The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

expected to fight enthusiastically for purely economic or materialistic causes instead of a high ideal.

The German militarists, in so far as they have not themselves been deceived, obviously sought to prolong and fortify the power of their caste, to justify their dominion over the obedient masses of the German people; and by adding to Germany some new provinces of the Empireas Alsace-Lorraine was added some forty-five years ago—they hoped to prolong the influence and the policy of their own party under the pretext that the Fatherland was menaced by the revengefulness of France or some other nation.

On the other side, the Allies, at the very outset of the present world-struggle, proclaimed that they were fighting for a high European idealfor the liberties and independence of the small nations in Europe. The long-neglected rights of the smaller and weaker nations were at last to be recognised, and the new Europe was going to be based, not on the temporary equipoise of might, but on the solid and enduring basis of the equality of rights.

And this makes the entire and fundamental difference between the present war and former wars in Europe. Humanity, in spite of the pessimists, has become more idealistic and moral, and upon that can be fairly founded the hopes of a brighter era which must dawn upon the world as the price of the enormous sacrifices and so

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