What has been Accomplished?

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 17, 1916

What has been Accomplished?

This is the question which thousands are asking as they view the present situation in Europe after eighteen months of bloody warfare. The small advantage gained by any one of the belligerent nations affords slight compensation for the terrible loss in life and property suffered by each. In a statement issued by the International News Service, and published in the daily papers of January 30, the following picture of war conditions and results is presented:—

The European war will have lasted eighteen months tomorrow,—the blackest eighteen months known to the modern world! What has been accomplished? No European country has been benefited, nor has human liberty advanced at any point, nor has any great moral principle triumphed in any place or on any battlefield. The net result has been 2,990,000 men in the very prime of life killed; more than 2,200,000 made prisoners, and more than 9,830,000 wounded and maimed, many crippled for life.

Bloodshed the Heaviest Toll

This measureless bloodshed and suffering, making millions widows and many more millions orphans, has been the heaviest toll of the war. Next, the money loss — $10,862,000,000 borrowed for war by Germany, Austria, and Hungary; $16,199,000,000 borrowed for war by France, England, Russia, and Italy; a grand total of $27,061,000,000 spent in making war.

Waste of Money Stupendous

The mind cannot grasp such stupendous figures or such wastage. It means a sum equal to the entire savings or increase in capital of the entire world for ten years. It means a debt of about $360 for every family in all belligerent countries — more than the total income of a year of every European peasant family or unskilled laborer in Europe. It means tax burdens for this generation and for generations yet unborn that will make the burdens of life greater than ever before for all.

No Decision Yet Reached

What has been accomplished? The Allies have failed utterly to penetrate or even seriously to weaken Germany. Germany has failed utterly to strike a decisive blow at any of her four chief enemies.

The Franco-Prussian War was fought in 47 days, when the French army surrendered at Sedan and the emperor Napoleon was made prisoner. Now, at the end of 547 days, there are two battle lines, 1,950 miles long, deadlocked at every point. Nowhere a decision. All the nations bleeding to death, none able to strike a decisive blow. The Germans have shown a power of organization at home and a military power in the field that the combined armies of Britain, France, Russia, and Italy cannot break. England has the command of the sea. And in all history sea power has never yet been beaten. Where does any possible hope lie, save in exhaustion, or the benevolent intervention of neutral powers to restore peace?