A BOOK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS BY STANLEY DE BRATH M.INST.C.E. Late Headmaster Preston House Preparatory School, East Grinstead, TNNOLIONING NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 597-599 FIFTH AVENUE 1916 5969 PREFACE ADDRESSED TO PARENTS AND TEACHERS. SINCE the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo, each generation that has experienced the awful waste of human life and human happiness, the misery and destitution, caused by war, has declared vehemently that wars shall cease. Just before the first International Exhibition was held in 1852 we were told that the world had become too enlightened for war and that henceforward commercial interests and civilized methods would supersede its brutalities. Within a few short years England and France were at war with Russia; France and Italy were at war with Austria; and the decision had even then been taken by William I. of Prussia to use the Army, and not the Frankfort Parliament, as the means for the reconstruction of the German Empire a resolution which resulted in the war of 1863 which annexed Schleswig, the war of 1866 which displaced Austria, the war of 1870 (RECAP) 1* MAR 141917 393459 V |