Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/852

 638 General History of Europe the remaining vestiges of the Turkish empire and who was to control Syria and Mesopotamia. In the Far East Japan's interests in China offered an unsolved problem. There were also the serious questions raised by the necessity of meeting the discontent with British rule in India and Ireland. 1152. New Problems due to the War. The progress of the war had added new territorial perplexities. The Central Powers at the end of 1917 were in military possession of Belgium, Lux- emburg, northeastern France, Poland, Lithuania, Courland, Serbia, Montenegro, and Rumania (see map, p. 637). Great Britain had captured Bagdad and Jerusalem. In Africa all Ger- many's colonies were in the hands of her enemies, and in Austral- asia her possessions had been taken over by Japan and Australia. Were all these regions conquered by one or the other of the belligerent groups to be given back or not? Then what about Belgium, whose people had been mulcted and abused and pil- laged by their conquerors ; and what of northeastern France wan- tonly devastated? Was not reparation due to these unhappy victims of the war? 1153. War on War. But all these questions seemed to many high-minded people of minor importance compared with the over- whelming world problem, How should mankind conspire to put an end to war forever? The world of today, compared with that of Napoleon's time, when the last great international struggle took place, is so small, the nations have been brought so close together, they are so dependent on one another, that it seemed as if the time had come to join in a last, victorious war on war. It required a month or more to cross the Atlantic in 1815 ; now less than six days are necessary, and airplanes might soon be soaring above its waves far swifter than any steamer. Formerly the oceans were great barriers separating America from Europe, and the Orient from America ; but, like the ancient bulwarks around medieval cities, they have now become highways on which men of all nations hasten to and fro. Before the war express trains were regularly traversing Europe from end to end at a speed of forty to fifty miles an hour, and the automobile vied