We are not politicians, and we belong to different schools of politicalthought. We have written this book to set forth the causes of thepresent war, and the principles which we believe to be at stake. We havesome experience in the handling of historic evidence, and we haveendeavoured to treat this subject historically. Our fifth chapter, whichto many readers will be the most interesting, is founded upon first-handevidence--the documents contained in the British White Book(Parliamentary Paper, Cd. 7467; hereafter cited as _Correspondencerespecting the European Crisis_), and the German White Book, which is anofficial apology, supplemented by documents. The German White Book, asbeing difficult of access, we have printed _in extenso_. It exists intwo versions, a German and an English, both published for the GermanGovernment. We have reproduced the English version without correctingthe solecisms of spelling and expression. From the English White Book wehave reprinted, in the second appendix, a small selection of the moresignificant documents; many more are quoted in the body of our work.