The American Historical Review/Volume 23/Reviews of Books/The War of Democracy
The subtitle is misleading. This volume does not contain any of the official utterances which have defined the position and purpose of the Entente Allies.
We do find, however, a score of brief essays and interviews, concisely and forcefully phrased, in which fifteen eminent statesmen and publicists offer their individual judgments upon some of the issues of the war. Ten of the fifteen are English; two are French; one is Belgian; one, Dutch; and one, Alsatian. Nearly half of the volume is filled with selections from four men: Mr. Balfour on maritime questions, Professor Gilbert Murray on ethical and cultural issues, Viscount Grey on various aims for which Great Britain is contending, and Viscount Bryce, who strikes the keynote for the volume in a general introduction. In addition to that, Lord Bryce discusses "Neutral Nations and the War", and, in a third essay, declares Great Britain to be the defender of five principles, viz.: liberty, nationality, maintenance of treaty obligations, humane regulation of methods of warfare, and the triumph of the pacific over the military type of civilization.
In passing it may be noted that on page xi of the introduction, Viscount Bryce has by a strange oversight assigned the Russo-Japanese War to the year 1901 instead of 1904–1905.
Mr. Edward Price Bell, London correspondent of the Chicago Daily News, contributes an interview with Lord Haldane concerning the latter's visit to Germany in 1912. A prominent Alsatian lawyer and Francophile, Paul Albert Helmer, discusses German rule in his country. A Belgian statesman and a Dutch professor render a similar service concerning Belgium. Professor Henri Hauser of the university of Dijon writes of German industry as a factor making for war, and Maurice Barrès pictures "The Soul of France" as typified by Sister Julie at Gerbéviller-le-Martyr. H. A. L. Fisher considers "The Value of Small States", and G. M. Trevelyan provides a very short account of the Serbian race. One chapter contains a history of the Cavell case; in another Lloyd George tells an Italian journalist why the Allies will win, and in a third is Mr. Asquith's speech in reply to the German chancellor in April, 1916. Mr. Balfour's discussion of naval questions comes no nearer to our time than the summer of 191 5, and this fact suggests the most obvious comment upon this whole volume. It is not keyed to the present moment. It meets no present vital need. The entry of the United States into the war and the overturn in Russia have profoundly altered the "War of Democracy". This book contains nothing about the vanished Russia of the Czar, and it is equally dumb about the Russia of Kerensky.
The volume entitled The War and Democracy, which Messrs. Seton-Watson, Wilson, Zimmern, and Greenwood published in 1915, is incomparably superior to this one in value for either the student or the general reader. The book which interprets the significance of the war in its relation to recent democratic policies and progress is not yet written.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1927, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 96 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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