Die Völkerrechtliche Stellung des Papstes und die Friedenskonferenzen. By Dr. Joseph Müller. N. Y.: Benziger Bros. 1916. pp. xvi, 235.

As a result of considerable experience, we have learned to be somewhat wary of German books on historical, political, or religious subjects which profess to be written in an objektive or impartial spirit and with an eye single to wissentshaftliche interests.

The book under review is no exception to this rather general rule. Like most German works of this sort, it purports to be an impartial, scientific study and is furnished with all the familiar paraphernalia of German erudition in the way of footnotes, bibliography, and an appendix containing much documentary material (very useful, if not too carefully selected for the author's purpose).

Die Völkerrechtliche Stellung des Papstes is really a plea (an argument if one wished to dignify it by that name) in favor of the restoration of temporal power to the Pope and of the participation (or rather leadership) of His Holiness in the establishment and maintenance of peace in a war-weary world. It seems that the temporal power is essential to the exercise of the Pope's spiritual functions, being necessary in order that he may act independently of other princes, Powers, or potentates.

A considerable section of the work is devoted to an account of the relations between the Vatican and the Quirinal, especially in connection with the events of 1870. But the most remarkable part of the book is perhaps that which exposes the reasons why the temporal power of the Pope should be restored and His Holiness called upon to mediate a peace between the warring nations. These are to be found mainly in his lack of partisanship, his moral authority throughout the world, and a policy of neutrality in the midst of Teutonic horrors and excesses which is hard to reconcile with the high moral aims claimed for him. Then, too, was he not complimented in the German Reichstag for securing an exchange of prisoners; was the Papal delegate not well received in Tokyo; did His Holiness not promise to restore to the Belgians the library destroyed at Louvain; has not even the Mohammedan press praised him; have not Latin-American States on occasion chosen him as arbitrator of their disputes; and did not the AustroHungarian Ambassador declare in 1877 that his government was dissatisfied with the Law of Guarantees of 1870?

Surely such evidences of popularity and esteem should not pass

unrewarded. Have not the misguided Socialists and the wicked Free Masons failed in their misdirected efforts to establish international peace? Why not try Pope Benedict?

AMOS S. HERSHEY.

L'Italia e l'Austria in Guerra. By Professor Enrico Catellani. Firenze: G. Barbèra. 1917. pp. 136. Lire, 2.50.

Professor Catellani's pamphlet was published, so the author states in the preface, to combat the common impression that in their methods of waging war the Austrians are less barbarous than their allies. It differs from most of the many recent pamphlets on "atrocities" in that scholarly and conservative reasoning is combined with simple and popular style. The clarity of thought, the simplicity of grammatical construction, and the absence of the labored style often found in Italian legal discussions makes this pamphlet easy reading even for those who read ordinary Italian only with difficulty.

The principal topics taken up by Professor Catellani are Italy's justification for the declaration of war upon Austria, methods and instrumentalities for waging war, the treatment of prisoners and wounded, the government of occupied territory, and reprisals. There is practically no discussion of legal principles, the author confining his work to the relation of breaches of unquestioned laws and customs of war and of the conventions of The Hague. Many of the acts related would have caused mental shock to readers four years ago; at the present time they would not arouse particular interest, since they are not in kind different from those related of the Germans time and again in our newspapers and periodicals. The evidence is merely cumulative. There is the same use of gas, the same use of expanding and explosive bullets, the same unnecessary bombardment of hospitals and undefended cities, the same destruction of merchant ships by submarines without warning, the same use of noncombatants as shields against attack, the same simulated surrender, the same ill treatment of wounded, the same refusal of quarter, the same levies and requisitions upon territory temporarily occupied, and the same sack and pillage. The author further complains of the needless killing of the wounded and the killing of unarmed prisoners after the acceptance of their surrender and the close of the combat.

Professor Catellani's pamphlet is now particularly timely in view of

the declaration of war by the United States upon Austria and in view of the invasion of Italian territory by the armies of the Central Powers. NELSON GAMMANS.

The Immediate Causes of the Great War. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co. net.

By Oliver Perry Chitwood. 1917. pp. xii, 196. $1.35

Though the literature concerning the causes of the Great War is, as is generally understood, rather overabundant, so much so that when one picks up a new volume on this subject, one does it with a certain sense of doubt and a small amount at least of suspicion, doubt as to its adding anything new and suspicion as to its bias, yet there is undoubtedly a place for such a brief summary as Professor Chitwood suggests for the sake of the college student who has not the time to devote to the study of the more extended statements. It is to meet this need that this book strives to be different from its predecessors, and it is by no means unsuccessful in the rôle of a well-condensed manual of the immediate causes of the war.

It rests entirely for its principal story upon the official documents from the governments involved in the war; it is, in fact, as the publisher characterizes it, "a digest of the published correspondence of the Powers." Only the first chapter, "Some Indirect Causes," in which Mr. Chitwood summarily reviews the last forty years of diplomacy, is based upon secondary material, mainly the larger works on this same topic and those on recent European history. Selections must necessarily be made when a writer uses such a great mass of documents, and this selecting has apparently been done in a spirit of fairness consistent with the high standard of historical accuracy shown throughout, and the emphasis placed upon facts, and facts only, without partisan interpretations.

There are three chapters on the Serbian phase, followed by two on the Efforts to Prevent War and on Efforts to Isolate the War, which with the one following on the Broadening of the War Area to include Russia are quite successful, on the whole, in giving the essential facts clearly. Equally so are those on Great Britain's Entry into the War, on Belgian Neutrality and, in general, those on Turkey and Japan, on Italy and on the Lesser Belligerents (Bulgaria, Portugal, Roumania). The United States is not mentioned.

Mr. Chitwood is less happy in his conclusions. The reviewer is inclined to take exception to the idea that this war began in a game of bluff; the evidence, even as presented by Mr. Chitwood, does not bear out this conclusion. Instead, it is quite possible to believe that this much, at least, was the deliberate purpose of Germany; the move to reduce Serbia from the ranks of independent states and to make the Teutonic Empire of the Near East approach reality. The incapacity shown by the diplomats may not have been stupidity at all, but a lack of knowledge by one side of the plans being matured by the other. The representatives of France, Russia, and England were quite in the dark as to the Austro-German purposes and were artfully kept so.

It is not safe to emphasize overmuch the official expression of what may be only one side - perhaps the better side, perhaps not, of a nation's mind. We may strive also to divide the diseases of the European body-politic into chronic and acute, but should we discuss too exclusively the acute alone, we may not give due attention to the chronic ailments suddenly coming to a head. A book, therefore, upon the immediate causes of the World War may easily dwarf unduly the great underlying causes which reached a focus in 1914. This effect, Professor Chitwood's first chapter does not sufficiently counteract. The index is small, yet serviceable, but maps are conspicuously lacking.

A. I. A.

The Deportation of Women and Girls from Lille. New York: George H. Doran & Company. 1917. pp. 81.

This is a collection of documents in English translation relating to the deportation of women and girls from Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing, by the Germans during the spring of 1916. The collection embraces the note of protest addressed by M. Briand to the Powers on July 25, 1916, together with various documents, French and German, including notices and placards posted by the German military authorities, protests of the mayor and bishop of Lille, letters written by some of the victims, and a large number of depositions made before local magistrates. It contains the evidence of a cruel and brutal measure without precedent in modern civilized warfare: the sudden arrest and tearing away from their homes of some 25,000 inhabitants of an invaded. district, young girls, women, and men up to the age of fifty-five years,

without regard to their social position; and the carrying of them away to distant parts unknown to their families for compulsory labor under military supervision and at such tasks and at such wages as their captors saw fit to prescribe.

The account of the procedure of arrest and deportation reads very much like the description of a slave raid on the Gold Coast in the seventeenth century. Families were broken up: young girls were huddled into dirty cars with men of debased characters; in the regions to which they were taken women were compelled to do laundry work for German soldiers and to act as body servants for German officers; men were forced to take part in military operations against their own troops, and men and women alike were forcibly employed as screens to shield German columns from attack by French troops. The excuse alleged by the German authorities was the benevolent desire to find employment for the population of the three cities mentioned, but the real reason was to find laborers to harvest the crops in northern France for the feeding of the occupying armies. One may search in vain the Hague Conventions for a syllable of authority to justify the wholesale kidnapping, deportation, and enslavement of the peaceful civilians of an occupied district. As stated above, such a measure is without precedent in modern wars and no respectable authority can or ever will be found to defend it. The voice of the civilized world was raised in protest, but it made no impression on the gallant knights of German Kultur, and a few months later they proceeded to carry out on a much larger scale the same brutal policy in Belgium.

J. W. GARNER.

Recueil de Rapports sur les différents points du Programme-Minimum de l'Organisation centrale pour une Paix durable. Vol. III. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1917. pp. 383.

This third volume of reports partakes of the international character of its predecessors. Its ten essays are written, in French, German, or English, by two Swedes, two Austrians, two Hollanders, one Swiss, and three Americans.

The problem of nationality is discussed by Dr. Karl Hildebrand, of Sweden, and Dr. Rudolf Laun, of Austria, both of whom reject as

1 Cf. this JOURNAL, Vol. XI, No. 1 (January, 1917), for a notice of Volumes I and II.