A EUROPEAN WAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 27, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 42.

A EUROPEAN WAR.

A VAST European war is to-day in actual progress—a war of endurance. Every nerve is tense with the strain, every back is bowed with the burden. Not a cannon belches forth its shot and shell, and no rattle of musketry is heard; but the war is going on none the less—a desperate, destructive, cruel war, that causes as sickening torture and as certain death as bayonet and saber could possibly cause. It is as if two pugilists, ceasing for the time being to strike blows, had locked themselves in a desperate embrace, and were exerting every muscle and nerve to crush each other to the ground. The war budgets have increased at the rate of twenty-three per cent for the last six years, and this year has witnessed a deficit in every budget in Europe. “In vain are more and more taxes levied upon the thickening populations struggling desperately for the means of subsistence,” says the leading article in the Contemporary Review for June:—

State after State finds itself compelled, in time of profound peace, to discount the revenue of the future by raising loans, which but temporarily postpone the evil day. To the people thus stumbling headlong down to destruction—and stumbling all the more recklessly because their movements are governed by no settled plan or purpose—it is necessary to address the one imperative “Halt!” It is the word of the moment, the order of the day for the close of the century. “Halt!”

“Profound peace,” indeed! The condition in Europe is one of war, not of peace, only it is a war waged with new weapons, and the victims are not spangled soldiery marching to the tune of fife and drum, and spurred on by dreams of glory, but they are the toiling millions, crushed and dwarfed beneath the industrial burdens placed upon them. Over 130,000 more men are under arms in Europe this year than last; and in one nation—Italy—the burden has grown so great that an income tax of 20 per cent is necessary in some parts, and even so the nation is toppling on the verge of bankruptcy. Every nation is facing the same precipice, and it is a silent but intense struggle between them to topple each other over into the abyss. The amazing part of it is that every sovereign in Europe is desirous of peace and for a termination to the struggle. M. de Blowitz, European correspondent for the London Times, writing in McClure’s Magazine, quotes these sovereigns as follows:—

The pope has said, “Europe must first be allowed to breathe at its ease.”

The czar of Russia has said, “My chief mission here below is the maintenance of peace.”

The Emperor Francis Joseph has said, “The hand of God has always impelled me toward peace.”

The king of Italy said only the other day, “Peace is, for Italy, an absolute necessity.”

The king of Denmark has said, “I hope to live long enough to see Europe diminish its war expenses in time of peace.”

Prince Bismarck said to me, and the German emperor has since made the same remark: “After such a war as ours, after such a victory as ours, no man thinks of staking his winnings on a single card. The night before a battle who knows who will be the victor?”

It seems as though the great nations of Europe are being driven on and on by some grim fate which they cannot resist. A great continental tragedy is being enacted, and a world watches shudderingly for the climax.—The Voice.