This was the situation when the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife occurred in Bosnia. The Archduke was, in effect, a joint ruler with the Emperor Franz Joseph, who was nearly 84 years of age, and the entire world realized that great events were likely to follow the killing of the heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The murder was committed by a young Servian fanatic, and Austria determined to hold Servia responsible for the murder, and therefore presented her now-famous ultimatum. NO CAUSE FOR WAR. Students of history hold that if there had been a proper respect for the commendable desire of the Christian peoples in European Turkey to throw off the Turkish yoke and become self-governing states, there would have been no cause for war, so far as relates to Servia and the situation which precipitated the conflict. There would have been developed a series of peaceful and progressive countries of the non-military type of Denmark, Sweden and Holland. A wiser treatment of the Balkan problem might have averted the war, but it could not have set aside racial differences, nor could it have ended the curse of militarism or set at rest the distrust and fear which it promotes. The end of European militarism might have come about, however, through a better understanding between Germany and France. This might have been arrived at years ago if Germany had opened the Alsace-Lorraine question, and had rearranged the boundary line between the two countries so that the French-speaking communities lost in the Franco-Prussian war be ceded back to France. The cost of maintaining the feud over Alsace-Lorraine has been a burden to both France and Germany, and the progress which Germany has made in world affairs, despite the burden of militarism which she has earned, is one of the marvels of the century. And the situation compelled France to maintain a defensive military organization which was as great a burden to her and barrier to world peace as the military burden of Germany. STRAIN BETWEEN GERMANY AND RUSSIA. Whether Germany conspired to bring on the war so that she could wage a campaign of aggression has not yet been made clear, but the strain between Germany and Russia had been growing for some time, and the assassination of the Teutonic heir, Francis Ferdinand, by a ward of Russia, created an occasion which gave Germany an opportunity to fight, without being compelled to directly precipitate the conflict. Russia could do naught else but come to the aid of Servia, and Germany by reason of her alliance with Austria must aid the latter country.