A personal foreword ; Men and events ; Historians and statesmen -- End of a world: Franz Joseph, the last legitimate sovereign -- Archduke Rudolf, the dreamer of dreams -- Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the man who might have saved Austria -- Aehrenthal, the last servant -- Tisza, the Magyar -- Shadows of the past: Empress Eugénie -- Lord Curzon -- War: some dramatis personae: Foch, the Frenchman -- Cadorna, the iron rule -- Diaz, common sense -- Pius X and Benedict XV, the two popes of the war -- Pachich, the essence of Serbia -- Venizelos, land-hunger -- Democratic Europe: Lloyd George -- Bonar Law -- Balfour -- Chamberlain -- Poincaré -- Millerand -- Briand -- Giolitti -- Bissolati -- Albert and Elisabeth of Belgium -- Vandervelde -- Krassin -- Stambulisky -- A crisis of democracy: how fascism came: Sonnino, or the diplomatic origins of fascism -- D'Annunzio, or the literary origins of fascism -- Facta, of the immediate origins of fascism -- Mussolini, or the transformations of fascism -- Pius XI, or the Roman Catholic Church and fascism -- Dictators: Lenin -- Mustafa Kemal -- Pilsudski -- Trotzky and Stalin -- Yuan Shi-kai and Sun Yat-sen -- Whither Europe? ; Autocracy and democracy ; Europe and America.