ide of Europe; and they will surmise that
the Balkan troubles have, by a natural Nemesis, played their part in
bringing about the European War. It is for students of modern Europe to
seek to form a healthy public opinion so that the errors of the past may
not be repeated, and that the new Europe shall be constituted in
conformity with the aspirations of the peoples themselves.

CAMBRIDGE,

_September_ 25, 1914.




PREFACE


The line of Virgil quoted on the title-page represents in the present
case a sigh of aspiration, not a paean of achievement. No historical
student, surely, can ever feel the conviction that he has fathomed the
depths of that well where Truth is said to lie hid. What, then, must be
the feelings of one who ventures into the mazy domain of recent annals,
and essays to pick his way through thickets all but untrodden? More than
once I have been tempted to give up the quest and turn aside to paths
where pioneers have cleared the way. There, at least, the whereabouts of
that fabulous well is known and the plummet is ready to hand.
Nevertheless, I resolved to struggle through with my task, in the
consciousness that the work of a pioneer may be helpful, provided that
he carefully notches the track and thereby enables those who come after
him to know what to seek and what to avoid.

After all, there is no lack of guides in the present age. The number of
memoir-writers and newspaper correspondents is legion; and I have come
to believe that they are fully as trustworthy as similar witnesses have
been in any age. The very keenness of their rivalry is some guarantee
for truth. Doubtless competition for good "copy" occasionally leads to
artful embroidering on humdrum actuality; but, after spending much time
in scanning similar embroidery in the literature of the Napoleonic Era,
I unhesitatingly place the work of Archibald Forbes, and that of several
knights of the pen still living, far above the delusive tinsel of
Marbot, Thiebault, and Segur. I will go further and sa

John Holland Rose (1855-1942) was an influential English historian who wrote a famous biography of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and also wrote a history of Europe, entitled The Development of the European Nations. Rose was the basis for C. P. Snows fictional character M. H. L. Gay (see Years of Hope: Cambridge, Colonial Administrator in the South Seas, and Cricket by Philip Snow.)

Robert Grant may refer to: