The Evening Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1917-1920, 1918-02-21
THE NEW BOOKS
The Highway of Horror.

The Highway of Horror.
When William Marion Reedy re-
views a book he writes something as
well worth reading as the book he re-
views and often better He thus re-
views a remarkable new volume:
Let me commend to you, readers, a
notable new book-"The War and the
Bagdad Railway" by Morris Jastrow,
Jr. Uippincott, Philadelphia). The
volume is history and romance. 1t
is the key to the war. For the war
grows out of the effort for control of
the route through Asia Minor to the
Far East-the road along which the
world has been fighting as far back
as the twilight of fable. There the
hosts struggled about Troy; there
Egypt fought and Assyria and Alex
ander and Cyrus and the Crusaders,
and Napoleon. and Nelson on the sea,
and others. When the Moslems held
the way, Columbus sailed west to get
around into the Hinterland of the East.
And then came the need to open up
the East to develop it. England
thought to preempt the claim, max
ing terms with Russia to crush out
Persia. Germany, youth who would
be served, came forward and supplant
ed England with her scheme for a
railway to Bagdad and beyond to the
Persian gulf. 1t was all right as
peaceful commercialism and England
was not averse to joining the enter
prise, but Germany controlling Tur-
key gave the railway scheme a mill
tary turn and threatened Britian's
eastern empire. The war had to come,
for clashes on the east made clashes
on the west and mighty preparation
for war. Germany would not be held
back in her Drang mach Osten, so she
drove in madness all about earth's
rondure. 1t is fascinating story, not
without justification for Germany, for
Mr.. Jastrow says that Germany spoiled
her case for the war by her method
of conducting the war, and his con-
tention will impress any fair-minded
y,
Britain and Germany had reached an
agreement as to the Bagdad railway
in the early part of the summer of
1914. English capital was ready to
join with German in the enterprise
France and Russia and Italy had made
agreements too, among themselves and
with Germany. All this, mind you,
without any regard for the people of
the region through which the great
blood-soaked highway runs. The lit
tie peoples were expected to get out
of the way. Refusing throughout the
centuries since the time of the for
gotten Hittites, they had mingled their
bones with those of invaders on fields
wherever the waves of war had roll
ed, now East, now West, and history
is muchly bede-roll of the flames of
the heroes and places of these battles
long ago. Mr.. Jastrow unfolds for the |
reader swift pageant of the history !
of Asia Minor, a tale in which the |
names are evocations of enchantment |
And he comes to a conclusion that |
this great road, for control of which
twenty-three nations have been plung-
ed into war, should not belong to any
one of them. 1t should be information !
ally neutralized and furthermore the |
West should cease its endeavors to |
hustle the East into misfit Western /
clothes. The East should be allowed |
to make whatever contribution she /
may in future,-''in art or science, in |
commerce or thought, or perhaps in
the domain of religion, in which she |
has given the world at least three
fourths of what religion there is, she
can do so only through revivification
through the unfolding of her own
peculiar genius" Mr. Jastrow would /