains the resources even of the 

 most wealthy nations, and by the constant increase 

 of taxation and of debt impoverishes the mass of the 

 people. 



The first International Exhibition, in 1851, fostered 

 the idea that the rulers of Europe would at length rec- 

 ognize the fact that peace and commercial intercourse 

 were essential to national well-being. But, far from any 

 such rational ideas being acted on, there began forth- 

 with a series of the most unjustifiable and useless dynas- 

 tic wars which the world has ever seen. The Crimean 

 War in 1854-55, forced on by private interests, with no 

 rational object in view, and terrible in its loss of life; the 

 Austro-Prussian War in 1866; the French invasion of 

 Mexico, and the terrible Franco-German War, were all 

 dynastic quarrels, having no sufficient cause, and no rela- 

 tion whatever to the well-being of the communities 

 which were engaged in them. 



The evils of these wars did not cease with the awful 

 loss of life and destruction of property, which were their 

 immediate results, since they formed the excuse for that 

 inordinate increase of armaments and of the war-spirit 

 under which Europe now groans. This increase, and the 

 cost of weapons and equipments, have been intensified 

 by the application to war purposes of those mechanical 

 inventions and scientific discoveries which, properly 

 used, should bring peace and plenty to all, but which, 

 when seized upon by the spirit of militarism, directly 



