ABSTRACT
THE war fell upon us in the summer of 1914 as a terrible surprise. Hardly anybody had believed in its coming. A handful of dismal pacifists in the different countries, pointing to the growth of armaments, had uttered their vaticinations. Little knots of ardent militarists with their business companions, bent upon increased preparedness, talked confidently of the inevitable day, forgetting to reconcile their prediction with the preventive virtues which they attributed to warlike preparations. But few even of these extremists of either group seriously believed that war was imminent. There were, no doubt, a few in Germany and elsewhere who in the latter days believed in war because they had contrived it and resolved upon it. But for our immediate purposes these may stand out of the account.
