The Junkers, capitalists, journalists and soldiers, who had led Europe to the verge of the abyss, now realized what lay before them,--something incalculable, immense and elemental. Self-interest was forgotten for a moment, even _their_ callous minds recoiled. These men had spent their lives talking of European War, and making costly preparations for it, but at its near approach they flinched. In Petrograd a supreme effort was made to avert the cataclysm, it was cynical enough and revealed the morality of the “Balance of Power” in Europe in a brief but pregnant phrase[22]--“_Lâchez l’Autriche et nous lâcherons les Français_” was the message to the German Government. It came too late; public opinion in Russia was dangerously excited, and behind the Russian people stood another Power which also was suffering from “an intolerable state of affairs.” For nearly fifty years the French had lived beneath a sword of Damocles wielded with German arrogance; they supported with difficulty the “Three Years’ Service” system, and had lent much money to the Russians. The French Government seized its opportunity, France made the Servian Cause her own.
Three crowned heads symbolized the might and power of Central Europe--one, senile, embittered, selfish, surrounded by a mediaeval Court; another, pompous, vain, ambitious, a war-lord, the apex of a social pyramid which recognized no law but force; the third, an autocrat whose will was law to millions, a man both weak and obstinate, whose character was a riddle to those who knew him best. Men such as these could not prevent the conflagration; considering their influence and position one wondered why it had not come before.
When war became inevitable, the British Empire was utterly unprepared in both a mental and material sense; many educated people of the upper classes were amazed at each other’s ignorance of geography; the man in the street awoke from his wonted lethargy, and studied geography, as well as ethics, in the pages of the _Daily Mail_.
On August 10, 1914, a troop train passed through Woking Station bound for Southampton Harbour. The men were typical “Tommies” of the old Army, and were in the highest possible spirits. One of them, more curious-minded than the rest, shouted to a be-spectacled civilian on the platform, “’Ow far is it from ’ere to Servia, guv’nor?” The train was in motion, and time did not admit of a satisfactory reply.