The world war : $b a history of the nations and empires involved and a study of the events culminating in the great conflictMarshall, Logan
History
The world war : $b a history of the nations and empires involved and a study of the events culminating in the great conflict
Marshall, Logan
Europe -- History -- 1789-1900; Europe -- History -- 1871-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Causes
Servia had most reason to be dissatisfied with the result, in view of
her craving for an opening to the sea. Cut off by Albania on the west,
it sought an opening on the south, demanding the city of Kavala, on the
Aegean Sea. But to this Greece strongly objected, as that city, one of
the great tobacco marts of the world, was inhabited almost wholly by
Greeks. Servia, however, extended southward far over its old territory,
gaining Uskub, its old capital. And the Powers also agreed that it
should have commercial rights on the Mediterranean, thorough railroad
connection with Salonica.
As regards Turkey’s shrewd advantage of the opportunity to retake
Adrianople, it proved a successful move. The Russian press strongly
advocated that the Turks should be ejected, but the jealousy of the
Powers prevented any agreement as to who should do this and in the end
the Turks remained, with a considerable widening of the tract of land
before assigned to them.
In these wars it is estimated that 358,000 persons died, and that the
cost of the two wars, to the several nations involved, reached a total
of $1,200,000,000. Its general result was almost to complete the work
of expelling the Turks from Europe, the territory lost by them being
divided up between the several Balkan nations.
Chapter XIX.
METHODS IN MODERN WARFARE
Ancient and Modern Weapons—New Types of Weapons—The Iron-clad
Warship—The Balloon in War—Tennyson’s Foresight—Gunning for
Airships—The Submarine—Under-water Warfare—The New Type of
Battleship—Mobilization—The Waste of War
One hundred years ago the Battle of Waterloo had just been fought and
Napoleon’s star had set never to rise again. For years he had swept
Europe with his armies, rending the nations into fragments, and winning
world-famous victories with weapons that no one would look for today
except in a military museum, weapons antiquated beyond all possible
utility on a modern field of battle.
ANCIENT AND MODERN WEAPONS
Every fresh modern war has been fought with new weapons, and during the
past century there have been countless inventions for the carrying on
of warfare in a more destructive manner, apparently on the
philanthropic theory that war should be made so terrible that it must
quickly pass away.
But it has happened that as soon as a particularly horrible contrivance
was invented and introduced into armies and navies, other inventors
immediately set themselves to offset and discount its probable effect.
Consequently war not only has not passed away, but we have it with us
in more frightful form that ever before. Thus it is that each big war,
after being heralded as the world’s last conflagration, has proved but
the herald of another war, bigger and more death-dealing still.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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