THE MILITARY AND FINANCIAL 

 CONDITION OF EUROPE. 



In taking a survey over the Continent of Europe, and carefully 

 considering the political relations and attitudes of the Great Powers, 

 towards one another, and of the policy which for many years they 

 have adopted, one striking fact presents itself to every student of 

 European politics, and it is this : that it is not so much the im- 

 possibility of arriving at a modus Vivendi between France and 

 Germany on the Alsace-Lorraine question, or between Russia, 

 Austria, and Turkey on the subject of the political independence 

 of Bulgaria and Servia, or even between France, England, and 

 Turkey on Egyptian affairs, which seriously imperils the peace of 

 Europe, but it is the appalling magnitude of the armed forces, the 

 vast armies and navies of the great Empires of Russia, Germany, 

 Austria, and France, that are so full of peril, and which are the 

 real dangers to the general tranquillity of Europe. 



Is it not a most astounding and humiliating fact, that at the 

 present day, now that nineteen centuries have rolled by since the 

 dawn of the Christian Era, with all their accumulated teachings of 

 Christian thought and practice, that there should be upwards of 

 4,000,000 of men, the able-bodied and the vigorous men, withdrawn 

 from all the peaceful avocations of productive industry, withdrawn 

 from all the hallowed associations of hearth and home, and com- 

 pelled, by the despotism of the military conscription, to live a life of 

 laborious idleness, a life of great temptation, and great exposure in 

 the armies and navies of Europe ? And if we include the Auxiliary 

 Forces, the Volunteers, Militia, and Yeomanry, or, as they are 

 described in continental countries, the Landwehr, the Land- 

 stiirm, the Reserves, and Territorial Forces, the numbers stand at 

 18,909,608 men, trained to the use of arms in Europe. This 

 surely is not Peace ; but guerre h outrance, War to the knife ! 



