The War that will End War by H.G. Wells — Read

At the moment of writing the war has not lasted many days, great battles by land and sea alike impend, and yet I find my steadfast anticipation that Prussianism, Bernhardi-ism, the whole theory and practice of the Empire of the Germans, is a rotten and condemned thing, has already strengthened to an absolute conviction. Unforeseen accidents may happen. I say nothing of the sea, but the general and ultimate result seems to me now as certain as the rising of to-morrow's sun. I do not know how much slaughter lies before Europe before Germany realises that she is fool-led and fool-poisoned. I do not know how long the swaggering Prussian officer will be able to drive his crowded men to massacre before they revolt against him, nor do I know how far the inflated vanity of Berlin has made provision for defeat. Germany on the defensive for all we can tell may prove a very stubborn thing, and Russia's strength may be, and I think is, overestimated.

All that may delay, but it will not alter the final demonstration that Prussianism, as Mr. Belloc foretold so amazingly, took its mortal wound at the first onset before the trenches of Liège. We begin a new period of history.