In utter contempt of a treaty which had been signed Germany invaded Belgium on the way to France. Belgium resisted the invasion. A Chinese schoolboy, writing of the event in a school in western Canada months afterward, phrased the story better than any historian has done. “Germany,” he wrote, “said to Belgium: ‘Let me through.’ Belgium said: ‘I am not a road. I am a nation.’” And Belgium proved to the world how strong a small nation may be in courage. For she resisted Germany so well that France had time to gather her forces for defense. The drive to Paris was stopped. Prussia had announced that its armies would be in Paris in an almost incredibly short time. In the meantime Germany made alliance with the Sultan of Turkey. The war on the eastern front began. Hordes of Austrians and Germans swarmed over Poland into Russia, and back again as Russia beat them back, then forward again as Russia collapsed. In Egypt, in Palestine, in Mesopotamia war has raged. Japan joined. China broke off relations with Germany. Japan holds troops at the eastern end of the Russian-Siberian railway, waiting for the word of the Allies to strike westward. In the west the war has remained almost stationary since the initial sweep of the German hordes; but eastward Germany has driven her armies toward her goal. Russia has disintegrated, pulled apart by the insidious forces of German intrigue. Germany has the open way to the East. She has the resources of Austria-Hungary, of Russia, of Asia Minor at her command. Had it not been for Germany’s idea that she could conquer the world in one war, an idea supported by her eastward conquests, she might be nearer to ultimate success than she is to-day. For the entrance of the United States into the war, provoked by German measures of attack on American commerce, has materially changed the issue. It has put heart into the Allies, as well as opening up the field of supplies of men and munitions for them. Our country has barely begun to fight, for it has taken a year to bear to France the necessary troops and equipment.