Enough is known at this writing to show that the cost in lives, money, morals and weakening of humanity as a whole, is staggering, and yet the whole truth can not be realized for years to come. In our own great struggle, which had for its object the liberation of the Negro, the scars which our country received have not yet been entirely eliminated. Portions of the country devastated by the soldiers still bear the marks of the invasion, but what was lost in money and material things was made up by the welding together of the two sections of the country. The Union was made a concrete, humanitarian body of citizens. The battle was for the right and liberty triumphed. And by the defeat of Germany liberty again triumphs and the world is made a safe place in which to live. And just as America fought for liberty in the stirring days of 1776, and her peoples fought one another in the trying days of 1861-65, so America was drawn into the World's War that the principles of liberty, for which she has ever stood, might be perpetuated throughout the world, and that an international peace might be established, which has for its purposes the ending of such convulsions as have shaken the world since August, 1914, since the first shots were fired in fair Belgium by German invaders. CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY CIVILIZATION AT ISSUE--THE GERMAN EMPIRE--CHARACTER OF WILLIAM II--THE GREAT CONSPIRACY--THE WAR BY YEARS--UNITED STATES IN THE WAR--TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILES OF BATTLE--THE DOWNFALL OF TURKEY--THE DEMOCRATIC CLOSE OF THE WAR 17 CHAPTER II GEN. PERSHING'S OWN STORY ORGANIZATION OF HIS GENERAL STAFF--TRAINING IN FRANCE--IN THE AISNE OFFENSIVE--AT CHATEAU THIERRY--THE ST MIHEIL SALIENT--MEUSE-ARGONNE, FIRST PHASE--THE BATTLE IN THE FOREST--SUMMARY 49 CHAPTER III PRESIDENT WILSON'S REVIEW OF THE WAR TROOP MOVEMENT DURING THE YEAR--TRIBUTE TO AMERICAN SOLDIERS--SPLENDID SPIRIT OF THE NATION--RESUME THE WORK OF PEACE--OUTLINE OF WORK IN PARIS--SUPPORT OF NATION URGED 79 CHAPTER IV THE FLASH THAT SET THE WORLD AFLAME TEUTON FIND IN A MURDER THE EXCUSE FOR WAR--GERMANY INSPIRED BY AMBITIONS FOR WORLD CONTROL--THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMERCIAL SUPREMACY A FACTOR--THE UNDERLYING MOTIVES 89 CHAPTER V WHY AMERICA ENTERED THE WAR THE IRON HAND OF PRUSSIANISM--THE ARROGANT HOHENZOLLERN ATTITUDE--SECRETARY LANE TELLS WHY WE FIGHT--BROKEN PLEDGES--LAWS VIOLATED--PRUSSIANISM THE CHILD OF BARBARITY--GERMANY'S PLANS FOR A WORLD EMPIRE 97 CHAPTER VI THE THINGS THAT MADE MEN MAD GERMANY'S BARBARITY--THE DEVASTATION OF BELGIUM--HUMAN FIENDS--FIREBRAND AND TORCH--RAPE AND PILLAGE--THE SACKING OF LOUVAIN--WANTON DESTRUCTION--OFFICIAL PROOF 113 CHAPTER VII THE SLINKING SUBMARINE