This study was begun in the piping times of peace when an appreciation of the marvellous growth made by international ism during a half-century inclined one to believe that a great war between the leading nations of the world was unlikely — if not impossible. The probability that pacific relations between the Christian Powers would be maintained had been strength ened by every effort towards international understanding and by the multiform expressions of a growing public consciousness that war is unnecessary, wasteful and inhuman. The reactionary force of a narrow nationalism was under rated in our hopes for the immediate fruition of fifty years of international cooperation. While the sentiment for the peace ful settlement of international differences was strengthening each year, there was developing in Europe a trigger situation which the old time secret diplomacy was impotent to cope with and for which there was no organization of the peace forces that could sense the danger or avert the disaster. Some one pulled the trigger, and the future must determine who was the international assassin.