The World War and What was Behind It | Page 8

three occasions and then only for a short time.
About five or six hundred years after the founding of Rome came
several disastrous wars which killed off a great majority of her sturdy
fighters. Rome was the victor in all of these wars, but she won them at
tremendous cost to herself. With the killing off of her best and bravest

men, a great deal of the old time honesty was lost. Very soon, we begin
to hear of Roman governors who, when put in charge of conquered
states, used their offices only to plunder the helpless inhabitants and to
return to Rome after their terms were finished, laden with ill-gotten
gains. Roman morals, which formerly were very strict, began to grow
more lax, and in general the Roman civilization showed signs of decay.
To the north and east of the Roman Empire dwelt a people who were to
become the leaders of the new nations of Europe. These were the free
German tribes, which occupied the part of Europe bounded, roughly, by
the rivers Danube and Rhine, the Baltic Sea, and the Carpathian
Mountains. In many ways they were much less civilized than the
Romans. They were clad in skins and furs instead of cloth. They lived
in rough huts and tents or in caves dug in the sides of a hill. They, too,
like the Romans, held human life cheap, and bloodshed and murder
were common among them. As a rule, the men scorned to work,
leaving whatever labor there was, largely to the women, while they
busied themselves in fighting and hunting, or, during their idle times, in
gambling. Nevertheless, these people, about the time that the Roman
honesty began to disappear, had virtues more like those of the early
Romans. They were frank and honorable. The men were faithful
husbands and kind fathers, and their family life was very happy. They
were barbarous and rough, but those of them who were taken to Rome
and learned the Roman civilization made finer, nobler men than Rome
was producing about the time of which we speak.
[Illustration: Germans Going Into Battle]
To the east of these German tribes were the Slavs, a people no better
civilized, but not so warlike in their nature. As the Germans, in later
years, moved on to the west, the Slavs, in turn, moved westward and
occupied much of the land which had been left vacant by the Germans.
[Illustration: A Hun Warrior]
The inhabitants of western Europe, that is, France, Spain, and the
British Isles, were largely Celts. In fact, all Europe could be said to be
divided up among four great peoples: There were the Latins in Italy, the

Celts in western Europe, the Germans in central Europe, and the Slavs
to the east. All of these four families were distantly related, as can be
proved by the languages which they spoke. The Greeks, while not
belonging to any one of the four, were also distant cousins of both
Germans and Latins. Probably all five peoples are descended from one
big family of tribes.
In addition to these, there were, from time to time invasions of Europe
by other nations which did not have any connection by blood with Celts,
Latins, Greeks, Germans, or Slavs. For instance, the ferocious Huns, a
people of the yellow race, rushed into Europe about 400 A.D., but were
beaten in a big battle by the Romans and Germans and finally went
back to Asia. Three hundred years later, a great horde of Moors and
Arabs from Africa crossed over into Europe by way of the Straits of
Gibraltar, and at one time threatened to sweep before them all the
Christian nations. For several hundred years after this, they held the
southern part of Spain, but were finally driven out.
Let us now come back to the story of what happened in Europe after
the Romans had conquered all the country south and west of the
Danube and Rhine. The wild tribes of the Germans were restlessly
roaming through the central part of Europe. They were not at peace
with each other. In fact, constant war was going on. Julius Caesar, the
great Roman general, who conquered what is now France and added it
to the Roman world, tells us that one great tribe of Germans, the Suevi
(Swe'vi), made it their boast that they would let no other tribe live
anywhere near them. About a hundred years B.C., two great German
tribes. the Cimbri and the Teutones, broke across the Rhine and poured
into the Roman lands in countless numbers. For seven years they
roamed about until at last they were conquered in two bloody battles by
a Roman general, who was Caesar's uncle by marriage. After this time,
the Romans tried to conquer the country of