The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Events by Famous Historians Vol. 21, Editor: Charles F. Horne

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Title: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 The Recent Days (1910-1914)

Author: Charles F. Horne, Editor

Release Date: November 30, 2003 [EBook #10341]

Language: English

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THE GREAT EVENTS

BY

FAMOUS HISTORIANS

A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS

NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL

ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED NARRATIVES. ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY. WITH THOROUGH INDICES. BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING

EDITED BY

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.

Aided by a staff of specialists

CONTENTS

VOLUME XXI

An Outline Narrative of the Great Events CHARLES F. HORNE

The United States House of Governors (A.D. 1910) WILLIAM S. JORDAN THE GOVERNORS

Union of South Africa (A.D. 1910)
  PROF. STEPHEN LEACOCK

Portugal Becomes a Republic (A.D. 1910)
  WILLIAM ARCHER

The Crushing of Finland (A.D. 1910)
  JOHN JACKOL
  BARON SERGIUS WITTE
  BARON VON PLEHVE
  J.H. REUTER

Man's Fastest Mile (A.D. 1911)
  C.F. CARTER
  ISAAC MARCOSSON

The Fall of Diaz (A.D. 1911)
  MRS. E.A. TWEEDIE
  DOLORES BUTTERFIELD

Fall of the English House of Lords (_A.D. 1911)
  ARTHUR PONSONBY
  SYDNEY BROOKS
  CAPTAIN GEORGE SWINTON

The Turkish-Italian War (A.D. 1911)
  WILLIAM T. ELLIS
  THE WAR CORRESPONDENTS

Woman Suffrage (A.D. 1911)
  IDA HUSTED HARPER
  ISRAEL ZANGWILL
  JANE ADDAMS
  DAVID LLOYD-GEORGE
  ELBERT HUBBARD

Militarism (A.D. 1911)
  NORMAN ANGELL
  SIR MAX WAECHTER

Persia's Loss of Liberty (A.D. 1911)
  W. MORGAN SHUSTER

Discovery of the South Pole (A.D. 1911)
  ROALD AMUNDSEN

The Chinese Revolution (A.D. 1912)
  ROBERT MACHRAY
  R.F. JOHNSTON
  TAI-CHI QUO

A Step Toward World Peace (A.D. 1912)
  HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT

Tragedy of the "Titanic" (A.D. 1912)
  W.A. INGLIS

Our Progressing Knowledge of Life Surgery (A.D. 1912)
  GENEVIEVE GRANDCOURT
  PROFESSOR R. LEGENDRE

Overthrow of Turkey by the Balkan States (A.D. 1912)
  J. ELLIS BARKER
  FREDERICK PALMER
  PROF. STEPHEN P. DUGGAN

Mexico Plunged Into Anarchy (A.D. 1913)
  EDWIN EMERSON
  WILLIAM CAROL

The New Democracy (A.D. 1913)
  PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON

The Income Tax in America (A.D. 1913)
  JOSEPH A. HILL

The Second Balkan War (A.D. 1913)
  PROF. STEPHEN P. DUGGAN
  CAPT. A.H. TRAPMANN

Opening of the Panama Canal (A.D. 1914)
  COL. GEORGE W. GOETHALS
  BAMPFYLDE FULLER

Universal Chronology (1910-1914)

AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES OF

THE GREAT EVENTS

THE RECENT DAYS (1910-1914)

CHARLES F. HORNE

The awful, soul-searing tragedy of Europe's great war of 1914 came to most men unexpectedly. The real progress of the world during the five years preceding the war had been remarkable. All thinkers saw that the course of human civilization was being changed deeply, radically; but the changes were being accomplished so successfully that men hoped that the old brutal ages of military destruction were at an end, and that we were to progress henceforth by the peaceful methods of evolution rather than the hysterical excitements and volcanic upheavals of revolution.

Yet even in the peaceful progress of the half-decade just before 1914 there were signs of approaching disaster, symptoms of hysteria. This period displayed the astonishing spectacle of an English parliament, once the high example for dignity and the model for self-control among governing bodies, turned suddenly into a howling, shrieking mob. It beheld the Japanese, supposedly the most extravagantly loyal among devotees of monarchy, unearthing among themselves a conspiracy of anarchists so wide-spread, so dangerous, that the government held their trials in secret and has never dared reveal all that was discovered. It beheld the women of Persia bursting from the secrecy of their harems and with modern revolvers forcing their own democratic leaders to stand firm in patriotic resistance to Russian tyranny. It beheld the English suffragettes.

Yet the movement toward universal Democracy which lay behind all these extravagances was upon the whole a movement borne along by calm conviction, not by burning hatreds or ecstatic devotions. A profound sense of the inevitable trend of the world's evolution seemed to have taken possession of the minds of the masses of men. They felt the uselessness of opposition to this universal progress, and they showed themselves ready, sometimes eager, to aid and direct its trend as best they might.

If, then, we seek to give a name to this particular five years, let us call it the period of humanitarianism, of man's really awakened kindliness toward his brothers of other nationalities. The universal peace movement, which was a child in 1910, had by 1914 become a far-reaching force to be reckoned with seriously in world politics. Any observer who studied the attitude of the great American people in 1898 on the eve of their war with Spain, and again in 1914 during the trouble with Mexico, must have clearly recognized the change. There was so much deeper sense of the tragedy of war, so much clearer appreciation of the gap between aggressive assault and necessary self-defense, so definite a recognition of the fact that murder remains murder, even though it be