Excerpt from The Franco-German War, 1870-71

The great War between France and Germany which is recorded in these pages is properly speaking the startingpoint of the period in which we are now living. People are very fond of phrases such as fin de siecle a decadent century or what not. These appear to imply that suddenly when the year 1900 has completed its course we shall find ourselves launched into a fresh era and that all things will become new. There seems little in the past history of the World to justify these assumptions. Looking to the end of the last two previous centuries, we ourselves speak ofthe glorious revolution of The French take their cycle from I789, our American cousins theirs from 1776. More than a century surely was influenced or took new life from each of these great dates. Each of them affected many'other nations besides those which now specially remember them. So also the Germany which began its career in 1870 is driving a thread through the warp and woof of the World's history that will for many a long year leave its trace on both colour and pattern.

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