SINCE we wrote last week, when it was hoped that the war-cloud would pass away, that which every­one feared but hoped against has befallen. The cloud has burst with fury. It was in the little State of Montenegro that the first sound of arms was heard. For the moment the other Balkan kingdoms have not begun hostilities, but at any moment may come the news that they, too, have opened a campaign. For, as an acute observer points out in the Pall Mall Gazette, a new fact has made its appearance in Europe, very upsetting to the average "ex­pert in foreign politics". Hither­to, the Christian States in Central Europe, though at one in their detestation of the Turks, yet for the most part "cherished a far more deadly antipathy each for the other", and it was on this mutual antipathy among them that Abdul Hamid relied - Divide et impera was an effective principle which he applied. But to-day we see a con­federation of four Christian States combined for the overthrow of the Mussulman authority within their territories.

The conduct of the Great Powers has been singularly inept, as it ordinarily is in the ques­tions affecting the Near East. They were powerless to stop the war, each having its own good reasons for not taking action. Now, it is said, their efforts will be dir­ected to the attempt to localize the war - the prevention of any dis­turbance of the status quo. But it is easier to say than to do this.